evelina's marriage took place on the appointed day. it wascelebrated in the evening, in the chantry of the church which thesisters attended, and after it was over the few guests who had beenpresent repaired to the bunner sisters' basement, where a weddingsupper awaited them. ann eliza, aided by miss mellins and mrs.
hawkins, and consciously supported by the sentimental interest ofthe whole street, had expended her utmost energy on the decorationof the shop and the back room. on the table a vase of whitechrysanthemums stood between a dish of oranges and bananas and aniced wedding-cake wreathed with orange-blossoms of the bride's ownmaking. autumn leaves studded with paper roses festooned the what-not and the chromo of the rock of ages, and a wreath of yellowimmortelles was twined about the clock which evelina revered as themysterious agent of her happiness.
at the table sat miss mellins, profusely spangled and bangled,her head sewing-girl, a pale young thing who had helped withevelina's outfit, mr. and mrs. hawkins, with johnny, their eldestboy, and mrs. hochmuller and her daughter.
mrs. hochmuller's large blonde personality seemed to pervadethe room to the effacement of the less amply-proportioned guests.
it was rendered more impressive by a dress of crimson poplin thatstood out from her in organ-like folds; and linda, whom ann elizahad remembered as an uncouth child with a sly look about the eyes,surprised her by a sudden blossoming into feminine grace such assometimes follows on a gawky girlhood. the hochmullers, in fact,struck the dominant note in the entertainment. beside themevelina, unusually pale in her grey cashmere and white bonnet,looked like a faintly washed sketch beside a brilliant chromo; andmr. ramy, doomed to the traditional insignificance of thebridegroom's part, made no attempt to rise above his situation.
even miss mellins sparkled and jingled in vain in the shadow ofmrs. hochmuller's crimson bulk; and ann eliza, with a sense ofvague foreboding, saw that the wedding feast centred about the twoguests she had most wished to exclude from it. what was said ordone while they all sat about the table she never afterwardrecalled: the long hours remained in her memory as a whirl of highcolours and loud voices, from which the pale presence of evelinanow and then emerged like a drowned face on a sunset-dabbled sea.
the next morning mr. ramy and his wife started for st. louis,and ann eliza was left alone. outwardly the first strain ofparting was tempered by the arrival of miss mellins, mrs. hawkinsand johnny, who dropped in to help in the ungarlanding and tidyingup of the back room. ann eliza was duly grateful for theirkindness, but the "talking over" on which they had evidentlycounted was dead sea fruit on her lips; and just beyond thefamiliar warmth of their presences she saw the form of solitude ather door.
ann eliza was but a small person to harbour so great a guest,and a trembling sense of insufficiency possessed her. she had nohigh musings to offer to the new companion of her hearth. everyone of her thoughts had hitherto turned to evelina and shapeditself in homely easy words; of the mighty speech of silence sheknew not the earliest syllable.
everything in the back room and the shop, on the second dayafter evelina's going, seemed to have grown coldly unfamiliar. thewhole aspect of the place had changed with the changed conditionsof ann eliza's life. the first customer who opened the shop-doorstartled her like a ghost; and all night she lay tossing on herside of the bed, sinking now and then into an uncertain doze fromwhich she would suddenly wake to reach out her hand for evelina.
in the new silence surrounding her the walls and furniture foundvoice, frightening her at dusk and midnight with strange sighsand stealthy whispers. ghostly hands shook the window shutters orrattled at the outer latch, and once she grew cold at the sound ofa step like evelina's stealing through the dark shop to die out onthe threshold. in time, of course, she found an explanation forthese noises, telling herself that the bedstead was warping, thatmiss mellins trod heavily overhead, or that the thunder of passingbeer-waggons shook the door-latch; but the hours leading up tothese conclusions were full of the floating terrors that hardeninto fixed foreboding. worst of all were the solitary meals, whenshe absently continued to set aside the largest slice of pie forevelina, and to let the tea grow cold while she waited for hersister to help herself to the first cup. miss mellins, coming inon one of these sad repasts, suggested the acquisition of a cat;but ann eliza shook her head. she had never been used to animals,and she felt the vague shrinking of the pious from creaturesdivided from her by the abyss of soullessness.
at length, after ten empty days, evelina's first letter came.
"my dear sister," she wrote, in her pinched spencerian hand,"it seems strange to be in this great city so far from home alonewith him i have chosen for life, but marriage has its solemn dutieswhich those who are not can never hope to understand, and happierperhaps for this reason, life for them has only simple tasks andpleasures, but those who must take thought for others must beprepared to do their duty in whatever station it has pleased thealmighty to call them. not that i have cause to complain, my dearhusband is all love and devotion, but being absent all day at hisbusiness how can i help but feel lonesome at times, as the poetsays it is hard for they that love to live apart, and i oftenwonder, my dear sister, how you are getting along alone in thestore, may you never experience the feelings of solitude i haveunderwent since i came here. we are boarding now, but soon expectto find rooms and change our place of residence, then i shall haveall the care of a household to bear, but such is the fate of thosewho join their lot with others, they cannot hope to escape from theburdens of life, nor would i ask it, i would not live alway butwhile i live would always pray for strength to do my duty. thiscity is not near as large or handsome as new york, but had my lotbeen cast in a wilderness i hope i should not repine, such neverwas my nature, and they who exchange their independence for thesweet name of wife must be prepared to find all is not gold thatglitters, nor i would not expect like you to drift down the streamof life unfettered and serene as a summer cloud, such is not myfate, but come what may will always find in me a resigned andprayerful spirit, and hoping this finds you as well as it leavesme, i remain, my dear sister,"yours truly,"evelina b. ramy."ann eliza had always secretly admired the oratorical andimpersonal tone of evelina's letters; but the few she hadpreviously read, having been addressed to school-mates or distantrelatives, had appeared in the light of literary compositionsrather than as records of personal experience. now she could notbut wish that evelina had laid aside her swelling periods for astyle more suited to the chronicling of homely incidents. she readthe letter again and again, seeking for a clue to what her sisterwas really doing and thinking; but after each reading she emergedimpressed but unenlightened from the labyrinth of evelina'seloquence.
during the early winter she received two or three more lettersof the same kind, each enclosing in its loose husk of rhetoric asmaller kernel of fact. by dint of patient interlinear study, anneliza gathered from them that evelina and her husband, aftervarious costly experiments in boarding, had been reduced to atenement-house flat; that living in st. louis was more expensivethan they had supposed, and that mr. ramy was kept out late atnight (why, at a jeweller's, ann eliza wondered?) and found hisposition less satisfactory than he had been led to expect. towardfebruary the letters fell off; and finally they ceased to come.
at first ann eliza wrote, shyly but persistently, entreatingfor more frequent news; then, as one appeal after another wasswallowed up in the mystery of evelina's protractedsilence, vague fears began to assail the elder sister. perhapsevelina was ill, and with no one to nurse her but a man who couldnot even make himself a cup of tea! ann eliza recalled the layerof dust in mr. ramy's shop, and pictures of domestic disordermingled with the more poignant vision of her sister's illness. butsurely if evelina were ill mr. ramy would have written. he wrotea small neat hand, and epistolary communication was not aninsuperable embarrassment to him. the too probable alternative wasthat both the unhappy pair had been prostrated by some diseasewhich left them powerless to summon her--for summon her they surelywould, ann eliza with unconscious cynicism reflected, if she or hersmall economies could be of use to them! the more she strained hereyes into the mystery, the darker it grew; and her lack ofinitiative, her inability to imagine what steps might be taken totrace the lost in distant places, left her benumbed and helpless.
at last there floated up from some depth of troubled memorythe name of the firm of st. louis jewellers by whom mr. ramy wasemployed. after much hesitation, and considerable effort, sheaddressed to them a timid request for news of her brother-in-law;and sooner than she could have hoped the answer reached her.
"dear madam,"in reply to yours of the 29th ult. we beg to state the partyyou refer to was discharged from our employ a month ago. we aresorry we are unable to furnish you wish his address.
"yours respectfully,"ludwig and hammerbusch."ann eliza read and re-read the curt statement in a stupor ofdistress. she had lost her last trace of evelina. all that nightshe lay awake, revolving the stupendous project of going to st.
louis in search of her sister; but though she pieced together herfew financial possibilities with the ingenuity of a brain used tofitting odd scraps into patch-work quilts, she woke to the colddaylight fact that she could not raise the money for her fare. herwedding gift to evelina had left her without any resources beyondher daily earnings, and these had steadily dwindled as the winterpassed. she had long since renounced her weekly visit to thebutcher, and had reduced her other expenses to the narrowestmeasure; but the most systematic frugality had not enabled her toput by any money. in spite of her dogged efforts to maintain theprosperity of the little shop, her sister's absence had alreadytold on its business. now that ann eliza had to carry the bundlesto the dyer's herself, the customers who called in her absence,finding the shop locked, too often went elsewhere. moreover, afterseveral stern but unavailing efforts, she had had to give up thetrimming of bonnets, which in evelina's hands had been the mostlucrative as well as the most interesting part of the business.
this change, to the passing female eye, robbed the shop window ofits chief attraction; and when painful experience had convinced theregular customers of the bunner sisters of ann eliza's lack ofmillinery skill they began to lose faith in her ability to curl afeather or even "freshen up" a bunch of flowers. the time camewhen ann eliza had almost made up her mind to speak to the ladywith puffed sleeves, who had always looked at her so kindly, andhad once ordered a hat of evelina. perhaps the lady with puffedsleeves would be able to get her a little plain sewing to do; orshe might recommend the shop to friends. ann eliza, with thispossibility in view, rummaged out of a drawer the fly-blownremainder of the business cards which the sisters had ordered inthe first flush of their commercial adventure; but when the ladywith puffed sleeves finally appeared she was in deep mourning, andwore so sad a look that ann eliza dared not speak. she came in tobuy some spools of black thread and silk, and in the doorway sheturned back to say: "i am going away to-morrow for a long time. ihope you will have a pleasant winter." and the door shut on her.
one day not long after this it occurred to ann eliza to go tohoboken in quest of mrs. hochmuller. much as she shrank frompouring her distress into that particular ear, her anxiety hadcarried her beyond such reluctance; but when she began tothink the matter over she was faced by a new difficulty. on theoccasion of her only visit to mrs. hochmuller, she and evelina hadsuffered themselves to be led there by mr. ramy; and ann eliza nowperceived that she did not even know the name of the laundress'ssuburb, much less that of the street in which she lived. but shemust have news of evelina, and no obstacle was great enough tothwart her.
though she longed to turn to some one for advice she dislikedto expose her situation to miss mellins's searching eye, and atfirst she could think of no other confidant. then she rememberedmrs. hawkins, or rather her husband, who, though ann eliza hadalways thought him a dull uneducated man, was probably gifted withthe mysterious masculine faculty of finding out people's addresses.
it went hard with ann eliza to trust her secret even to the mildear of mrs. hawkins, but at least she was spared the cross-examination to which the dress-maker would have subjected her. theaccumulating pressure of domestic cares had so crushed in mrs.
hawkins any curiosity concerning the affairs of others that shereceived her visitor's confidence with an almost masculineindifference, while she rocked her teething baby on one arm andwith the other tried to check the acrobatic impulses of the next inage.
"my, my," she simply said as ann eliza ended. "keep stillnow, arthur: miss bunner don't want you to jump up and down on herfoot to-day. and what are you gaping at, johnny? run right offand play," she added, turning sternly to her eldest, who, becausehe was the least naughty, usually bore the brunt of her wrathagainst the others.
"well, perhaps mr. hawkins can help you," mrs. hawkinscontinued meditatively, while the children, after scattering at herbidding, returned to their previous pursuits like flies settlingdown on the spot from which an exasperated hand has swept them.
"i'll send him right round the minute he comes in, and you can tellhim the whole story. i wouldn't wonder but what he can find thatmrs. hochmuller's address in the d'rectory. i know they've got onewhere he works.""i'd be real thankful if he could," ann eliza murmured, risingfrom her seat with the factitious sense of lightness that comesfrom imparting a long-hidden dread.
