Castle Nowhere | Page 6

as, clad in white, she sat still and placid on her airy perch. Her hair, of the very light fleecy gold seldom seen after babyhood, hung over her shoulders unconfined by comb or ribbon, felling around her like a veil and glittering in the horizontal sunbeams; her face, throat and hands were white as the petals of a white camellia, her features infantile, her cast-down eyes invisible under the full-orbed lids. Waring gazed at her cynically, his boat motionless; it accorded with his theories that the only woman he had seen for months should be calmly eating and reading stolen sweets. The girl turned a page, glanced up, saw him, and sprang forward smiling; as she stood at the balcony, her beautiful hair fell below her knees.
'Jacob,' she cried gladly, 'is that you at last?'
'No,' replied Waring, 'it is not Jacob; rather Esau. Jacob was too tricky for me. The damsel, Rachel, I presume!'
'My name is Silver,' said the girl, 'and I see you are not Jacob at all. Who are you, then?'
'A hungry, tired man who would like to come aboard and rest awhile.'
'Aboard? This is not a boat.'
'What then?'
'A castle,--Castle Nowhere.'
'You reside here?'
'Of course; where else should I reside? Is it not a beautiful place?' said the girl, looking around with a little air of pride.
'I could tell better if I was up there.'
'Come, then.'
'How?'
'Do you not see the ladder?'
'Ah, yes,--Jacob had a ladder, I remember; he comes up this way, I suppose?'
'He does not; but I wish he would.'
'Undoubtedly. But you are not Leah all this time?'
'I am Silver, as I told you before; I know not--what you mean with your Leah.'
'But, mademoiselle, your Bible--'
'What is Bible?'
'You have never read the Bible?'
'It is a book, then. I like books,' replied Silver, waving her hand comprehensively; 'I have read five, and now I have a new one.'
'Do you like it, your new one?' asked Waring, glancing towards his property.
'I do not understand it all; perhaps you can explain to me?'
'I think I can,' answered the young man, smiling in spite of himself; 'that is, if you wish to learn.'
'Is it hard?'
'That depends upon the scholar; now, some minds--' Here a hideous face looked out through one of the little windows, and then vanished. 'Ah,' said Waring, pausing, 'one of the family?'
'That is Lorez, my dear old nurse.'
The face now came out on to the balcony and showed itself as part of an old negress, bent and wrinkled with age.
'He came in a boat, Lorez,' said Silver, 'and yet you see he is not Jacob. But he says he is tired and hungry, so we will have supper, now, without waiting for father.'
The old woman smiled and nodded, stroking the girl's glittering hair meanwhile with her black hand.
'As soon as the sun has gone it will be very damp,' said Silver, turning to her guest; 'you will come within. But you have not told me-your name.'
'Jarvis,' replied Waring promptly.
'Come, then, Jarvis.' And she led the way through a low door into a long narrow room with a row of little square windows on each side all covered with little square white curtains. The walls and ceiling were planked and the workmanship of the whole rude and clumsy; but a gay carpet covered the floor, a chandelier adorned with lustres, hung from a hook in the ceiling, large gilded vases and a mirror in a tarnished gilt frame adorned a shelf over the hearth, mahogany chairs stood in ranks against the wall under the little windows and a long narrow table ran down the centre of the apartment from end to end. It all seemed strangely familiar; of what did it remind him? His eyes fell upon the table-legs; they were riveted to the floor. Then it came to him at once,--the long narrow cabin of a lake steamer.
'I wonder if it is not anchored after all,' he thought.
'Just a few shavings and one little stick, Lorez,' said Silver; 'enough to give us light and drive away the damp.'
Up flared the blaze and spread abroad the dear home feeling. (O hearth-fire, good genius of home, with thee a log-cabin is cheery and bright, without thee the palace a dreary waste!)
'And now, while Lorez is preparing supper, you will come and see my pets,' said Silver, in her soft tone of unconscious command.
'By all means,' replied Waring. 'Anything in the way of mermaidens?'
'Mermaidens dwell in the water, they cannot live in houses as we can; did you not know that? I have seen them on moonlight nights, and so has Lorez; but Aunt Shadow never saw them.'
'Another member of the family,--Aunt Shadow?'
'Yes,' replied Silver; 'but she is not here now. She went away one night when I was asleep. I do not know why it is,' she added sadly, 'but if