“YOU ARE NOT MY HERO--NEVER CAN BE.”
“Birds in the high hall garden,
They were crying and calling:
‘Come back, my Lord, across the moor--
You are not her darling!’”--TENNYSON.
It falls to Charlton’s lot to meet the girls at the station that
afternoon. Mr. Essex elects to stay at home and play the agreeable to
Miss Leigh.
He thinks it politic to ignore her slight of the morning--the wisest
plan indeed, for, though she is too willful to apologize, she tries to
atone by added courtesy to her guest. Her character of semi invalid
makes her, too, a little dependent on masculine care. Charlton has
served as a convenient crutch until he went to the station--now it is
Essex’s turn, and he is most eager to avail himself of the opportunity.
He persuades her to lean on his arm and hobble down as far as the
river’s picturesque curve. There they take possession of a garden seat
and contemplate the scene.
“How beautiful your home is,” the young man says, looking back at the
large white stone building now bathed in a flood of sunset radiance
that sets all the windows on fire with gold and crimson. “How you must
love it, Miss Leigh, and how pleasant it must be to dwell always in
such an Arcadia, away from the noise and bustle and sin of the crowded
cities.”
Her eyes light up with pride and pleasure.
“You like rural life, then? I thought--or Charlton told me--that you
always voted the country a bore.”
He flushes at this reminder, but answers readily:
“That was before I had met you, Miss Leigh. Adam would have been lonely
without Eve, even in Paradise.
“‘Oh, woman, dear woman, the life and the soul
Of the pleasures we court, and the paths we pursue,
Whether sunned at the tropics or chilled at the poles,
If woman be there, there is happiness, too!’”
She cannot help blushing as his dark eyes, seeking hers, point the
ready application.
“If I am to judge by the specimens I’ve seen,” she remarks severely, “I
should say that the chief accomplishment gentlemen acquire at college
now is quoting poetry.”
“So poetry is interdicted--you are to be wooed in the plainest of
prose?” he queries coolly.
“Yes, in the plainest of prose,” Vivian answers, laughing, but with an
earnest gleam in her clear, frank eyes. “I detest you flirting men who
deal in meaningless rhymes and flattering words. When my hero comes, he
will eschew sentiment and say, sensibly: ‘Vivian, I think you are the
dearest girl in the world. Will you marry me?’”
A jealous pang thrills him. Unconsciously to herself the girl has
pronounced her own name in just the tone Max Verne always used. Essex
notes it, and his heart burns like fire.
“And you will answer----” he begins.
“Oh, I will answer ‘Yes,’” she replies, and she grows suddenly pale and
sighs, remembering the words of poor Max’s note. “I meant to have asked
you.”
“You are tired,” he says suddenly. “I have brought you too far on that
poor little foot. It is too bad you should be lamed just now. I feel
like hurling maledictions on Verne’s head for his boorishness.”
“It was hardly that,” she says, gently. “My brother declares that the
rudeness was all on my side.”
“Your side! Why, you acted like an angel! No one but a temperance
fanatic like Verne could have held out against so much beauty and
persuasiveness. A gentleman would have sacrificed his principles for
the moment rather than to mortify the sensitive heart of a young girl
before all that crowd. You never can forgive him the insult to your
pride, and the added injury caused by his carelessness.”
She is silent, but her color rises high, and he continues:
“I thought last summer, when we were here together, that Verne was in
love with you; but his rudeness last night convinced me of my mistake.
And--forgive me, Miss Leigh, but I was glad of it, for it showed me
that I need not fear him as a rival, that----” He pauses for she holds
up an imperative finger.
“Hush, Mr. Essex! Not another word!”
“But I must speak, Vivian!” he cries, impetuously. “I have brought you
here to speak to you--here where flowers and birds and rippling waters
all breathe the sweet language of love! Oh, let me tell you how I love
you, for I cannot live without you, and if you send me from you I will
perish by my own rash act! Vivian, will you be my wife?”
His face is pale with passion and excitement, his dark eyes gleam as
he lifts them imploringly to hers. She trembles and pulls away the
hand he has taken, twining it in the taper fingers of the other for
safe-keeping.
“Vivian,” he urges, vehemently, “answer me, or if indeed you dislike
the language of poetry and passion, which is the natural speech of
love, let me woo you in your own words: ‘Vivian, I think you are the
dearest little girl in the world! Will you marry me?’”
“No, Mr. Essex, I will not,” the girl answers sharply and coldly.
The blood burns on his dark cheek, his eyes flash. Naturally fiery in
temper, and inflamed by heavy potations of wine at dinner, he forgets
his assumed gentleness, and retorts bitterly:
“Then my death will lie at your door, proud girl; for unless I win your
promise to be mine before I leave Leigh Place this summer, I shall die
within your gates by my own suicidal hands.”
“You talk foolishly, madly,” she replies, indignantly. “You cannot
force my love from me. Take me back to the house at once, sir, or I
will try to crawl there!”
All his vehemence subsides into alarm at her bitter scorn. Falling on
his knees before her, he again clasps her hand, and looks at her with
despairing eye.
“Oh, forgive my madness!” he pleads. “You do not dream of the
passionate strength of the hidden fire and fervor of my love. I worship
you; but the madness of disappointment made me show you my desperate
heart too plainly. Oh, pardon me, and let me try to win your favor, no
matter how long and hard the task!”
Touched by his humility, but firm in her refusal, she answers very
gently:
“It is useless to try. I forgive your wild words of just now, but I can
never be more to you than a friend.”
“Surely you might learn to love me, Vivian. Oh, give me a little hope.
A heart that adores you like mine might almost compel a return.”
“You could not make me love you,” she answers, with blended pain and
pity. “You are not like the hero of my fancy. You have few of the
attributes I could best love in man.”
“Tell me what your ideal is like, Vivian. Let me try to form myself by
your model.”
The color rises over her face, flooding it with crimson, and turning
her conscious face aside, she misses his heavy frown as she says low
but firmly:
“You cannot. It is worse than vain to try. You are not my hero--never
can be.”
He rises with a heavy sigh and gives her his arm. They return to the
house. The lingering sunset is fading into twilight, but he notes with
alarm the pallor of her lovely face as she sinks wearily into the
armchair on the piazza. Hurrying into the house, he brings her a glass
of wine.
“Drink this wine and it will revive you. I have wearied you with my
passionate love,” he says gently.
Her hand trembles as she puts the glass to her lips. For a moment
across the ruby wine she seems to see Max Verne’s face, bright, eager,
smiling--then grave, reproachful, troubled, as it looked at her last
night when he murmured so sadly, “I cannot,” and the draught leaves a
bitter taste in her mouth, a bitter pang in her heart. Her head drops
on her folded arms. She never looks up again until the crunching of
carriage wheels on the gravel announces the arrival of Charlton Leigh
with his “lot of girls.” Then with an effort she summons a smile to
greet the two girls who come up the steps with Charlton between them.
“A rose between two thorns” as he confides in an audible aside to
Essex. One pinches his cheek, the other his arm, then they overwhelm
Vivian with kisses and caresses from which she extricates herself with
difficulty to present them to Mr. Essex.
But they all smiled mutually before she can speak, and Mr. Essex
explains:
“I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Kingsley and her sister at
their home in Richmond last winter.”
And the girls greet him with effusive pleasure, little dreaming that
this eligible _parti_ has just been refused by their beautiful cousin,
willful Vivian.