I thank thee for that downcast look, and for that blushing cheek,
I would not have thee raise those eyes, I would not have thee speak.
Tho' mute, I deem thee eloquent, I ask no other sign,
While thus thy little hand remains confidingly in mine.
HAYNES BAYLEY.
A friend of Mrs. de Burgh's came to stay at Silverton about this time, a
lady of a certain age.
She had lately lost her husband.
Though malicious report spoke her to have loved him little during life,
she now mourned with considerable effect at his decease; and though
there was but the family party--for which circumstance she had been
prepared--staying in the house--this being the first visit she had paid
since her bereavement, she had not yet--though several days had elapsed
since her arrival--been able to muster sufficient nerve to issue from
the luxurious apartments assigned to her.
Mr. de Burgh maliciously expressed himself fearful that the cap was not
becoming, hearing that the dainty, but not unsubstantial meals so
plentifully partaken of by the fair widow in her retreat, did not well
agree with any very wearing sentiment of grief.
But Mrs. de Burgh said it was just like his ill-nature on every subject
connected with _her_ friends--and _faute de mieux_, rather enjoyed the
lounge of Mrs. Trevyllian's room, where she spent a great part of her
time.
One evening, about the end of three weeks after Eugene Trevor's
accident, having remained talking to Mary some time after they had left
the dining-room, Mrs. de Burgh announced herself obliged to go up
stairs to Mrs. Trevyllian, for the rest of the evening, that lady having
made her promise so to do, she being in more than usually bad spirits
that day.
"I know you do not mind a quiet evening for once," she added, "and I
have already seen you cast many a wistful glance at those books on the
table, whilst I have been talking nonsense; so make yourself comfortable
and if you find it dull come up to us. Mrs. Trevyllian will not mind
you. You will not have Louis' company to-night, for he has ordered
candles in the library, and means to adjourn there with his landscape
gardener when he leaves the dining room."
Mary was accordingly left in solitary possession of the fair saloon,
through which the soft clear lamps and ruddy fire cast so cheerful a
radiance, feeling quite capable of appreciating the enjoyment, nay
luxury, of occasional solitude of the kind under similar auspices.
She felt quite sure as she glanced around, when Mrs. de Burgh closed the
door behind her, that the _tête-à-tête_ of Olivia and her friend would
not be intruded upon by her to-night, that for the hour or two before
bed-time she should be well able to wile away her moments more
agreeably; and when in accordance with Mrs. de Burgh's anticipations,
she listened to the retreating voices of Louis and his companion, as
issuing from the dining-room they proceeded to the library, and shut the
door upon them to pore, for the remainder of the evening, over books and
plans--for Mr. L---- had to leave early on the following morning--Mary
obediently followed Mrs. de Burgh's injunction, "to make herself
comfortable," by sinking back on a luxurious _bergère_ on one side of
the fire place, and returning to the perusal of a work she had commenced
that day--whether for the name's-sake we cannot tell--but when my
readers learn its title, they will scarcely wonder if she now proceeded
with almost as much absorbing and abstract interest as if in Madeline's
own words there had been "no more Eugene's in the world than one"--the
strange and mysterious hero of her romantic studies. The book she read
was Eugene Aram.
Thus engaged, Mary's attention wholly rivetted by the stirring interest
of the story, her taste enchanted by the glowing descriptions; and more
than all, her feelings and sympathies affected by the striking
sentiments of force and pathos with which its pages abound. She must
have become insensible to the existence of common worldly sounds, for
that of the door bell at this unusual hour, made no more impression on
her senses than any other might have done.
Reclining back in indolent repose, one hand supporting the book, whilst
her other fair girlish arm lay in listless abandonment across the arm of
the chair, she just heard the door of the apartment open, but never
troubled herself to turn her head to look upon the intruder, concluding
that it could be only the servant come to attend to the fire, and not
till he had crossed the room and stood close before her, did she raise
her eyes to behold Eugene Trevor.
Yes, there he was, standing looking down upon her with a smile on his
lips, provoked, first by the extreme absorption in which he had
surprised her, and then by the gaze of startled wonder, her upraised
countenance expressed. But astonishment soon gave way to other
appearances. If Eugene Trevor had ever reason to doubt the true
impression made by him on Mary Seaham's heart--by this sudden and
unexpected arrival after an interval of absence such as had occurred,
and from causes such as had existed--he had now taken good means to
ascertain its real nature and extent.
Nothing speaks so truly as to the character and durability of the
feelings we have awakened, than the effect produced by meetings of this
sort.
"Le plus aimé n'est pas toujours le meilleur reçu,"
some French poet writes, but _rencontres_ of this description admit of
no such refined and delicate subterfuges. The truth must out in glance,
or tone, or countenance,
"And then if silence does not speak,
Or faltering tongue, or changing cheek--
There's nothing told."
And these tell-tale signs were unmistakeably revealed in this unprepared
moment upon poor Mary's countenance, when her lover, for so she had
lately dared to deem him, so unexpectedly appeared before her sight
after three weeks separation.
She knew him during that time to have been ill, and suffering from a
dangerous and painful accident. She saw him paler, thinner, than she had
ever yet beheld him. They were alone together at this uncommon time and
under these unexpected circumstances, and her heart beat fast with
feelings she had never before experienced.
And there she sat; the colour fast mounting over cheek and brow, then
leaving them very pale. Her eyes half filled with tears, her half parted
lips unable to falter forth, but incoherently, the words of welcome, of
congratulation, of pleasure at his recovery; which to any other
individual under the same circumstances, nay to himself, but a few weeks
ago, would have flowed so calmly and naturally from her kind warm heart.
"Eugene Aram" fell unheeded from her hands. To Mary, indeed, at that
moment, "there was but one Eugene in the world."
Fortunately for her, he in whose presence she now found herself, however
culpable he might be in other points of conduct and of character, was
not one, in this instance, to take a vain and heartless pleasure in the
discovery he thus made.
"To trifle in cold vanity with all
The warm soul's precious throbs, to whom it is
A triumph that a fond devoted heart
Is breaking for them--who can bear to call
Young flowers into beauty--and then to crush them."
Nay, still more fortunately for Mary, he was as much in love himself at
this time--perhaps, even still more so--different, totally, in kind, as
that love might be; and that he was loved, unsuspectingly, undeservedly
loved, by one, in his idea, as far above himself in purity and goodness,
as an angel is above a being of this fallen earth--loved even with that
excellence with which "angels love good men," filled his soul, at that
moment, with emotions of a softer, holier nature, than any which,
perhaps, for a long time, it had been his happiness to experience; and a
grateful, almost humbled, exultation, if any such feeling was excited by
the conviction, lit up with a sudden flash of animation, his keen dark
eve. He did not wait for Mary to finish what she had attempted to
express on his account. A moment's earnest abstracted pause ensued,
then moving quickly from his position on the hearth-rug, as if impelled
by a sudden irresistible impulse, he drew a chair close to her's, and
sitting down by her side, at once began.
Her face was half averted, but he bent down his that she might catch the
low, soft, earnest accents, in which he breathed forth expressions of
his joy at beholding her again--how that she alone had filled his
thoughts during the period of his confinement--how impatiently he had
awaited the moment of liberation--and how, though unavoidably prevented
from leaving home as he had intended, in time for dinner, he could not
bear to delay one night longer after receiving his release, and had
therefore set out even at this eleventh hour--finally, he alluded to the
unexpected delight of finding her thus alone, the circumstance affording
him, as it did, the joyful opportunity of at once expressing in words,
what she must long ere this have inwardly discerned, the admiration, the
respect, the far deeper, tenderer feelings, with which she, almost from
the first moment he beheld her, had inspired him. He knew he was
unworthy to possess so inestimable a treasure, but if any strength or
measure of affection could atone for other imperfections, his surely
might be sufficient to plead in his behalf, did she not disdain the
compensation.
Poor Mary! Her head sank lower, lower, on her heaving bosom, as one by
one these thrilling words--these fond assurances--came falling on her
ear, or rather sinking into her heart,
"Like the sweet South
That breathes upon a bank of violets
Stealing and giving odour,"
overpowering it with emotions of only too exquisite a nature.
Was not her's a happiness rare and almost unexampled, to find the hero
of her maiden meditations thus prove in truth the master and magician of
her fate?
Yet even in that moment of joyful agitation, was there no swift under
current of thought, and recollection mingling strangely with her
immediate sensations; bringing with it, a certain confusion of feeling
and idea, similar to the one which had broken her slumbers the first
night of her arrival at Silverton?
Alas! if it was the remembrance of the Welsh hill-side which again
suggested itself, if the image of her rejected lover standing by her
with that suppressed, yet deep and manly grief and disappointment,
expressed upon his noble countenance--might there not have been too a
voice to whisper in her ear, "And what then is there in this man by your
side, that he has thus found favour in your eyes; what superiority and
excellence have you fancied in him, that he is thus chosen when the
other was rejected?"
But no such voice it seems did speak, or if so, it made itself not
heard.
The charmed ear is deaf to whom it whispers--the fascinated eye is blind
to whom it would suggest such comparison.
Yes, blind! Blind as the aged patriarch of old. Jacob is blessed: the
blessing and the birthright is taken from the rightful claimant. "I
have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed."
Mary has not yet spoken, but there is a silence more expressive than
words--and expressive, as that which had followed Mr. Temple's
declaration and so coldly fallen upon his trembling hopes, was, to
Eugene Trevor, the silence which now hung upon her tongue. That blushing
face, those tearful eyes, those smiling lips, spoke all that he desired
to hear. They emboldened him so far as the pressing one of the soft
hands, which now nervously grasped the chair beside him, and though it
trembled, it was not withdrawn; and then the first overpowering flood of
agitation subdued--Mary, her emotion soothed and composed, had told her
love with "virgin pride--" and now sat calmly happy by her lover's side,
listening to his earnest conversation on many points connected with that
future now before them; yes whatever might have been the nature of his
feelings on the occasion, how intense and delicious were _her_
sensations of happiness; for as it is expressed in the pages of the book
to which we have, in the last chapter, had occasion to allude:
"In the pure heart of a young girl loving for the first time, love is
far more ecstatic than in man's more fevered nature. Love then and
there, makes the only state of human existence which is at once capable
of calmness and transport."