A faint streak of grey was breaking in the east, through the low and
heavy clouds of night. I went up to the window, opened it, and kneeling
down by it, I looked at that still dark sky, and surrendered myself to
the swift current that was bearing me away.
There is a rapture in strong emotions that has subdued the strongest; a
perilous charm to which the wisest have yielded. What the storm is to our
senses--something that raises, appals and lifts up our very being by its
sublimity and terror--the strife of the passions is to the soul. They are
her elements, from whose conflicts and electric shocks she derives her
strength, her greatness, the knowledge that she is. And for this, though
they so often blight her fairest hopes, she loves them.
It is hard, indeed, to be ever striving against those rebellious
servants--to feel torn asunder in the struggle; but sweeter is that
bitter contest than a long, lifeless peace. The danger lies not so much
in the chance of final subjection, as in that of learning to love the
strife too well. More perilous than the sweetest music is its tumult;
more endless than are all the delights of the senses, and far more
intoxicating is its infinite variety. The soul, in her most blissful
repose, has nothing to equal the burning charm of her delirium.
My youth had been calm as an ice-bound sea, over which sweep breezes
sweet though chill, but that knows neither the storm nor the sunshine of
the ardent south. And now the storm had suddenly wakened, and from
northern winter, I passed to the glowing tropics. I thought not of love
or passion, of bliss or torment; I felt like one seized by foaming
rapids, and swept far beyond human ken, with the sound of the rushing
torrent ever in my ears. I yielded to a force that would not be resisted.
"Let it," I thought, my heart beating with fearless delight; "I care not
whither it sends me; let the eddies cast me adrift--or bear me safely
on--I care not--this is to live!"
I strove not against the current; I sought not to know where I was, until
of itself the stream flowed more calm, until its mighty voice died away
in faint murmurs, and I found myself floating safe in still waters. Then
I looked up, and like one who after sleeping on earth wakens in fairy-
land, I beheld with trembling joy the strange and wonderful country to
which I had been borne during the long slumber of a year. Cornelius loved
me! it was marvellous, incredible, but a great and glorious thing for all
that. He loved me! my heart swelled; my soul rose; I felt humble, exalted
and blest far beyond the power of speech to render. I had no definite
thought, no definite wish, but before me extended the future like an
endless summer day; beneath it spread life as an enchanted region which
Cornelius and I paced hand in hand, bending our steps towards that golden
west where burned a sun that should never set.
"Yes, he loves me!" I repeated to myself as I remembered every token
unheeded till then. "And do I love him?" oh! how swift came the
irresistible reply: "with every power of my soul, with every impulse of
my being, with the blood that flows in my veins, with the heart that
beats in my bosom." The answer both startled and charmed me. I did not
understand it rightly yet, and like one suddenly taken captive, I looked
at my bonds and saw incredulously that the liberty of thought, heart and
feeling had departed for ever; that an influence as subtle as it was
penetrating had taken possession of my being. One moment I rebelled; but
after a brief struggle for freedom, I owned myself conquered; with
beating heart and burning brow lowly bent, I confessed my master.
Filial reverence, sisterly love, friendship, what had become of ye then?
Like weak briars and brambles swept away by a swift stream, ye perished
at once on the path of passion. I wondered not that ye should be no more.
I only wondered ye had ever been: vain words by which I had long been
deluded.
I looked back into my past. Since I had known him, I could not remember
the time when the thought of Cornelius had not been to me as the daily
bread of my heart. There had been familiarity in my deepest tenderness,
and lingering passion in my very freedom. I had felt intuitively that I
could not make my love for a man, young and not of my blood, too sacred
and too pure, and that love ever craving for a more perfect, more entire
union, had caught eagerly at these shadows of what it sought. I had said
to myself, to him, to all, that my affection was that of a child for its
father, of a sister for her brother, of a friend for her friend, because
it had not occurred to me that a closer tie might one day bind us; and
what I had said, I had believed most sincerely.
I was very young and very innocent. Of love I had read little, and seen
less. So long as it came not to me in visible aspect; so long as I felt
not within myself some great change, I dreamt not of it. There is a love
that lies in the heart unconscious of itself, like a child asleep in its
cradle--and this I had never suspected. There is a love which grows with
onr years, until it becomes part of our being; which never agitates,
because it has no previous indifference, no remembrance of the time in
which it was not, against which to strive; which has purer and deeper
signs than the beating heart, the blushing cheek, the averted look--and
all this I knew not. Where there is no resistance, there can be no
struggle; but because there is no struggle shall any one dare to say--
there is no victory? Reduce to logic the least logical of all passions,
and argue with a feeling that smiles at argument, and disdains to reply.
Had I then loved Cornelius even as a child? loved him with that purer
part of affection which needs not to wait for the growth of years? God
alone knows. Love is a great mystery; it is easy to remember the time of
its discovery, but wise, indeed, are they who can tell the hour and
moment of its birth.
I had the wisdom not to ask myself so useless a question. The past
vanished from my thoughts; it was all future now. I looked at the eastern
sky; it was reddening fast, and grew more bright and burning as I looked.
With the superstition of the heart, I watched the dawn of that day, as
that which opened my new existence, and for all of the past that it
revealed, and I had never seen; for all of the future that it promised,
and I had never hoped. I gave thanks to God.
I know not how long I had been thus, when a tap at my door disturbed me.
I rose, opened, and saw Kate. She made me turn my face to the light, then
half smiled, and said:
"Cornelius wants to speak to you; he is quite in a way. Pray come down."
I followed her down stairs in silence. She opened the back parlour door,
closed it, and left me. I stood still; all the blood in my frame seemed
to have rushed to my beating heart. It was one thing to be alone with
Cornelius, my friend, and another to find myself thus suddenly brought to
the presence of Cornelius, my lover.
He sat by the open window; beyond it rose the green garden trees tinged
with a rosy light, and above them spread the blushing sky. A fresh breeze
came in bearing soft sounds of rustling leaves and twittering songs of
wakening birds. He too had watched the dawning day; but there seemed to
have been at least as much sorrow as love in his vigil. He looked pale,
weary, and slowly turned around as I entered. He saw me standing at the
door, rose, and came up to me without speaking. I looked at him like one
in a dream. He took my passive hand in his, and gave me a troubled
glance, then suddenly he passed his other arm around me, looking down at
me with the saddest face.
"And is it thus indeed, Daisy," he said, in a low tone, "you are pale as
death, but as silent; your hand lies in mine chill as ice, but not
withdrawn; you yield, mute and meek as a poor little victim to the arms
that clasp you! No tears! No words to rouse remorse or sting pride.
Nothing but entire sacrifice, and that silent submission."
He spoke of paleness; his own face was like marble, his eyes overflowed,
his lips trembled, he stooped to press them on my brow. Involuntarily I
shunned the embrace.
"Do not shrink," he observed, with evident pain, "I mean it as the last.
Yes! the last. I never intended putting you to such a trial. Never,
Daisy," he continued, giving me a wistful look, "anger at your blindness,
and the irresistible temptation of a sudden opportunity, did indeed make
me forget, in one moment, the dearly-bought patience of a year; passion,
roused to tyranny after her long subjection, and sick of restraint, did
indeed vow she would and should be gratified, no matter what the cost
might be; but I never meant it. You are young, generous, and devoted.
Months ago, if I had spoken, I know--and I knew it then--that I could
have had you for the asking. But I could not bear to have you thus. When
your grandfather placed so great a trust in my honour, and showed so
little faith in my generosity, I laughed at his blindness, for I thought
age had cooled his blood, and made him forget the language which is not
speech. But alas! I found that I who had taught you many things, could
not teach you this lesson. How could I? when what is held the easiest of
all, the letting you see what you were to me, I could never accomplish.
Do, say, act as I would, the sacredness of your affection ever stood
between us. I tried every art, and love has many, but when I spoke so
plainly, it seemed as if a very child must have understood me. You looked
or smiled with hopeless serenity. I vowed once that cost me what it
might, I would not speak until I had made you love me as truly, as
ardently as I loved you myself. I waited months, I might have waited
years. Well, no matter, it is over now. Be free, forget the trouble of an
hour in the peace of a life-time. Be happy, very happy, and yet, oh! how
happy, it seems to me, your friend could have made you, if you would but
have let him."
He released and left me. Touched with his sorrow, I could not restrain my
tears.
"Weep not for me," he said, with a sad smile; "I shall do. It is true
that when I came back from Italy, I secretly boasted that I had escaped
both the follies of youth and the dangers of passion. But though Fate,
which I braved abroad, has, like a traitor, lain in wait for me in my own
home, know, Daisy, that like a man, I can look her in the face, stern and
bitter as she wears it on this day, too long delayed, of our separation."
"Then you do mean to go?" I exclaimed, troubled to the very heart.
"Can you think I would stay?" he replied, vehemently. "Oh! Daisy, tempt
me not to call you cold and heartless, to say those things which a
lifetime vainly repents and never effaces. Is it because I have passed
through a year of the hardest self-subjection ever imposed on mortal;
through a year of looks restrained, words hushed, emotions repressed; a
year of fever and torment endured, that not a cloud might come over the
serenity of your peace--is it for this, Daisy, that you think my heart
and my blood so cold as to wish me to stay; as not to see that between
complete union or utter separation there can now be no medium?"
His look sought mine with a troubled glance; there was fever in his
accent, and pain in the half smile with which he spoke.
"But why go so soon?" I asked, in a low tone.
"Why? Daisy, you ask why? Because endurance has reached her utmost
limits, and cannot pass them; because the rest is an abyss over which not
even a poor plank stretches; because the thing I have delayed months must
be done now or never: because, hard as is your absence, your constant
presence is something still harder to bear."
He spoke with an ill-subdued irritation I knew not how to soothe.
"Cornelius!" I said in my gentlest accents, "if you would but stay and be
calm."
"Stay and be calm!" he replied impetuously, and pacing the room with
hasty steps, that ever came back to me; "why, I have been the calmest of
calm men! When, one after another, they attempted to woo and win under my
very eyes the only girl for whom I cared, she whom I looked on as my
future wife; as the secret betrothed of my heart: when, to add taunt to
taunt, as if I were not flesh and blood like them; as if I had not known
you more years than they had known you weeks; loved you, when they cared
not if you existed, they allowed me with insolent unconsciousness to
behold it all, did I not subdue the secret wrath which trembled in every
fibre of my being? What more would you have me do? Wait to see in the
possession and enjoyment of one more fortunate than the rest, that which
should have been my property and my joy; whilst I looked on, a robbed
father, a friend forsaken, a lover betrayed, and behold my child,
companion, friend and mistress the prize of a stranger!"
"Do you think then," he added, stopping short, and speaking with calmer
and deeper indignation, "do you think then that I have severed you from
the lover of your youth, guarded you from my own friends, watched over
you as a miser over his gold, suspected every man who looked at you,
sickened at the thought, 'Is it now I am to be robbed?' breathed and
lived again at the reply, 'Not yet'--to stay and wait until some other
comes and reaps the fruit of all my vain watchfulness."
His eyes flashed, and his lips trembled with jealous resentment. Borne
away by the force of his own feelings, he had spoken with a vehement
rapidity, that left him no room for pause, as they left me no room for
interruption. At length he ceased. I looked at him; he had spoken of his
patience with feverish anger, of his calmness with bitter indignation;
the passionate emotions had left their traces on his brow slightly
contracted, on his pale and agitated face, in his look that still burned
with ill-repressed fire; but there was sweetness in his reproaches, and a
secret pleasantness in his wrath.
"Another," I said quietly, "and suppose there is no other. Suppose no one
cares for me."
"No one!" he echoed, drawing nearer, and taking my hand in his, with a
sudden change of mood and accent, "No one, Daisy! Oh! you know there will
always be one. One who sat with you by a running stream for the whole of
a summer's noon, and at whom your face seemed to look from the clear
waters until it sank deep and for ever in his heart. One who waking or
sleeping, has loved you since that day, and for whom it is you, Daisy,
who care not."
I said I did care for him.
"But how, how?" he asked, with an impatient sigh, "you mean old
affection, habit, friendship, and I, you know well enough, mean none of
those things. I love you because do what I will, you attract me
irresistibly. If I had met you in the street by chance, I should have
said, 'this girl and none other I will have;' I would have followed you,
ascertained your dwelling, name and parentage, ay, and made you love me
too, Daisy, cold as you are now."
"I am not cold, Cornelius."
"Alas, no," he replied, a little passionately, "and there too is the
mischief. Oh! Daisy, be merciful! Give nothing if you cannot give all. Be
at once all ice, and torment me no more with the calm serenity which is
never coldness. Do you know how often you have made me burn to remind
you, that though I was no one to you, you might be some one to me; that
you have made me long for the sting of indifference and pride; for a
familiarity less tender, for a tenderness less dangerous? Do you know
that if your affection has been too calm for love, it has been very
ardent for mere friendship; that it has possessed the perilous charm of
passion and purity; passion which would be divine if it could but be
pure; purity which, if it were but ardent, would be irresistibly
alluring. You have tormented me almost beyond endurance, then when I gave
up hope, you have suddenly said and done the kindest things maiden ever
said or did. You have deserted me and returned to me, embraced me with
the careless confidence of a sister, spoken with the tenderness of a
mistress, and perplexed me beyond all mortal knowledge. But why do I
speak as if this were over? Daisy! you perplex me still. This very
evening have you not declared that you care for no other, then almost as
plainly said you cared not for me. Have you not heard me tell you how
warmly I love you, yet have you not asked me to stay here in this house
ever near you? Nay, though I speak now from the very fulness of my heart,
do you not stand, your hand in mine, listening to me with patient, quiet
grace? I dare not hope, I will not quite despair; I can do neither, for I
protest, Daisy, that you are still to me a riddle and a mystery, and that
whether you love him or love him not, is more than Cornelius O'Reilly can
tell."
Cornelius had said all this without a pause of rest: he spoke with the
daring rapidity of passion which tarries not for words, but with many an
eloquent change of look, tone, and accent. I had heard him with throbbing
bosom and burning brow. For the first time I was addressed in the
language of love, and the voice that spoke was very dear to me. Answer I
could not. I stood before him, listening to tones that had ceased, but
that still echoed in my heart. When he confessed, however, that he did
not know whether or not I loved him, an involuntary smile stole over my
face, and this he was very quick to see; his look, keen and searching,
sought mine; his face, eager and flushed, was bent over me.
"Look at me, Daisy," he said, quickly.
I looked up, smiling still; for I thought to myself, "I love him, but he
shall not know it just yet." But as I looked, a change of feeling came
over my heart. I remembered the past, his long goodness, his patient,
devoted love, and I could not take my eyes away.
"Well," he said, uneasily, "why do you look at me so strangely? My face
is not new to you, Daisy. You have had time to know it all these years."
Ay, years had passed since our first meeting; and what had he not been to
me since then? My adopted father, my kind guardian, my secure protector,
my faithful friend, my devoted lover! As I thought of all this, and still
looked at him, his kind, handsome face grew dim through gathering tears.
"I will tell him all," I thought; "I will be ingenuous and good; tell him
how truly, how ardently I love him." The words rose to my lips, and died
away unuttered. Is the language in which woman utters such confessions
yet invented? Oh! love and pride, tyrants of her heart, how sharp was
your contest then in mine! He was bending over me with strange tormenting
anxiety in his face. I bowed my head away from his gaze. He half drew me
closer, half pushed me back; his hand sought, then rejected, mine. He saw
my eyes overflowing.
"Oh, Daisy, Daisy!" he exclaimed, "what does this mean?"
"Guess," was my involuntary reply.
"Do not trifle with me," he said, in a tone of passionate entreaty--"do
not."
"Trifle with you! Could I, Cornelius?"
"Prove it then."
He stooped and looked up; for a moment my lips touched his cheek, whilst
his lingered on my brow. Many a time before had Cornelius kissed me; but
this was the first embrace of a love, mutual, ardent, and yet, God knows
it, very pure--ay, far too religiously pure to trouble. And thus it was
all understood--all known--all told--without a word.
When I felt that the unconscious dream of my whole life was fulfilled;
that I was everything to him who had so long been everything to me; when
I looked up into his face, met his look, in which the affection of the
tried friend, and the love of the lover, unequivocally blended, and knew
that no other human being--not even his sister--could claim and fill that
place where my heart had found its home, and that as I loved so was I
loved,--I also felt that I had conquered fate; that I triumphed over by-
gone sorrow, and could defy the might of time. I cried for joy, as I had
often cried for grief on that kind heart which had sheltered my forsaken
childhood and unprotected youth.
"Tears!" he said, with a smile of reproach; and yet he knew well enough
they were not tears of sorrow.
"They will be to me what the rain has been to the night, Cornelius; a
freshening dew."
I went up to the open window; I leaned my brow on the cool iron bar; the
morning air came in pure, chill, and fragrant. I shivered slightly.
Cornelius, who had followed me, saw this, and wanted to close the window.
"Do not," I said; "this cool, keen air is delightful. Then I like to
watch the rising of that sun that thought to see you far on your journey,
and that shall find you here. Besides, bow beautiful our little garden
looks!"
"Then come out into it for awhile."
He took my arm. I yielded. We went down into the garden and paced its
narrow gravel path without uttering a word. There came a slight shower;
we stepped under the old poplar trees; they yielded more than sufficient
shelter. The sun shone through the sparkling drops as they fell, and
whilst the fresh rain came down, the birds overhead sang sweetly under
the cover of young leafy boughs, as if their song could know no ending.
Yes, sweet and near though I knew it to be, it sounded to me as coming
from the depths of some dreamy forest far away. I do not think our garden
had ever looked so fresh, so pleasant, or been so fragrant as when that
shower ceased. The rain-clouds soft and grey, had melted into the vapoury
blue of upper air; the warm sunshine tempered the coolness of the breeze,
the green grass was white and heavy with the dew of night, and bright
with the rain of the morning; the wet gravel sparkled, the dark trunks of
the trees trickled slowly, the brown moss clung closer to the old sun-
dial, the fresh earth smelt sweet, stock, mignionette, wall-flower,
furze, and jessamine yielded their most fragrant odours. Rhododendrons
beaten down by the last night's storm trailed on the earth their gorgeous
masses, whilst sparkling fox-gloves, with a dew-drop to every flower,
still rose straight and tall. We were again walking on. Cornelius
suddenly stopped short, and for the first time spoke.
"Daisy," he said, earnestly, "you are quite sure, are you not?"
"Look at that flower," was my only reply.
It was a crimson peony, heavy with rain. I bent it slightly; from the
delicate petals, from the heart which seemed untouched by a breath, there
poured forth a bright shower of liquid dew.
"What about that flower, Daisy?"
"It is a peony, Cornelius."
"Let it."
"Well, I don't think you can prevent it from being one. Peonies will be
peonies."
"Who wants to interfere with their rights? and what have peonies to do
with our discourse, unless that you look very like one just now? Oh,
Daisy! are you sure you like me well enough to marry me?"
"Don't think, if ever I do such a thing, it shall be for liking,
Cornelius."
"What for, then?"
"To prevent you from marrying any one else."
He still looked uneasy, and yet he might have known that, though it is
sometimes very hard to know where love is, it is always wonderfully easy
to know where he is not.
"What would you have?" I asked, a little impatiently. "Is it the love,
honour, and obey that troubles you? Well, I have loved you all my life,
or very nearly. I honour you more than living creature; as for obedience,
I could obey you all the day long, Cornelius."
"Do you mean to turn out a Griseldis?" he said, uneasily. "What put such
ideas into your head?"
"Remembrance of the time--"
"I knew you would grow filial again," he interrupted, looking provoked,
"instead of answering my question, which was--"
"Concerning your wife," I interrupted, in my turn; "what about her? She
ought to be a proud woman, and it will be her own fault if she is not
happy--ay, a very happy one."
He stroked my hair, and smiled quite pleased.
"I hope so," he said. "And yet you do not know what I mean to do for her,
Daisy. I will paint her pictures that shall beat all the sonnets Petrarch
ever sang to his Laura. I will win her fame and money: I will dress her
as fine as any queen, until my field-flower shall outshine every flower
of the garden. Above all, I will love her as knight of chivalry, or hero
of romance, never loved his lady."
He spoke with jesting, yet very tender flattery. Love can take every
tone, and bend any language to its own meaning.
I know not how long we lingered together in that garden. I was the first
to become conscious of time.
"Where is Kate?" I asked.
"Forgotten," replied her low voice.
She stood beneath the ivied porch; her head a little inclined; one hand
supporting her cheek. She looked down at us with a smile happy, yet not
without sadness.
"Don't think I envy you the pleasant time," she resumed more gaily; "I
like to see people enjoying themselves. When I meet couples in the lanes,
I either get out of the way, or, if I cannot do that, I give them
internally my benediction. 'Go on,' I think to myself, 'go on; you will
never be happier, nor, perhaps, better than you are now. Go on.'"
"We want to go in," said Cornelius, as we ascended the steps.
As I passed by her, Kate arrested me by laying her hand on my shoulder,
and saymg:
"Look at that child! She has not slept all night, and there is not a rose
of the garden half so fresh. It's a nice thing to be young, Cornelius."
She sighed a little, then led the way in to the front parlour, where
breakfast was waiting.
"Already!" said Cornelius.
"Yes, already," she replied, sitting down to pour out the tea: "whilst
you were in the clouds, the world has gone on just the same. Midge, why
don't you sit near him as usual? you are not ashamed of yourself, are
you?"
Ashamed! Oh, no! There is no shame in happiness; and God alone knows how
happy I felt then sitting by him whom I loved, and facing her whom I
loved almost as well. I do not know how I looked, or Cornelius either;
for I did not look at him; but I know that Kate was radiant; that every
time her bright eyes rested on us, they sparkled like diamonds, and that
it touched me to the heart to read the generous, unselfish joy painted on
her handsome face.
We were no sooner alone, than with her habit of continuing aloud whatever
secret train of thought she chanced to be engaged in, Miss O'Reilly said
to me in her most positive manner:
"I am very glad of it."
"Are you, Kate?" I replied, passing my arm around her neck and kissing
her.
"Yes, you coaxing little thing; for he is devotedly fond of you, and I
believe you like him with your whole heart, though it took you so long to
find it out. What would you and he have done without me."
"I don't know, Kate, but how came you to let him think of going?"
"Ah! he quite deceived me in that matter; I never dreamt of it until it
was all settled. It was no use my telling him that if you only knew he
liked you, you would be glad to have him, as indeed any girl in her
senses would. He said you only liked him in a sisterly sort of way, and
would be off. I thought I would find out when he was gone, what sort of a
way it was, but I had not the trouble."
I smiled. She gave me a wistful look and said:
"Ah! you don't want to be his niece now, do you?"
"No, indeed," I promptly answered.
"And I don't wish it either," she replied with a stifled sigh, "time was
when I fretted and repined; when I wished I had been the wife of Edward
Burns, and that his child had been my child; but that is over. I am glad
now that my heart was denied that which it craved so eagerly; that my
youth was cold and lonely; that my sorrow which past, purchased him and
you a happiness which will I trust endure. Oh, Daisy! this is a good
world after all, and with a good God over it; don't you see how the grief
of one is made to work the bliss of another; how because your father and
I were severed, the two children we loved so dearly can be united?"
"I see, Kate," I replied looking up into her face, "that Cornelius is
good; that I, too, am what is called a good girl, and yet that we are two
selfish creatures; that you alone are truly good and noble."
She shook her head with humble denial.
"I am an idolator for all that," she replied, her lips trembling
slightly, "and you are blind if you do not see it. When I lost my lover,
I set my heart on a child--for what are we to do with our hearts, if we
don't love with them?--and he has kept it, and if God, to chastise me,
were to take him from me to-morrow, I feel I should love him as much in
his grave as I do on earth. If it be a sin, I trust to His mercy to
forgive it. Sometimes, when my heart fails me, I cling to the
recollection of His humanity. He who felt so much tenderness for his dear
mother; who loved His brethren so truly; who cherished the beloved
disciple; who wept by the grave of Lazarus, will surely not be very
severe on a poor woman to whose whole life he thought fit to grant but
one delight and one happy love. Do you think he will, Daisy?"
I was too much moved to reply.
"Now, child," she said gaily, "don't cry, or Cornelius, whom I hear
coming down after you, will think I have been scolding my future sister-
in-law."
"And would you not have the right to do so?" I asked, kissing her with
mingled tenderness and reverence.
As she returned the embrace, Cornelius entered, and from the threshold of
the door, looked at us with a delighted smile.