“Bright are his yellow locks and sparkling eyes,
And beaming features all, in the fair glow
Of youth.”
The letter being despatched, Lord Arandale and Edmund rejoined the ladies
who were collecting in the drawing-room. Edmund looked into every recess
of every window, and cast a glance over every group, but evidently saw
not the object of his researches. He passed on to the greenhouse, and
at length discovered Julia and Frances collecting some flowers. He went
towards them, offering to assist them; for he had been so much engaged
with Lady Susan and Lord Arandale during breakfast, that he had scarcely
spoken to Julia that morning.
“How is it possible,” said Frances, laughing, “that amid your important
arrangements, you can spare time for an occupation so trifling?”
“Our important arrangements, as you call them,” replied Edmund, smiling
in his turn, “are all completed.”
“Indeed!” said Frances, “and papa and mamma’s consent obtained?”
“Why! what do you know about it, Frances?” asked Edmund, with some
surprise, and colouring at the idea that his benevolent purpose should be
thus made public.
“Oh, we know quite well, I assure you,” she replied playfully.
“Let me do that for you, Julia!” said Edmund, starting forward to assist
her he named, in plucking a branch of geranium, which she was very
awkwardly attempting to reach.
“Good Heavens, Julia! what is the matter?” he exclaimed, catching up her
hand; for in presenting the flower he had just pulled, he perceived that
her countenance expressed the utmost wretchedness; and that her tears,
in despite of an evident struggle to suppress them, were falling fast.
She turned away, drew her hand forcibly out of his, and hurried to a
further part of the greenhouse. He thought of the hand he had seen her
give to Henry; permit him to retain so long, and even raise to his lips;
and a vague sensation of pain and dread came over him. He followed her,
however; he found her hastily drying her eyes. Again she endeavoured to
avoid him.
“I have no right,” he said, detaining her, “to demand your confidence,
Julia; perhaps, I am guilty of impertinence in thus seeking it—withhold
it, if it must be so; but do not make me miserable, by seeming not only
unhappy, but seriously offended with me!” His voice and manner renewed
Julia’s habitual feelings of tenderness.
“I have no desire to make you miserable, Edmund! I wish you, sincerely
wish you all happiness,” she replied, in a scarcely audible voice, “but
do not speak to me now; do not speak to me, just now!”
He endeavoured to take her hand, and was about to reply; but she shrunk
from his touch, and hastened, as for refuge, into the midst of the
company in the drawing-room. He followed, and stood near her in silence.
Frances had quitted the greenhouse, as soon as she made her laughing
speech to Edmund, and, consequently, without perceiving her sister’s
emotion.
At this moment Colonel Murray, of the Moorlands, was announced. He led
by the hand a fine boy of about twelve or thirteen; with fair, curly,
glossy hair; fair skin, glowing cheeks, soft hazel eyes, and a sweet
open expression of countenance; the mouth and smile, as was afterwards
universally observed, very like Edmund’s. He was dressed in the uniform
of one of the Highland hunts, and carried in his hand a cap and plume,
like young Norval’s.
“This is Arthur Oswald, the son of our friend Sir Archibald,” said the
Laird, presenting him to Lord Arandale.
“Indeed!” cried his lordship, taking the boy’s hand, and glancing a look
towards Edmund, which was answered by one of intelligence on his part.
“I am truly happy to see him—fine little fellow! How did you leave your
mamma, my dear? Well, I hope?”
“She was quite well when we came away,” he answered, “but that’s a good
while now.”
The Laird explained, that Arthur had been brought over to the mainland
by his father, who had left him at his, the Laird’s house, since his
first arrival. The Laird added, that he was taking Arthur with him to the
races, and had called at Arandale, for the purpose of joining himself,
if permitted, to their agreeable party. He might have said, further, but
of course he did not, that he had furnished Arthur with the becoming
dress he wore on the occasion. Every one noticed the young stranger in
some kind or complimentary manner; and Lord Arandale, presenting him
particularly to Edmund, asked him if he should like to be a sailor. The
boy answered, with quickness and energy, that he should indeed.
“Then, this gentleman,” said the Earl, “will take you with him, and
teach you to be a sailor; and a good and a great one, if you follow his
example.”
Edmund had already taken Arthur’s hand, drawn him towards him, and seemed
as it were, to appropriate him. The boy now looked up in his face, as
if for a confirmation of what Lord Arandale had said. Edmund smiled
kindly; and Arthur answered the smile by that genuine mark of a child’s
confidence, a soft pressure of the hand that held his. Edmund felt at
the moment, notwithstanding the strangeness of Julia’s manner, that it
was impossible to be quite miserable, while one has the power of doing
any good. This pleasurable impulse called up the natural ambition of
the heart to be happy; and, scarcely conscious why, he turned to Julia,
but found, what he had never found before this morning, that he could
not meet her eye. He moved a step or two, which brought him near her. He
addressed some remark to her; she answered without looking up, affecting
to be very busy searching for something in her reticule.
It must have been, thought Edmund, the imprudence with which I last
night betrayed my feelings, which has thus, upon serious consideration,
offended her; though, at the time, she did not, certainly, show
displeasure. And he sighed heavily. She now raised her eyes, with
involuntary quickness, to his face. She had never seen so much
unhappiness there. She looked at him, for the space of a second, with a
mingled expression of surprise and tenderness, which he could in no way
comprehend. Edmund stooped, and, on pretence of looking over her shoulder
out of a window facing which she stood, he whispered softly:—“I see,
Julia, that the presumption of my manner, last night, has offended you;
justly, I allow; but have some compassion for an involuntary error! Some
pity for—for——” The low and hurried accents of Edmund; the confused state
of Julia’s own feelings; the busy voices of the rest of the party; all
prevented her hearing more than a few occasional words, from which she
collected, only, that Edmund saw her change of manner, and sought to know
the cause. This, of course, she could not explain. “Soon, I must return
to sea,” he continued, finding he could obtain neither look nor word;
“for what foreign station, or for how many years, I know not! Possibly,
I may never see you again, Julia. Do not, then, by a resentment so
determined, so unforgiving, embitter the few short moments to which I
would fondly cling, as the only solace of my solitary, and hopeless
existence!” This last sentence, which, from the growing warmth of his
manner, was uttered in a somewhat more audible tone than the rest, was
all that Julia had distinctly heard.
“Your solitary and hopeless existence, Edmund!” she exclaimed, with a
look and voice of astonishment.
“Yes, Julia; such feelings as mine must be hopeless! it is the only
apology that can be made for their presumption.”
“Lord Arandale has refused his consent,” thought Julia, “and shall I
add to his evident affliction? I imagined him perfectly happy! and that
he had found means to be so, independent of all his first friends; or
I could never have been so unkind to him.” At the conclusion of this
reflection, she looked up with an expression that, for a moment, almost
restored him to happiness.
The company were now filing off, on their way down to the carriages.
Edmund and Julia were the last in the room. She paused, gave him her
hand, and said:—“I once promised you to be always your friend! I
renew that promise now; and I know I can also answer for the unshaken
continuance of Frances’s kind regard. Will this, in any degree, console
you, Edmund, under those mortified and disappointed feelings, of which
you speak so bitterly?” And she spoke a little bitterly herself.
“Oh, yes! It will—it must—it does!” he exclaimed, pressing the offered
hand to his lips. She drew it gently away; but took his arm as they
followed the rest of the party. If he considered it so very wrong even
to hope, she thought, why did he ask her to marry him? and Lady Susan,
herself, had told Frances that he had done so.
Edmund was, or at least believed that he ought to have been, cheered in
one point of view; for Julia appeared to be reconciled to him, appeared
to have pardoned his rashness: but, he was saddened too: indeed, there
was a peculiar dreariness about his present feelings; for it now seemed
to him, that they fully understood each other, and that Julia had
forbid him to hope. Yet, he thought, he had never hoped. What was it,
then, of which he now deplored the loss? Some undefined, unacknowledged
expectations, must have been founded on the pleasure he had so often,
with intoxicating delight, marked in Julia, when he had, by look or
word, betrayed some part of that love, he thought it his duty not to
declare; till his birth should be distinctly ascertained; a contingency
which, when put in high spirits by a smile, he had, sometimes, thought
by no means improbable! Now, Julia knew, (he believed,) the full extent
of his love; and she had showed any thing but gratification. She had,
it is true, mingled with her displeasure at his presumption, a generous
compassion for his sufferings; and she had offered him, mournfully,
but kindly, friendship as a consolation for the hopelessness of the
passion she had yet decidedly checked. And was not Julia’s friendship an
inestimable treasure? Was he not an object of regard, of affection to
her?—Oh, how delightful that idea; were it not blasted by the thought,
that he must, one day, see her bestow warmer, dearer, fonder feelings on
another! on some one, who having all else that this world can give, must
have their abundance crowned by the bliss of possessing Julia’s love! Or
should she ever be Henry’s? He looked on her as he asked himself this
question; but he thought of the mountainous waves of the sea in a storm,
and, for a moment, felt the sinful wish that he might be overwhelmed by
them, ere so terrible an apprehension should be realized!
Julia, as she descended the stairs, and stepped into the carriage,
wondered how Edmund could love a comparative stranger, as Lady Susan
certainly was, so much as to be rendered thus unhappy on her account: but
he was unhappy, and therefore she would never be unkind to him again! She
could not, it was true, have the same pleasure in feeling that excessive
friendship for him now, as when she thought her friendship was all the
happiness he desired: yet, if it was all the happiness he possessed, it
should never be taken from him.
Before the company quitted the drawing-room for the carriages, a trifling
circumstance occurred, which we omitted mentioning in its place. We
shall, however, relate it now, as it may hereafter be remembered with
interest. At the time that Edmund, as we have already described, moved
towards Julia, Henry happened to take up nearly the same relative
position with respect to Arthur, which our hero had filled the moment
before. The boy, who had not noticed the change, laid hold of the side of
Henry’s coat, very gently; and having long had the habit of thinking and
speaking of his father with a degree both of seriousness and of mystery,
on account of his unhappy state of mind, he said in a whisper: “But where
is poor papa?”