Mr. Regulus still called me "child." We had quite a scene in the academy
one day after the school was dismissed, and I was preparing as usual to
return home.
"Will you give me a few moments' conversation, Miss Gabriella?" said he,
clearing his throat with one of those hems which once sounded so awful.
He looked awkward and disconcerted, while my face flushed with
trepidation. Had I been guilty of any omitted duty or committed offence?
Had I suffered an error on the blackboard to pass unnoticed, or allowed
a mistake in grammar to be unconnected? What _had_ I done?
I stood nervously pulling the fingers of my gloves, waiting for him to
commence the conversation he had sought. Another hem!--then he moved the
inkstand about a foot further from him, for he was standing close to his
desk, as if to gather round him every imposing circumstance, then he
took up the ruler and measured it with his eye, run his finger along the
edge, as if it were of razor sharpness.
"Is he going to punish me?" thought I. "It looks ominous."
I would not assist him by one word; but maintaining a provoking silence,
took up a pair of compasses and made a circle on the green cloth that
covered the desk.
"Miss Gabriella," at length he said, "you must forgive me for taking the
liberty of an old friend. Nothing but the most disinterested regard for
your--your reputation--could induce me to mention a subject--so--so
very--very peculiar."
"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "my reputation, Mr. Regulus?"
I felt the blood bubbling like boiling water, up into my cheek.
"I do not wish to alarm or distress you," he continued, becoming more
self-possessed, as my agitation increased. "You know a young girl, left
without her natural guardians, especially if she is so unfortunate as to
be endowed with those charms which too often attract the shafts of envy
and stir up the venom of malice,"--
"Mr. Regulus!" I interrupted, burning with impatience and indignation,
"tell me what you mean. Has any one dared to slander me,--and for what?"
"No one would dare to breathe aught of evil against you in my presence,"
said he, with great dignity; "but the covert whisper may pass from lip
to lip, and the meaning glance flash from eye to eye, when your friend
and protector is not near to shield you from aspersion, and vindicate
your fame."
"Stop," I exclaimed; "you terrify--you destroy me!"
The room spun round like a top. Every thing looked misty and black. I
caught hold of Mr. Regulus's arm to keep me from falling. Foes in
ambush, glittering tomahawks, deadly scalping-knives, were less terrible
than my dark imaginings.
"Bless me," cried my master, seating me in his great arm-chair and
fanning me with an atlas which he caught from his desk, "I did not mean
to frighten you, my child. I wanted to advise, to counsel you, to
_prevent_ misconstruction and unkind remark. My motives are pure, indeed
they are; you believe they are, do you not?"
"Certainly I do," I answered, passing my hand over my eyes, to clear
away the dark specks that still floated over them; "but if you have any
regard for my feelings, speak at once, plainly and openly. I will be
grateful for any advice prompted by kindness, and expressed without
mystery."
"I only thought," said he, becoming again visibly embarrassed, "that I
would suggest the propriety of your not permitting young Clyde to
accompany you home so often. The extraordinary interest he took in you
as a boy, renders his present attentions more liable to remark. A young
girl in your situation, my child, cannot be too particular, too much on
her guard. College boys are wild fellows. They are not safe companions
for innocence and simplicity like yours."
"And is this all?" I asked, drawing a long breath, and feeling as if
Mont Blanc had rolled from my breast.
"It is."
"And you have heard no invidious remarks?"
"Not yet, Gabriella, but--"
"My dear master," said I, rising with a joyous spring from my chair. "I
thank you from the bottom of my heart for your anxious care of my good
name. But I am sure Mrs. Linwood would not have sanctioned an
impropriety. I have always felt towards Richard as I imagine I would
towards a brother, were I so blest as to have one. He has made my lonely
walks very pleasant by his lively and intelligent conversation. Still, I
do not care to have him accompany me so often. I would rather that he
would not. I will tell him so. I dare say you are right, Mr. Regulus; I
know you are. I know so little of the world, I may offend its rules
without being aware of it."
I felt so unspeakably relieved, so happy that the mountain of slander
which my imagination had piled up was reduced to an _anticipated_
molehill, that my spirits rebounded even to gaiety. I laughed at the
sight of my torn glove, for I had actually pulled off the fingers by my
nervous twitches.
"I thought you were going to apply the spatula. I feared you thought me
guilty of writing another poem, Mr. Regulus; what else could make you
look so formidable?"
"Ah! Gabriella, let bygones be bygones. I was very harsh, very
disagreeable then. I wonder you have ever forgiven me; I have never
forgiven myself. I know not how it is, but it seems to me that a
softening change has come over me. I feel more tenderly towards the
young beings committed to my care, more indulgence for the weaknesses
and errors of my kind. I did not mind, then, trampling on a flower, if
it sprung up in my path; now I would stoop down and inhale its
fragrance, and bless my Maker for shedding beauty and sweetness to
gladden my way. The perception of the beautiful grows and strengthens in
me. The love of nature, a new-born flower, blooms in my heart, and
diffuses a sweet balminess unknown before. Even poetry, my child--do not
laugh at me--has begun to unfold its mystic beauties to my imagination.
I was reading the other evening that charming paraphrase of the
nineteenth Psalm: 'The spacious firmament on high,' and I was
exceedingly struck with its melodious rhythm; and when I looked up
afterwards to the starry heavens, to the moon walking in her brightness,
to the blue and boundless ether, they seemed to bend over me in love, to
come nearer than they had ever done before. I could hear the whisper of
that divine voice, which is heard in the rustling of the forest trees,
the gurgling of the winding stream, and the rush of the mountain
cataract; and every day," he added, with solemnity, "I love man more,
because God has made him my brother."
He paused, and his countenance glowed with the fervor of his feelings.
With an involuntary expression of reverence and tenderness, I held out
my hand and exclaimed,--
"My dear master--"
"You forgive me, then," taking my hand in both his, and burying it in
his large palms; "you do not think me officious and overbearing?"
"O no, sir, I have nothing to forgive, but much to be grateful for;
thank you, I must go, for I have a long walk to take--_alone_."
With an emphasis on the last word I bade him adieu, ran down the steps,
and went on musing so deeply on my singular interview with Mr. Regulus,
that I attempted to walk through a tree by the way-side. A merry laugh
rang close to my ear, and Richard Clyde sprang over the fence right
before me.
"It should have opened and imprisoned you, as a truant dryad," said he.
"Of what _are_ you thinking, Gabriella, that you forget the
impenetrability of matter, the opacity of bark and the incapability of
flesh and blood to cleave asunder the ligneous fibres which oppose it,
as the sonorous Johnson would have observed on a similar occasion."
"I was thinking of you, Richard," I answered with resolute frankness.
"Of me!" he exclaimed, while his eyes sparkled with animated pleasure.
"Oh, walk through all the trees of Grandison Place, if you will honor me
with one passing thought."
"You know you have always been like a brother to me, Richard."
"I don't know exactly how a brother feels. You have taken my fraternal
regard for granted, but I am sure I have never professed any."
"Pardon me, if I have believed actions more expressive than words. I
shall never commit a similar error."
With deeply wounded and indignant feelings, I walked rapidly on, without
deigning to look at one so heartless and capricious. Mr. Regulus was
right. He was not a proper companion. I would never allow him to walk
with me again.
"Are you not familiar enough with my light, mocking way, Gabriella?" he
cried, keeping pace with my accelerated steps. "Do not you know me well
enough to understand when I am serious and when jesting? I have never
professed fraternal regard, because I know a brother cannot feel half
the--the interest for you that I do. I thought you knew it,--I dare not
say more,--I cannot say less."
"No, no, do not say any more," said I, shrinking with indefinable dread;
"I do not want any professions. I meant not to call them forth. If I
alluded to you as a brother, it was because I wished to speak to you
with the frankness of a sister. It is better that you should not walk
with me from school,--it is not proper,--people will make remarks."
"Well, let them make them,--who cares?"
"I care, a great deal. I will not be the subject of village gossip."
"Who put this idea in your head, Gabriella? I know it did not originate
there. You are too artless, too unsuspicious. Oh! I know," he added,
with a heightened color and a raised tone, "you have been kept after
school; you have had a lecture on propriety; you cannot deny it."
"I neither deny nor affirm any thing. It makes no difference who
suggested it. My own judgment tells me it is right."
"The old fellow is jealous," said he with a laugh of derision, "but he
cannot control my movements. The road is wide enough for us both, and
the world is wider still."
"How can you say any thing so absurd and ridiculous?" I exclaimed; and
vexed as I was, I could not help laughing at his preposterous
suggestion.
"Because I know it is the truth. But I really thought you above the fear
of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing
wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble
independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of
breath, a puff of empty air."
"I trust I have sufficient independence to do what is right and
sufficient prudence to avoid, if possible, the imputation of wrong," I
replied, with grave earnestness.
"Oh! upright judge!--oh! excellent young sage!" exclaimed Richard, with
mock reverence. "Wisdom becometh thee so well, I shall be tempted to
quarrel hereafter with thy smiles. But seriously, Gabriella, I crave
permission to walk courteously home with you this evening, for it is the
last of my vacation. To-morrow I leave you, and it will be months before
we meet again."
"I might have spared you and myself this foolish scene, then," said I,
deeply mortified at its result. "I have incurred your ridicule, perhaps
your contempt, in vain. We might have parted friends, at least."
"No, by heavens! Gabriella, not friends; we must be something more, or
less than friends. I did not think to say this now, but I can hold it
back no longer. And why should I? 'All my faults perchance thou
knowest.' As was the boy, as is the youth, so most likely will be the
man. No! if you love me, Gabriella,--if I may look forward to the day
when I shall be to you friend, brother, guardian, lover, all in one,--I
shall have such a motive for excellence, such a spring to ambition, that
I will show the world the pattern of a man, such as they never saw
before."
"I wish you had not said this," I answered, averting from his bright and
earnest eye my confused and troubled glance. "We should be so much
happier as friends. We are so young, too. It will be time enough years
hence to talk of such things."
"Too young to love! We are in the very spring-time of our life,--the
season of blossoms and fragrance, music and love,--oh, daughter of
poetry! is it you who utter such a thought? Would you wait for the
sultry summer, the dry autumn, to cultivate the morning flower of
Paradise?"
"I did not dream you had so much hidden romance," said I, smiling at his
metaphorical language, and endeavoring to turn the conversation in a new
channel. "I thought you mocked at sentiment and poetic raptures."
"Love works miracles, Gabriella. You do not answer. You evade the
subject on which all my life's future depends. Is there no chord in your
heart that vibrates in harmony with mine? Are there no memories
associated with the oak trees of the wood, the mossy stone at the
fountain, the sacred rose of the grave, propitious to my early and
ever-growing love?"
He spoke with a depth of feeling of which I had never thought him
possessed. Sincerity and truth dignified every look and tone. Yes! there
were undying memories, now wakened in all their strength, of the
youthful champion of my injured rights, the sympathizing companion of my
darkest hours; the friend, who stood by me when other friends were
unknown. There was many a responsive chord that thrilled at his voice,
and there was another note, a sweet triumphant note never struck before.
The new-born consciousness of woman's power, the joy of being beloved,
the regal sense of newly acquired dominion swelled in my bosom and
flashed from my eye. But _the master-chord was silent_. I knew, I felt
even then, that there was a golden string, down in the very depths of my
heart, too deep for his hand to touch.
I felt grieved and glad. Grieved that I could not give a full response
to his generous offering,--glad that I had capacities of loving, he,
with all his excellences, could never fill. I tried to tell him what I
felt, to express friendship, gratitude, and esteem; but he would not
hear me,--he would not let me go on.
"No, no; say nothing now," said he impetuously. "I have been premature.
You do not know your own heart. You do love me,--you will love me. You
must not, you shall not deny me the privilege of hope. I will maintain
the vantage ground on which I stand,--first friend, first lover, and
even Ernest Linwood cannot drive me from it."
"Ernest Linwood!" I exclaimed, startled and indignant. "You know he can
never be any thing to me. You know my immeasurable obligations to his
mother. His name shall be sacred from levity."
"It is. He is the last person whom I would lightly name. He has
brilliant talents and a splendid position; but woe to the woman who
places her happiness in his keeping. He confides in no one,--so the
world describes him,--is jealous and suspicious even in
friendship;--what would he be in love?"
"I know not. I care not,--only for his mother's and Edith's sake. Again
I say, he is nothing to me. Richard, you trouble me very much by your
strange way of talking. You have no idea how you have made my head ache.
Please speak of common subjects, for I would not meet Mrs. Linwood so
troubled, so agitated, for any consideration. See how beautiful the
sunlight falls is the lawn! How graceful that white cloud floats down
the golden west! As Wilson says:--
'Even in its very motion there is rest.'"
"Yes! the sunlight is very beautiful, and the cloud is very graceful,
and you are beautiful and graceful in your dawning coquetry, the more so
because you know it not. Well--obedience to-day, reward to-morrow,
Gabriella. That was one of my old copies at the academy."
"I remember another, which was a favorite of Mr. Regulus--
'To-morrow never yet
On any human being rose and set.'"
A few more light repartees, and we were at Mrs. Linwood's gate.
"You will not come in?" said I, half asserting, half interrogating.
"To be sure I will. Edith promised me some of her angelic harp music. I
come like Saul to have the evil spirit of discontent subdued by its
divine influence."
Richard was a favorite of Mrs. Linwood. Whether it was that by a woman's
intuition she discovered the state of feeling existing between us, or
whether it was his approaching departure, she was especially kind to him
this evening; she expressed a more than usual interest in his future
prospects.
"This is your last year in college," I heard her say to him. "In a few
months you will feel the dignity and responsibility of manhood. You will
come out from the seclusion of college life into the wide, wide world,
and of its myriad paths, so intricate, yet so trodden, you must choose
one. You are looking forward now, eagerly, impatiently, but then you
will pause and tremble. I pity the young man when he first girds himself
for the real duties of life. The change from thought to action, from
dreams to realities, from hope to fruition or _disappointment_, is so
sudden, so great, he requires the wisdom which is only bought by
experience, the strength gained only by exercise. But it is well," she
added, with great expression, "it is well as it is. If youth could
command the experience of age, it would lose the enthusiasm and zeal
necessary for the conception of great designs; it would lose the
brightness, the energy of hope, and nothing would be attempted, because
every thing would be thought in vain. I did not mean to give you an
essay," she said, smiling at her own earnestness, "but a young friend on
the threshold of manhood is deeply interesting to me. I feel constrained
to give him my best counsels, my fervent prayers."
"Thank you, dear Madam, a thousand times," he answered his countenance
lighted up with grateful pleasure; "you do not know what inspiration
there is in the conviction that we are cared for by the pure and the
good. Selfish as we are, there are few of us who strive to excel for
ourselves alone. We must feel that there are some hearts, who bear us in
remembrance, who will exult in our successes, and be made happier by our
virtues."
He forgot himself, and though he addressed Mrs. Linwood, his eye sought
mine, while uttering the closing words. I was foolish enough to blush at
his glance, and still more at the placid, intelligent smile of Mrs.
Linwood. It seemed to say,
"I understand it all; it is all right, just as it should be. There is no
danger of Richard's being forgotten."
I was provoked by _her_ smile, _his_ glance, and my own foolish blush.
As for him, he really did seem inspired. He talked of the profession he
had chosen as the noblest and the best, a profession which had commanded
the most exalted talents and most magnificent geniuses in the world. He
was not holy enough for the ministry; he had too great reverence and
regard for human life to be a physician; but he believed nature had
created him for a lawyer, for that much abused, yet glorious being, an
honest lawyer.
I suppose I must have been nervous, in consequence of the exciting
scenes through which I had passed, but there was something in his florid
eloquence, animated gestures, and evident desire to make a grand
impression, that strangely affected my risibles; I had always thought
him so natural before. I tried to keep from laughing; I compressed my
lips, and turning my head, looked steadily from the window, but a sudden
stammering, then a pause, showed that my unconquerable rudeness was
observed. I was sobered at once, but dared not look round, lest I should
meet Mrs. Linwood's reproving glance. He soon after asked Edith for a
parting song, and while listening to her sweet voice, as it mingled with
the breezy strains of the harp, my excited spirit recovered its
equilibrium. I thought with regret and pain, of the levity, so unwonted
in me, which had wounded a heart so frank and true, and found as much
difficulty in keeping back my tears, as a moment before I had done my
laughter.
As soon as Edith had finished her song, he rose to take leave. He came
to me last, to the little recess in the window where I stood, and
extended his hand as he had done to Mrs. Linwood and Edith. He looked
hurt rather than angry, disappointed rather than sad.
"Forgive me," said I, in a low voice; "I value your friendship too much
to lose it without an effort."
The tears were in my eyes; I could not help it. I was sorry, for they
expressed far more than I meant to convey. I knew it at once by the
altered, beaming expression of his countenance.
"Give me smiles or tears, dear Gabriella," he answered, in the same
undertone; "only do not forget me, only think of me as I wish to be
remembered."
He pressed my hand warmly, energetically, while uttering these words;
then, without giving me time to reply, bowed again to Mrs. Linwood and
left the room.
"A very fine, promising young man," said Mrs. Linwood, with emphasis.
"A most intelligent, agreeable companion," added the gentle Edith,
looking smilingly at me, as if expecting me to say something.
"Very," responded I, in a constrained manner.
"Is that all?" she asked, laying her soft, white hand on my shoulders,
and looking archly in my face; "is that all, Gabriella?"
"Indeed, you are mistaken," said I, hastily; "he is nothing more,--and
yet I am wrong to say that,--he has been,--he is like a brother to me,
Edith, and never will be any thing more."
"Oh, these brother friends!" she exclaimed, with a burst of musical
laughter, "how very near they seem! But wait, Gabriella, till you see
_my_ brother,--he is one to boast of."
"Edith!" said her mother. Edith turned her blue eyes from me to her
mother, with a look of innocent surprise. The tone seemed intended to
check her,--yet what had she said?
"You should not raise expectations in Gabriella which will not be
realized," observed Mrs. Linwood, in that quiet tone of hers which had
so much power. "Ernest, however dear he may be to us as a son and
brother, has peculiar traits which sometimes repel the admiration of
strangers. His impenetrable reserve chills the warmth of enthusiasm,
while the fitfulness of his morals produces constant inquietude. He was
born under a clouded star, and the horoscope of his destiny is darkened
by its influence."
"I love him better for his lights and shadows," said Edith, "he keeps
one always thinking of him."
"When would this shadowy, flashing being appear, who kept one always
thinking of him?"