I lingered after school was dismissed, to ask permission of Mr. Regulus
to attend the commencement. It was Mrs. Linwood's wish, and of course a
law to me.
"Will you release me one week before the session closes?" I asked, "Mrs.
Linwood does not wish to leave me behind, but I do not care much to go."
"Of course I will release you, my child, but it will seem as if the
flower season were past when you are gone. I wonder now, how I ever
taught without your assistance. I wonder what I shall do when you leave
me?"
"Mrs. Linwood wished me to say to you," said I, quite touched by his
kind, affectionate manner, "that she does not wish me to renew our
engagement. She will take me to town next winter, satisfied for the
present with the discipline I have experienced under your guardian
care."
"So soon!" he exclaimed, "I was not prepared for this."
"So soon, Mr. Regulus? I have been with you one long year."
"It may have seemed long to you, but it has been short as a dream to me.
A very pleasant time has it been, too pleasant to last."
He took up his dark, formidable ferula, and leaned his forehead
thoughtfully upon it.
"And it has been pleasant to me, Mr. Regulus. I dreaded it very much at
first, but every step I have taken in the path of instruction has been
made smooth and green beneath my feet. No dull, lagging hour has dragged
me backward in my daily duties. The dear children have been good and
affectionate, and you, my dear master, have crowned me with loving
kindness from day to day. How shall I convince you of my gratitude, and
what return can I make for your even parental care?"
I spoke earnestly, for my heart was in my words. His unvarying
gentleness and tenderness to me, (since that one fiery shower that
converted for a time the Castalian fountain into a Dead Sea,) had won my
sincere and deep regard. He had seemed lately rather more reserved than
usual, and I valued still more his undisguised expressions of interest
and affection.
"You owe me nothing," said he, and I could not help noticing an unwonted
trepidation in his manner, and on one sallow cheek a deep flush was
spreading. "Long years of kindness, tenfold to mine, could not atone for
the harshness and injustice of which I was once guilty. You will go into
the world and blush like Waller's rose, to be so admired. You will be
surrounded by new friends, new lovers, and look back to these walls as
to a prison-house, and to me, as the grim jailer of your youth."
"No indeed, Mr. Regulus; you wrong yourself and me. Memory will hang
many a sweet garland on these classic walls, and will turn gratefully to
you, as the benefactor of my childhood, the mentor of my growing years."
My voice choked. A strange dread took possession of me, he looked so
agitated, so little like himself. His hand trembled so that it dropped
the ruler, that powerful hand, in whose strong grasp I had seen the pale
delinquent writhe in terror. I hardly know what I dreaded, but the air
seemed thick and oppressive, and I longed to escape into the open
sunshine.
"Gabriella, my child," said he, "wait one moment. I did not think it
would require so much courage to confess so much weakness. I have been
indulging in dreams so wild, yet so sweet, that I fear to breathe them,
knowing that I must wake to the cold realities of life. I know not how
it is, but you have twined yourself about my heart so gradually, so
gently, but so strongly, that I cannot separate you from it. A young and
fragrant vine, you have covered it with beauty and freshness. You have
diffused within it an atmosphere of spring. You thought the cold
mathematician, the stern philosopher could not feel, but I tell thee,
child, we are the very ones that _can_ and _do_ feel. There is as much
difference between our love and the boyish passion which passes for
love, as there is between the flash of the glowworm and the welding heat
that fuses bars of steel. Oh! Gabriella, do not laugh at this
confession, or deem it lightly made. I hope nothing,--I ask nothing; and
yet if you could,--if you would trust your orphan youth to my keeping, I
would guard it as the most sacred trust God ever gave to man."
He paused from intense emotion, and wiped the drops of perspiration from
his forehead, while I stood ready to sink with shame and sorrow. No glow
of triumph, no elation of grateful vanity warmed my heart, or exalted my
pride. I felt humbled, depressed. Where I had been accustomed to look up
with respect, I could not bear to look down in pity, it was so strange,
so unexpected. I was stunned, bewildered. The mountain had lost its
crown,--it had fallen in an avalanche at my feet.
"Oh, Mr. Regulus!" said I, when I at last liberated my imprisoned voice,
"you honor me too much. I never dreamed of such a,--such a distinction.
I am not worthy of it,--indeed I am not. It makes me very unhappy to
think of your cherishing such feelings for me, who have looked up to you
so long with so much veneration and respect. I will always esteem and
revere you, dear Mr. Regulus,--always think of you with gratitude and
affection; but do not, I entreat you, ever allude again to any other
sentiment. You do not know how very miserable it makes me."
I tried to express myself in the gentlest manner possible, but the poor
man had lost all command of his feelings. He had confined them in his
breast so long, that the moment he released them, they swelled and rose
like the genius liberated from the chest of the fisherman, and refused
to return to the prison-house they had quitted. His brows contracted,
his lips quivered, and turning aside with a spasmodic gesture, he
covered his face with his handkerchief.
I could not bear this,--it quite broke my heart. I felt as remorseful as
if every tear he was hiding was a drop of blood. Walking hastily to him,
and laying my hand on his arm, I exclaimed,--
"Don't, my dear master!" and burst into tears myself.
How foolish we must have appeared to a bystander, who knew the cause of
our tears,--one weeping that he loved too well, the other that she could
not love in return. How ridiculous to an uninterested person would that
tall, awkward, grave man seem, in love with a young girl so much his
junior, so childlike and so unconscious of the influence she had
acquired.
"How foolish this is!" cried he, as if participating in these
sentiments. Then removing the handkerchief from his face, he ran his
fingers vigorously through his hair, till it stood up frantically round
his brow, drew the sleeves of his coat strenuously over his wrists, and
straightening himself to his tall height, seemed resolved to be a man
once more. I smiled afterwards, when I recollected his figure; but I did
not then,--thank heaven, I did not smile then,--I would not have done it
for "the crown the Bourbons lost."
Anxious to close a scene so painful, I approached the door though with a
lingering, hesitating step. I wanted to say something, but knew not what
to utter.
"You will let me be your friend still," said he, taking my hand in both
his. "You will not think worse of me, for a weakness which has so much
to excuse it. And, Gabriella, my dear child, should the time ever come,
when you need a friend and counsellor, should the sky so bright now be
darkened with clouds, remember there is one who would willingly die to
save you from sorrow or evil. Will you remember this?"
"Oh, Mr. Regulus, how could I forget it?"
"There are those younger and more attractive," he continued, "who may
profess more, and yet feel less. I would not, however, be unjust. God
save me from the meanness of envy, the baseness of jealousy. I fear I
did not do justice to young Clyde, when I warned you of his attentions.
I believe he is a highly honorable young man. Ernest Linwood,"--he
paused, and his shaded eyes sought mine, with a glance of penetrating
power,--"is, I am told, a man of rare and fascinating qualities. He is
rich beyond his need, and will occupy a splendid position in the social
world. His mother will probably have very exalted views with regard to
the connections he may form. Forgive me if I am trespassing on forbidden
ground. I did not mean,--I have no right,"--
He stopped, for my confusion was contagious. My face crimsoned, even my
fingers were suffused with the rosy hue of shame. Nor was it shame
alone. Indignation mingled with it its deeper dye.
"If you suppose, Mr. Regulus," said I, in a wounded and excited tone,
"that _I_ have any aspirations, that would conflict with Mrs. Linwood's
ambitious views, you wrong me very much. Oh! if I thought that he, that
she, that you, or anybody in the world could believe such a thing"--
I could not utter another word. I remembered Mrs. Linwood's countenance
when she entered the library. I remembered many things, which might
corroborate my fears.
"You are as guileless as the unweaned lamb, Gabriella, and long, long
may you remain so," he answered, with a gentleness that disarmed my
anger. "Mine was an unprompted suggestion, about as wise, I perceive, as
my remarks usually are. I am a sad blunderer. May heaven pardon the pain
I have caused, for the sake of my pure intentions. I do not believe it
possible for a designing thought to enter your mind, or a feeling to
find admittance into your heart, that angels might not cherish. But you
are so young and inexperienced, so unsuspecting and confiding;--but no
matter, God bless you, and keep you forever under his most holy
guardianship!"
Wringing my hand so hard that it ached long afterwards, he turned away,
and descended the steps more rapidly than he had ever done before. In
his excitement he forgot his hat, and was pursuing his way bareheaded,
through the sunny atmosphere.
"He must not go through town in that way, for the boys to laugh at him,"
thought I, catching up his hat and running to the door.
"Mr. Regulus!" I cried, waving it above my head, to attract his
attention.
He started, turned, saw the hat, run his fingers through his long hair,
smiled, and came back. I met him more than half way.
"I did not know that I had left my head, as well as my heart behind,"
said he, with a sickly effort to be facetious; "thank you, God bless you
once again."
With another iron pressure of my aching hand, he dashed his hat on his
lion-like head and left me.
I walked home as one in a dream, wondering if this interview were real
or ideal; wondering if the juice of the milk-white flower, "made purple
by love's wand," had been squeezed by fairy fingers into the eyes of my
preceptor, in his slumbering hours, to cause this strange passion;
wondering why the spirit of love, like the summer wind, stealing softly
through the whispering boughs, breathes where it listeth, and we cannot
tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; and wondering most of all
if--but I cannot describe the thoughts that drifted through my mind,
vague and changing as the clouds that went hurrying after each other
over the deep blue ether.