Once more at Grandison Place! Once more on the breezy height which
commanded the loveliest valley creation ever formed! Light, bloom, joy
came back to eye, cheek, and heart, as I hailed again the scene where
the day-spring of love dawned on my life.
"God made the country."
Yes! I felt this truth in every bounding vein. "God made the
country,"--with its rich sweep of verdant plains, its blue winding
streams, shedding freshness and murmuring music through the smiling
fields; its silver dews, its golden sunsets, and all its luxuriance and
greenness and bloom. The black shadow of the _Tombs_ did not darken this
Eden of my youth.
Mrs. Linwood and Edith--I was with them once more. Mrs. Linwood, in her
soft twilight robe of silver grey; and Edith, with her wealth of golden
locks, and eye of heaven's own azure.
"You must not leave us again," said Mrs. Linwood, as she clasped us both
in her maternal arms. "There are but few of us, and we should not be
separated. Absence is the shadow of death, and falls coldly on the
heart."
She glanced towards Edith, whose beautiful face was paler and thinner
than it was wont to be. She had pined for the brother of whom I had
robbed her; for the world offered her nothing to fill the void left in
the depths of her loving heart. We were all happier together. We cannot
give ourselves up to the dominion of an exclusive passion, whatever it
may be, without an outrage to nature, which sooner or later revenges the
wrong inflicted. With all my romantic love for Ernest, I had often
sighed for the companionship of one of my own sex; and now, restored to
Edith, whom I had always regarded a little lower than the angels, I felt
that if love was more rapturous than friendship, it was not more divine.
They knew that I had suffered. They had sympathized with me, pitied
me,--(if Mrs. Linwood blamed me for imprudence, she never expressed it);
and I felt that they loved me better for having passed under the cloud.
There was no allusion made to the awful events which were present in the
minds of all, on our first reunion. If Mrs. Linwood noticed, that after
the glow of excitement faded from my cheek it was paler than it was wont
to be, she did not tell me so, but her kiss was more tender, her glance
more kind. There was something in her mild, expressive eyes, that I
translated thus:--
"Thank God that another hand than Ernest's has stolen the rose from thy
cheek of youth. Better, far better to be humbled by a father's crimes,
than blighted by a husband's jealousy."
This evening reminded me so much of the first I ever passed with Ernest.
He asked Edith for the music of her harp; and I sat in the recess of the
window, in the shadow of the curtains, through whose transparent drapery
the moonbeams stole in and kissed my brow. Ernest came and sat down
beside me, and my hand was clasped in his. As the sweet strains floated
round us, they seemed to mingle with the moonlight, and my spirit was
borne up on waves of brightness and melody. Always before, when
listening to Edith's angelic voice, I had wished for the same enchanting
power. I had felt that thus I could sing, I could play, had art
developed the gifts of nature, only with deeper passion and sensibility;
but now I listened without conscious desire,--passive, happy, willing to
receive, without desiring to impart. I felt like the pilgrim who, after
a sultry day of weariness, pauses by a cool spring, and, laying himself
down beneath its gushing, suffers the stream to flow over him,--till,
penetrated by their freshness, his soul seems a fountain of living
waters. Oh! the divine rapture of repose, after restlessness and
conflict! I had passed the breakers. Henceforth my life would be calm
and placid as the beams that illumined the night.
And now I am tempted to lay down the pen. I would not weary thee, friend
of my lonely hours, whoever thou art, by a repetition of scenes which
show how poor and weak are the strongest human resolutions, when
temptations assail and passions rise with the swell and the might of the
stormy billows. But if I record weaknesses and errors, such as seldom
sadden the annals of domestic life, it is that God may be glorified in
the humiliation of man. It is that the light of the sun of righteousness
may be seen to arise with healing in his beams, while the mists of error
and the clouds of passion are left rolling below.
Yes! We were all happy for a while, and in the midst of such pure,
reviving influences, I became blooming and elastic as a mountain maid.
Dr. Harlowe was the same kind, genial, warm-hearted friend. Mr. Regulus,
the same--no, he was changed,--improved, softened still more than when
he surprised me by his graces, in my metropolitan home. He looked
several years younger, and a great deal handsomer.
Had Margaret wrought this improvement? Had she indeed supplanted me in
my tutor's guileless heart? I inquired of Edith after the wild creature,
whom I suspected some secret influence was beginning to tame.
"Oh! you have no idea how Madge is improved, since her visit to you,"
she answered. "She sometimes talks sensibly for five minutes at a time,
and I have actually caught her singing and playing a sentimental air.
Mamma says if she were in love with a man of sense and worth, he might
make of her a most invaluable character."
"Mr. Regulus, for instance!" said I.
Edith laughed most musically.
"Mr. Regulus in love! that would be a farce."
"I have seen that farce performed," said Dr. Harlowe, who happened to
come in at that moment, and caught her last words. "I have seen Mr.
Regulus as much in love as--let me see," glancing at me, "as Richard
Clyde."
Much as I liked Dr. Harlowe I felt angry with him for an allusion, which
always called the cloud to Ernest's brow, and the blush to my cheek.
"Do tell me the object of his romantic passion?" cried Edith, who seemed
excessively amused at the idea.
"Am I telling tales out of school?" asked the doctor, looking merrily at
me. "Do you not know the young enchantress, who has turned all the heads
in our town, not excepting the shoemaker's apprentice and the tailor's
journeyman? Poor Mr. Regulus could not escape the fascination. The old
story of Beauty and the Beast,--only Beauty was inexorable this time."
"Gabriella!" exclaimed Edith, with unutterable astonishment; "he always
called her his child. Who would have believed it? Why, Gabriella, how
many victims have your chariot wheels of conquest rolled over?"
"I am afraid if _I_ had not been a married man, she would have added me
to the number," said the doctor, with much gravity. "I am not certain
that Mrs. Harlowe is not jealous, in secret, of my public devotion."
Who would believe that light words like these, carelessly uttered, and
forgotten with the breath that formed them, should rankle like arrows in
a breast where reason was enthroned? But it was even so. The allusion to
Richard Clyde, the revelation of Mr. Regulus' romantic attachment, even
the playful remarks of Dr. Harlowe relative to his wife's jealousy, were
gall and wormwood, embittering the feelings of Ernest. He frowned, bit
his lip, rose, and walked into the piazza. His mother's eyes followed
him with that look which I had so often seen before our marriage, and
which I now understood too well. I made an involuntary movement to
follow him, but her glance commanded me to remain. The doctor, who was
in a merry mood, continued his sportive remarks, without appearing to
notice the darkened countenance and absence of Ernest. I talked and
smiled too at his good-humored sallies, that he might not perceive my
anxious, wounded feelings.
A little while after Mr. Regulus called, and Ernest accompanied him to
the parlor door with an air of such freezing coldness, I wonder it did
not congeal his warm and unsuspecting heart. And there Ernest stood with
folded arms, leaning back against the wall just within the door, stern
and silent, casting a dark shadow on my soul. Poor Mr. Regulus,--now he
knew he had been my lover, he would scarcely permit him to be my friend.
"Oh!" thought I, blushing to think how moody and strange he must seem to
others,--"surely my happiness is based on sand, since the transient
breath of others can shake it from its foundation. If it depended on
myself, I would guard every look, word, and action, with never sleeping
vigilance;--but how can I be secured against the casual sayings of
others, words unmeaning as a child's, and as devoid of harm? I might as
well make cables of water and walls of foam, as build up a fabric of
domestic felicity without confidence as the foundation stone."
As these thoughts arose in my mind, my heart grew hard and rebellious.
The golden chain of love clanked and chafed against the bosom it
attempted to imprison.
"I will not," I repeated to myself, "alienate from me, by coolness and
gloom, the friends who have loved me from my orphan childhood. Let him
be morose and dark, if he will; I will not follow his example. I will
not be the slave of his mad caprices."
"No," whispered _the angel over my right shoulder_, "but you will be the
forbearing, gentle wife, who promised to _endure all_, knowing his
infirmity, before you breathed your wedded vows. You are loved beyond
the sober reality of common life. Your prayer is granted. You dare not
murmur. You have held out your cup for the red wine. There is fire in
its glow. You cannot turn it into water now. There is no divine wanderer
on earth to reverse the miracle of Cana. 'Peace' is woman's watchword,
and heaven's holiest, latest legacy."
As I listened to the angel's whisper, the voices of those around me
entered not my ear. I was as far away from them as if pillowed on the
clouds, whose silver edges crinkled round the moon.
As soon as our guests had departed, Ernest went up to Edith, and putting
his arm round her, drew her to the harp.
"Sing for me, Edith, for my spirit is dark and troubled. You alone have
power to soothe it. You are the David of the haunted Saul."
She looked up in his face suddenly, and leaned her head on his shoulder.
Perhaps at that moment she felt the joy of being to him all that she had
been, before he had known and loved me. He had appealed to her, in the
hour of darkness. He had passed me by, as though I were not there. He
sat down close to her as she played, so close that her fair ringlets
swept against his cheek; and as she sang, she turned towards him with
such a loving smile,--such a sweet, happy expression,--just as she used
to wear! I always loved to hear Edith sing; but now my spirit did not
harmonize with the strains. Again a stinging sense of injustice
quickened the pulsations of my heart. Again I asked myself, "What had I
done, that he should look coldly on me, pass me with averted eye, and
seek consolation from another?"
I could not sit still and listen, for I was left _alone_. I rose and
stole from the room,--stole out into the dewy night, under the heavy,
drooping shade-boughs, and sat down wearily, leaning my head against the
hard, rough bark. Never had I seen a more enchanting night. A thin mist
rose from the bosom of the valley and hovered like a veil of silvery
gauze over its rich depth of verdure. It floated round the edge of the
horizon, subduing its outline of dazzling blue, and rolled off among the
hills in soft, yet darkening convolutions. And high above me, serene and
holy, the moon leaned over a ledge of slate-colored clouds, whose margin
was plated with her beams, and looked pensively and solemnly on the pale
and sad young face uplifted to her own. The stilly dews slept at my
feet. They hung tremulously on the branches over my head, and sparkled
on the spring blossoms that gave forth their inmost perfume to the
atmosphere of night. Every thing was so calm, so peaceful, so intensely
lovely,--and yet there was something deadly and chilling mingled with
the celestial beauty of the scene. The lace clung in damp folds to my
bosom. The hair fell heavy with moisture against my temples.
I heard a step softly crushing the grass near me. I did not look up, for
I thought it was the step of Ernest; but my pulse throbbed with a
quickened motion.
"Gabriella, my child, you must not sit here in this chill damp evening
air."
It was Mrs. Linwood, who took me by the hand and drew me from the seat.
It was not Ernest. He had not missed me. He had not feared for me the
chill dews of night.
"I do not feel cold," I answered, with a slight shudder.
"Come in," she repeated, leading me to the house with gentle force.
"Not there," I said, shrinking from the open door of the parlor, through
which I could see Ernest, with his head leaning on both hands, while his
elbows rested on the back of Edith's chair. She was still singing, and
the notes of her voice, sweet as they were, like the odor of the
night-flowers, had something languishing and oppressive. I hurried by,
and ascended the stairs. Mrs. Linwood followed me to the door of my
apartment, then taking me by both hands, she looked me full in the face,
with a mildly reproachful glance.
"O, Gabriella! if your spirit sink thus early, if you cannot bear the
burden you have assumed, in the bright morning hour of love, how will
you be able to support it in the sultry noon of life, or in the
weariness of its declining day? You are very young,--you have a long
pilgrimage before you. If you droop now, where will be the strength to
sustain in a later, darker hour?"
"I shall not meet it," I answered, trying in vain to repress the rising
sob. "I do not wish a long life, unless it be happier than it now
promises to be."
"What! so young, and so hopeless! Where is the strength and vitality of
your love? The fervor and steadfastness of your faith? My child, you
have borne nothing yet, and you promised to hope all and endure all. Be
strong, be patient, be hopeful, and you shall yet reap your reward."
"Alas! my mother, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
"There is no task appointed to man or woman," she answered, "which may
not be performed, through the power of God and the influences of the
Holy Spirit. Remember this, my beloved daughter; and remember, too, that
the heart which _bends_ will not _break_. Good-night! We had better not
renew this theme. 'Patient continuance in well-doing;' let this be your
motto, and if happiness in this world be not your reward, immortality
and glory in the next will be yours."
I looked after her as she gently retreated, and as the light glanced on
the folds of her silver gray dress, she seemed to me as one of the
shining ones revealed in the pilgrim's vision. At that moment _her_
esteem and approbation seemed as precious to me as Ernest's love. I
entered my chamber, and sitting down quietly in my beloved recess,
repeated over and over again the Christian motto, which the lips of Mrs.
Linwood uttered in parting,--"Patient continuance in well-doing."
I condemned myself for the feelings I had been indulging. I had felt
bitter towards Edith for smiling so sweetly in her brother's face, when
it had turned so coldly from me. I was envious of her power to soothe
the restless spirit I had so unconsciously troubled. As I thus communed
with my own heart, I unbound my hair, that the air might exhale the mist
which had gathered in its folds. I brushed out the damp tresses, till,
self-mesmerized, a soft haziness stole over my senses, and though I did
not sleep, I was on the borders of the land of dreams.