TWO YOUNG HEARTS.
Thrown together as we were in that great and lonely house, meeting so
often at meals and elsewhere, it was impossible for us to escape
being mutually attracted; "for in youth," as some one says, "it seems
so natural to love and be beloved, that we scarcely know how to value
the first devotion of the entire and trusting heart;" and so it
proved with one of us.
The secluded neighbourhood of Applewood,--the state of her aunt's
health, together with that lady's eccentric and severe habits and
strange views of life and of the world, caused her society to be
little courted; thus, Amy saw few other visitors than Macfarisee, and
other pious sinners, who occupied high places in the synagogue
presided over by the Reverend Mr. Pawkie, and none of whom were
famous for hiding their candles "under a bushel," preferring to set
them on the very summit thereof; consequently, my sojourn at
Applewood, whatever the purpose that sent me there, was rather an
event in the lonely life of the young girl.
Since those days, I have told others--many others--whose names may
never appear in this chequered narrative, that I loved them, and each
avowal came more easy from my lips than the last; but it seemed to me
as if the link was not so tender, the faith was not so deep, or the
love so true, as those I bore for bonnie Amy Lee.
When she could steal from her aunt's room, we were always together,
for Amy knitted bead-purses, made up significant bouquets from the
conservatory, read novels, and when we interchanged _underlined_
passages from the poets, showed she had talents for flirtation equal
to most young ladies. A week slipped away without any tidings
arriving from my employers, and without the arrival of Colonel Rose
from India, to raise the siege which has been so long and so
successfully laid to his sister-in-law, to whom his deceased brother
had so foolishly given the entire control of all he had acquired in
the Carnatic, where, at the head of his sepoys, he had bombarded the
nabob and looted the dingy natives to some purpose and to some profit.
The life I led was entirely new to me. I was daily associating with
this charming young girl, at an age when first the female form begins
to awaken new and undefined ideas of delight in the mind of a
half-grown youth, and it was impossible for me not to feel all its
influences.
In the early morning, when the sun rose above the hills, half veiled
in clouds of purple and of gold, and when the battlemented castle,
the old grey mansions, and churches of the distant city, seemed to
float amid the silver mist that rose from the dewy hollows, we
rambled together in the walks of the garden, or on the smooth green
velvet lawn, when the first buoyant breeze came over the upland
slope, and when the first beam of the tremulous sunshine lit up the
dewy leaves; when the birds twitted from branch to branch, shaking
off the dew-like diamond drops, and we felt our breasts expand, and
our young hearts grow glad and joyous, we knew not why, though poor
Amy Lee was often pale with the long vigils she spent by the sick-bed
of her aunt. The active mind and real goodness of heart possessed by
Amy lent a living light to her eyes and to her features, filling them
with a beauty beyond what they might otherwise have possessed.
We were daily together in the sunny little breakfast-parlour, which
opened into the brightly-flowered shelves of the conservatory; and
then Amy, clad in the most becoming of frilled morning dresses, with
her little white hands poured out my coffee, &c., and charmingly did
the honours of our little table--and then, thereafter in wandering
and in dreams, would pass the day, until evening, when--thank
heaven!--the old dame upstairs was cosily tucked in for the night;
and then we rambled through the long avenues and evergreen
shrubberies, while the brilliant moon shed her silver rays athwart
the tall lines of aged sycamores, around which the tendrils of the
dark ivy clung; and when the diamond stars shone above in the purest
of ether, and we dreamed on, and talked of a thousand things, or
often were silent, for at times silence is more eloquent than words,
while only the breeze stirred the foliage overhead, and all else was
hushed save the beating of our hearts--amid circumstances so
conducive to the growth of boyish love and to philandering, who the
deuce could resist the passion? Certainly not a day-dreamer like
Oliver Ellis.
A second week had nearly elapsed when I received a letter from
Macfarisee, announcing, in his curt fashion, that the sooner I
returned to town the better, with the papers he had left me to
prepare--and to tell Miss Lee that Colonel Rose had arrived in London.
The papers! Until then I had forgotten all about them; and then
there was the colonel--for reasons of my own, I felt quite as anxious
about him as the worthy conveyancer Macfarisee could have done.
"And what is the colonel, Amy?" I asked, as we sat in a seat of the
conservatory, with my arm round her waist, her cheek resting on my
shoulder, and her thick curls half enveloping my face.
"An officer of Indian cavalry. I know nothing more."
"Coming home with a fortune--gout in his legs, and cotton in his
ears; a blue coat with brass buttons--a yellow face and a bamboo
cane."
"Why so?"
"All colonels who come from India appear so."
"Nay," said she, looking up with her droll eyes, "he is a handsome
young dragoon."
"Young!"
"His portrait is in the parlour."
"Ah, I remember; but it must have been taken long ago."
"He was nearly twenty years younger than his brother, my uncle; and
it has been arranged by my aunt and Mr. Macfarisee, that he takes me
out to India with him when he returns."
"Wherefore to India, Amy?" I asked in a quavering voice, as my bubble
seemed on the point of dissolving.
"Because they say I am alone here."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Did they not add, that all European girls--especially pretty
ones--make good marriages there?"
"Well," said Amy laughing, "I confess they did."
"I would kill your husband if I saw him!" said I, while a gesture of
sadness and impatience escaped me.
"There--there now, don't be cross, dear Oliver, and I will say
nothing to offend you again," said the playful girl, placing her soft
little hands on each of my cheeks, and pressing her cherry lips to
mine. "Don't speak so, pray."
"And this dreary task I have to do--to copy those lists of plate,
pictures, and rubbish,--I shall never get on with them!" I exclaimed
with impatience, as a loathing for business returned to me.
"Not unless you begin--but I shall be so glad to help you."
"Thanks, dearest Amy."
"Here are the steward's and house-keeper's books, which contain all
the information you require, and there is my desk in the parlour--it
is open; to work, then, at once, and in a few minutes I will rejoin
you."
"So deluded and unsuspecting!" thought I, while seating myself at her
desk, as she lightly hastened to attend her querulous patient, and I
dipped my pen in the ink-stand, and dreamily turned over a sheet or
two of paper, and saw before me--what?--the identical will which I
supposed to have been committed to Amy's custody, and which assigned
Applewood and all it contained to Macfarisee and the heirs of his
body, and which Amy had never seen, as since that night she had never
opened her desk.
Until then, in the delightful dream of the passed days, I had almost
forgotten the will and all about it; and now, it would seem, that in
my haste and confusion on the night I first came to Applewood, I had
folded, sealed up, and addressed a sheet of _blank_ note paper, the
exact size of the holograph will, while leaving that document open,
among the writing materials in Miss Lee's desk. Here was a fortunate
mistake.
For a moment I was bewildered by this startling discovery. My first
impulse was to open the old envelope, and reseal it, as originally
directed by the orders of Macfarisee, but I must have torn the
envelope through his _initials_; my second impulse was to read over
once again the contents of the will; then, as the whole web of
hypocrisy and wrong unfolded itself more vividly before me, and the
sweet face of Amy, on one hand, was contrasted with the odious idea
of Macfarisee on the other, I twisted up the paper, to procure which
he had spent years of prayer and hypocrisy, fawning and twaddle. I
then tossed it into the fire, and in a moment it was consumed!