NEWS OF CHARLES.
AY--in love with Emily! Fiercely now did Julian pour his thoughts that
way; if only hoping to forget murder in another strong excitement.
Julian listened to his mother's counsels; and that silly, cheated woman
playfully would lean upon his arm, like a huge, coy confidante, and fill
his greedy ears (that heard her gladly for very holiday's sake from
fearful apprehensions), with lover's hopes, lover's themes, his Emily's
perfection. Delighted mother--how proud and pleased was she! quite in
her own element, fanning dear Julian's most sentimental flame, and
scheming for him interviews with Emily.
It required all her skill--for the girl clung closely to her guardian:
he, unconscious Argus, never tired of her company; and she, remembering
dear Charles's hint, and dreading to be left alone with Julian, would
persist to sit day after day at her books, music, or needle-work in the
study, charming General Tracy by her pretty Hindoo songs. With him she
walked out, and with him she came in; she would read to him for hours,
whether he snored or listened; and, really, both mother and son were
several long weeks before their scheming could come to any thing. A
_tête-à-tête_ between Julian and Emily appeared as impossible to manage,
as collision between Jupiter and Vesta.
However, after some six weeks of this sort of mining and counter-mining
(for Emily divined their wishes), all on a sudden one morning the
general received a letter that demanded his immediate presence for a day
or two in town; something about prize-money at Puttymuddyfudgepoor.
Emily was too high-spirited, too delicate in mind, to tell her guardian
of fears which never might be realized; and so, with some forebodings,
but a cheerful trust, too, in a Providence above her, she saw the
general off without a word, though not without a tear; he too, that
stern, close man, was moved: it was strange to see them love each other
so.
The moment he was gone, she discreetly kept her chamber for the day, on
plea of sickness; she had cried very heartily to see him leave her--he
had never yet left her once since she could recollect--and thus she
really had a head-ache, and a bad one.
Julian Tracy gave such a start, that he knocked off a cheffonier of
rare china and glass standing at his elbow; and the smash of mandarins
and porcelain gods would have been enough, at any other time, to have
driven his mother crazy.
"Charles alive?" shouted he.
"Yes, Julian--why not? You saw him off, you know: cannot you remember?"
Now to that guilty wretch's mind the fearful notion instantaneously
occurred, that Emily Warren was in some strange, wild way bantering him;
she knew his dreadful secret--"he _had_ seen him off." He trembled like
an aspen as she looked on him.
"Oh yes, he remembered, certainly; but--but where was her letter?"
"Never mind that, Julian; you surely would not read another person's
letters, Monsieur le Chevalier Bayard?"
Emily was as gay at heart that morning as a sky-lark, and her innocent
pleasantry proved her strongest shield. Julian dared not ask to see the
letter--scarcely dared to hope she had one, and yet did not know what to
think. As to any love scene now, it was quite out of the question,
notwithstanding all his mother's hints and management; a new exciting
thought entirely filled him: was he a Cain, a fratricide, or not? was
Charles alive after all? And, for once in his life, Julian had some
repentant feelings; for thrilling hope was nigh to cheer his gloom.
It really seemed as if Emily, sweet innocent, could read his inmost
thoughts. "At any rate," observed she, playfully, "Bayard may take the
postman's privilege, and see the outside."
With that, she produced the ship-letter that had put her in such
spirits, legibly dated some twenty-two days ago. Yes, Charles's hand,
sure enough! Julian could swear to it among a thousand. And he fainted
dead away.
What an astonishing event! how Mrs. Tracy praised her noble-spirited
boy! How the bells rang! and hot water, and cold water, and salts, and
rubbings, and _eau de Cologne_, and all manner of delicate attentions,
long sustained, at length contributed to Julian's restoration. Moreover,
even Emily was agreeably surprised; she had never seen him in so amiable
a light before; this was all feeling, all affection for his brother--her
dear--dear Charles. And when Mrs. Tracy heard what Emily said of
Julian's feeling heart, she became positively triumphant; not half so
much at Charles's safety, and all that, as at Julian's burst of feeling.
She was quite right, after all; he was worthy to be her favourite, and
she felt both flattered and obliged to him for fainting dead away.
"Yes--yes, my dear Miss Warren, depend upon it Julian has fine feelings,
and a good heart." And Emily began to condemn both Charles and herself
for lack of charity, and to think so too.