"_'Tis an old tale, and often told._"
SIR WALTER SCOTT
That evening some people who were near them were talking about it, and
that made Tom ask Clara if her friend was in the habit of doing
startling things.
"Should you think so to look at her now?" queried Clara, looking across
the room to where Miss Ercildoune stood.
"Indeed I shouldn't," Tom replied; and indeed no one would who saw her
then. "She's as sweet as a sugar-plum," he added, as he continued to
look. "What does she mean by getting off such rampant discourses? She
never wrote them herself,--don't tell _me_; at least somebody else put
her up to it,--that strong-minded-looking teacher over yonder, for
instance. _She_ looks capable of anything, and something worse, in the
denouncing way; poor little beauty was her cat's-paw this morning."
"O Tom, how you talk! She is nobody's cat's-paw. I can tell you she does
her own thinking and acting too. If you'd just go and do something
hateful, or impose on somebody,--one of the waiters, for
instance,--you'd see her blaze up, fast enough."
"Ah! philanthropic?"
Clara looked puzzled. "I don't know; we have some girls here who are all
the time talking about benevolence, and charity, and the like, and they
have a little sewing-circle to make up things to be sold for the church
mission, or something,--I don't know just what; but Francesca won't go
near it."
"Democratic, then, maybe."
"No, she isn't, not a bit. She's a thorough little aristocrat: so
exclusive she has nothing to say to the most of us. I wonder she ever
took me for a friend, though I do love her dearly."
Tom looked down at his bright little sister, and thought the wonder was
not a very great one, but didn't say so; reserving his gallantries for
somebody else's sister.
"You seem greatly taken with her, Tom."
"I own the soft impeachment."
"Well, you'll have a fair chance, for she's coming home with me. I wrote
to mamma, and she says, bring her by all means,--and Mr. Ercildoune
gives his consent; so it is all settled."
"Mr. Ercildoune! is there no Mrs. E.?"
"None,--her mother died long ago; and her father has not been here, so I
can't tell you anything about him. There: do you see that
elegant-looking lady talking with Professor Hale? that is her aunt, Mrs.
Lancaster. She is English, and is here only on a visit. She wants to
take Francesca home with her in the spring, but I hope she won't."
"Why, what is it to you?"
"I am afraid she will stay, and then I shall never see her any more."
"And why stay? do you fancy England so very fascinating?"
"No, it is not that; but Francesca don't like America; she's forever
saying something witty and sharp about our 'democratic institutions,' as
she calls them; and, if you had looked this morning, you'd have seen
that she didn't sing The Star-Spangled Banner with the rest of us. Her
voice is splendid, and Professor Hale wanted her to lead, as she often
does, but she wouldn't sing that, she said,--no, not for anything; and
though we all begged, she refused,--flat."
"Shocking! what total depravity! I wonder is she converting Surrey to
her heresies."
No, she wasn't; not unless silence is more potent than words; for after
they had danced together Surrey brought her to one of the great windows
facing towards the sea, and, leaning over her chair, there was stillness
between them as their eyes went out into the night.
A wild night! great clouds drifted across the moon, which shone out
anon, with light intensified, defining the stripped trees and desolate
landscape, and then the beach, and
"Marked with spray
The sunken reefs, and far away
The unquiet, bright Atlantic plain,"
while through all sounded incessantly the mournful roar of buffeting
wind and surging tide; and whether it was the scene, or the solemn
undertone of the sea, the dance music, which a little while before had
been so gay, sounded like a wail.
How could it be otherwise? Passion is akin to pain. Love never yet
penetrated an intense nature and made the heart light; sentiment has its
smiles, its blushes, its brightness, its words of fancy and feeling,
readily and at will; but when the internal sub-soiling is broken up, the
heart swells with a steady and tremendous pressure till the breast feels
like bursting; the lips are dumb, or open only to speak upon indifferent
themes. Flowers may be played with, but one never yet cared to toy with
flame.
There are souls that are created for one another in the eternities,
hearts that are predestined each to each, from the absolute necessities
of their nature; and when this man and this woman come face to face,
these hearts throb and are one; these souls recognize "my master!" "my
mistress!" at the first glance, without words uttered or vows
pronounced.
These two young lives, so fresh, so beautiful; these beings, in many
things such antipodes, so utterly dissimilar in person, so unlike, yet
like; their whole acquaintance a glance on a crowded street and these
few hours of meeting,--looked into one another's eyes, and felt their
whole nature set each to each, as the vast tide "of the bright, rocking
ocean sets to shore at the full moon."
These things are possible. Friendship is excellent, and friendship may
be called love; but it is not love. It may be more enduring and placidly
satisfying in the end; it may be better, and wiser, and more prudent,
for acquaintance to beget esteem, and esteem regard, and regard
affection, and affection an interchange of peaceful vows: the result, a
well-ordered life and home. All this is admirable, no doubt; an owl is a
bird when you can get no other; but the love born of a moment, yet born
of eternity, which comes but once in a lifetime, and to not one in a
thousand lives, unquestioning, unthinking, investigating nothing,
proving nothing, sufficient unto itself,--ah, that is divine; and this
divine ecstasy filled these two souls.
Unconsciously. They did not define nor comprehend. They listened to the
sea where they sat, and felt tears start to their eyes, yet knew not
why. They were silent, and thought they talked; or spoke, and said
nothing. They danced; and as he held her hand and uttered a few words,
almost whispered, the words sounded to the listening ear like a part of
the music to which they kept time. They saw a multitude of people, and
exchanged the compliments of the evening, yet these people made no more
impression upon their thoughts than gossamer would have made upon their
hands.
"Come, Francesca!" said Clara Russell, breaking in upon this, "it is not
fair for you to monopolize my cousin Will, who is the handsomest man in
the room; and it isn't fair for Will to keep you all to himself in this
fashion. Here is Tom, ready to scratch out his eyes with vexation
because you won't dance with him; and here am I, dying to waltz with
somebody who knows my step,--to say nothing of innumerable young ladies
and gentlemen who have been casting indignant and beseeching glances
this way: so, sir, face about, march!" and away the gay girl went with
her prize, leaving Francesca to the tender mercies of half a dozen young
men who crowded eagerly round her, and from whom Tom carried her off
with triumph and rejoicing.
The evening was over at last, and they were going away. Tom had said
good night.
"You are to be in New York, at my uncle's, Clara tells me."
"It is true."
"I may see you there?"
For answer she put out her hand. He took it as he would have taken a
delicate flower, laid his other hand softly, yet closely, over it, and,
without any adieu spoken, went away.
"Tom always declared Willie was a little queer, and I'm sure I begin to
think so," said Clara, as she kissed her friend and departed to her
room.