"_The golden hours, on angel wings,
Flew o'er me and my dearie._"
BURNS
The evening that followed was of the brightest and happiest; even the
adieus spoken to the soldier who was just leaving his home did not
sadden it. They were in such a state of exaltation as to see everything
with courageous and hopeful eyes, and sent Robert off with the feeling
that all these horrible realities they had known so long were but bogies
to frighten foolish children, and that he would come back to them
wearing, at the very least, the stars of a major-general. Whatever
sombre and painful thoughts filled Ercildoune's heart he held there,
that no gloom might fall from him upon these fresh young lives, nor
sadden the cheery expectancy of his son.
Surrey, having carried the first line of defence, prepared for a
vigorous assault upon the second. Like all eager lovers, his primary
anxiety was to hear "Yes"; afterwards, the day. To that end he was
pleading with every resource that love and impatience could lend; but
Francesca shook her head, and smiled, and said that was a long way
off,--that was not to be thought of, at least till the war was over, and
her soldier safe at home; but he insisted that this was the flimsiest,
and poorest of excuses; nay, that it was the very reverse of the true
and sensible idea, which was of course wholly on his side. He had these
few weeks at home, and then must away once more to chances of battle and
death. He did not say this till he had exhausted every other entreaty;
but at last, gathering her close to him with his one loving arm,--"how
fortunate," he had before said, "that it is the left arm, because if it
were the other I could not hold you so near my heart!"--so holding her,
he glanced down at the empty sleeve, and whispered, "My darling! who
knows? I have been wounded so often, and am now only a piece of a fellow
to come to you. It may be something more next time, and then I shall
never call you wife. It would make no difference hereafter, I know: we
belong to each other for time and eternity. But then I should like to
feel that we were something more to one another than even betrothed
lovers, before the end comes, if come it does, untimely. Be generous,
dearie, and say yes."
He did not give utterance to another fear, which was that by some device
she might again be taken away from him; that some cruel plan might be
put in execution to separate them once more. He would not take the
risk; he would bind her to him so securely that no device, however
cunning,--no plan, however hard and shrewd,--could again divide them.
She hesitated long; was long entreated; but the result was sure, since
her own heart seconded every prayer he uttered. At last she consented;
but insisted that he should go home at once, see the mother and father
who were waiting for him with such anxious hearts, give to them--as was
their due--at least a part of the time, and then, when her hasty
bride-preparations were made, come back and take her wholly to himself.
Thus it was arranged, and he left her.
Into the mysteries which followed--the mysteries of hemming and
stitching, of tucking and trimming, ruffling, embroidering, of all the
hurry and delicious confusion of an elegant yet hasty bridal
trousseau--let us not attempt to investigate.
Doubtless through those days, through this sweet and happy whirl of
emotion, Francesca had many anxious and painful hours: hours in which
she looked at the future--for him more than for herself--with sorrowful
anticipations and forebodings. But with each evening came a letter,
written in the morning by his dear hand; a letter so full of happy,
hopeful love, of resolute, manly spirit, that her cares and anxieties
all took flight, and were but as a tale that is told, or as a dream of
darkness when the sun shines upon a blessed reality.
He wrote her that he had told his parents of his wishes and plans; and
that, as he had known before, they were opposed, and opposed most
bitterly; but he was sure that time would soften, and knowledge destroy
this prejudice utterly. He wrote as he believed. They were so fond of
him, so devoted to him who was their only child, that he was assured
they would not and could not cast him off, nor hate that which he loved.
He did not know that his father, who had never before been guilty of a
base action,--his mother, who was fine to daintiness,--were both so
warped by this senseless and cruel feeling--having seen Francesca and
known all her beautiful and noble elements of personal character--as to
have written her a letter which only a losel should have penned and an
outcast read. She did not tell him. Being satisfied that they two
belonged to one another; that if they were separated it would be as the
tearing asunder of a perfect whole, leaving the parts rent and
bleeding,--she would not listen to any voice that attempted, nor heed
any hand that strove to drive an entering wedge, or to divide them. Why,
then, should she trouble him by the knowledge that this effort had again
been made, and by those he trusted and honored. Let it pass. The future
must decide what the future must be, meanwhile, they were to live in a
happy present.
He learned of it, however, before he left his home. Finding that neither
persuasions, threats, nor prayers could move him,--that he would be true
to honor and love,--they told him of what they had done; laid bare the
whole intensity of their feeling; and putting her on the one side,
placing themselves on the other, said, "Choose,--this wife, or those who
have loved you for a lifetime. Cleave to her, and your father disowns
you, your mother renounces, your home shuts its doors upon you, never to
open. With the world and its judgment we have nothing to do; that is
between it and you; but no judgment of indifferent strangers shall be
more severe than ours."
A painful position; a cruel alternative; but not for an instant did he
hesitate. Taking the two hands of father and mother into his solitary
one, he said,--"Father, I have always found you a gentleman; mother, you
have shown all the graces of the Christian character which you profess;
yet in this you are supporting the most dishonorable sentiment, the most
infidel unbelief, with which the age is shamed. You are defying the
dictates of justice and the teachings of God. When you ask me to rank
myself on your side, I cannot do it. Were my heart less wholly enlisted
in this matter, my reason and sense of right would rebel. Here, then,
for the present at least, we must say farewell." And so, with many a
heart-ache and many a pang, he went away.
As true love always grows with passing time, so his increased with the
days, and intensified by the cruel heat which was poured upon it. He
realized the torture to which, in a thousand ways, this darling of his
heart had for a lifetime been subjected; and his tenderness and love--in
which was an element of indignation and pathos--deepened with every
fresh revelation of the passing hours. When he came back to her he had
few words to speak, and no airy grace of sentence or caress to bestow;
he followed her about in a curious, shadow-like way, with such a strain
on his heart as made him many a time lift his hand to it, as if to check
physical pain. For her, she was as one who had found a beloved master,
able and willing to lighten all her burdens; a physician, whose
slightest touch brought balm and healing to every aching wound. And so
these two when the time came, spite of the absence of friends who should
have been there, spite of warnings and denunciations and evil
prophecies, stood up and said to those who listened what their hearts
had long before confessed, that they were one for time and eternity;
then, hand in hand, went out into the world.
For the present it was a pleasant enough world to them. Surrey had a
lovely little place on the Hudson to which he would carry her, and
pleased himself by fitting it up with every convenience and beauty that
taste could devise and wealth supply.
How happy they were there! To be sure, nobody came to see them, but then
they wished to see nobody; so every one was well satisfied. The
delicious lovers' life of two years before was renewed, but with how
much richer and deeper delights and blissfulness! They galloped on many
a pleasant morning across miles and miles of country, down rocky slopes,
and through wild and romantic glens. They drove lazily, on summer noons,
through leafy fastnesses and cool forest paths; or sat idly by some
little stream on the fresh, green moss, with a line dancing on the
crystal water, amusing themselves by the fiction that it was fishing
upon which they were intent, and not the dear delight of watching one
another's faces reflected from the placid stream. They spent hours at
home, reading bits of poems, or singing scraps of love-songs, talking a
little, and then falling away into silence; or she sat perched on his
knee or the elbow of his chair, smoothing his sunny hair, stroking his
long, silky mustache, or looking into his answering eyes, till the world
lapsed quite away from them, and they thought themselves in heaven.
An idle, happy time! a time to make a worker sigh only to behold, and a
Benthamite lift his hands in deprecation and despair. A time which would
not last, because it could not, any more than apple-blossoms and May
flowers, but which was sweet and fragrant past all describing while it
endured.
Some _kindly_ disposed person sent Surrey a city paper with an item
marked in such wise as to make him understand its unpleasant import
without the reading. "Come," he said, "we will have none of this; this
owl does not belong to our sunshine,"--and so destroyed and forgot it.
Others, however, saw that which he scorned to read. He had not been into
the city since he called at his father's house, and walked into the
reception room of his aunt, and been refused interview or speech at
either place. "Very well," he thought, "I will go from this painful
inhospitality and coldness to my Paradise"; and he went, and remained.
The only letter he wrote was to his old friend and favorite cousin, Tom
Russell,--who was away somewhere in the far South, and from whom he had
not heard for many a day,--and hoped that he, at least, would not
disappoint him; would not disappoint the hearty trust he had in his
breadth of nature and manly sensibility.
And so, with clouds doubtless in the sky, but which they did not
see,--the sun shone so bright for them; and some discords in the minor
keys which they did not heed,--the major music was so sweet and
intoxicating,--the brief, glad hours wore away, and the time for
parting, with hasty steps, had almost reached and faced them. Meanwhile,
what was occurring to others, in other scenes and among other
surroundings?