THE LOVERS.
“A brow of beautiful, yet earnest thought,
A form of manly grace.”
SIGOURNEY.
“That fearful love which trembles in the eyes,
And with a silent earthquake shakes the soul.”
DRYDEN.
They sat under the shed of the piazza at Heath Hall—Raymond and Hagar—in
the same piazza that had been the stage of so many scenes of
selfishness, tyranny, and violence—of weak resistance, or of weaker
compliance—across the floor of which the long shadow of Withers had been
thrown as he passed in his ghostly wooing of Sophie; before the steps of
which the pale wanderer had paused to warn in her flight towards
death—through which the corpse of the sinner, sufferer, and suicide, had
been borne to the inquest—in which the declaration of love and
despairing parting had occurred between Sophie Churchill and Augustus
Wilde—through which Raymond had flown to pick up Hagar, when in maniac
violence Mr. Withers had hurled her through the open window—lastly,
through which the corpse of the poor lunatic had been carried, the
shadow seeming to pass from the house at the same time. All was very
quiet now. It was Spring, and the moon was shining down through the
trellis work and vines, and the moonlight, agitated by the shadows of
the leaves that quivered in the breeze, trembled on the floor. They sat
together on the bench at one of the extremities of the piazza. Hagar sat
erect—leaned back against the balustrade; her fingers were slightly
clasped, and her fierce eyes burning into the opposite vines. Yet the
wild girl was very gentle now; the brave girl timid; her venture was—not
life and limb—that Hagar would at any time risk, with a kindling, not a
smouldering cheek; her venture was—her affections!—that heart, once so
keenly sensitive—that heart which in infancy had been stung and
embittered until it had at last grown stiff as any other muscle under
the action of any other bitter tonic poison! that among the forest rocks
and streams had grown so healthy! so joyous! It was such a free, brave,
leaping heart, that its prison-chest would scarce contain it!—it would
leap, though, and soar to the clouds!—it did send its owner on horseback
bounding over awful chasms, leaping five-barred gates, thundering down
frightful descents, and sing with gladness when the feat was done! But
now this jubilant heart was slowly trembling like a balloon in its
descent to earth, or a wounded bird that slowly flapping its wings
falls, and falls. Its wild liberty was going—gone. Yes, her liberty of
thought and action was gone; no one ventured to advise, to reprove, to
oppose the young mistress of Heath Hall; yet she felt reproof,
opposition, powerfully. There were no substantial fetters of steel or
iron on her slender wrists and ankles, yet the fetters encircled her
free limbs notwithstanding! Listen, dear reader, while I tell you how
Hagar—queen of woods and waves—Hagar, _là lionnesse de chase_,
discovered that though no one rebuked her by word, gesture, or glance,
she was no longer her own mistress; that she had to contend for her
freedom, not “with flesh and blood,” but with powers and principalities
of—something or other! There had been a high day at the Heath; under the
auspices of Master Gusty May the hounds had met early. There had been a
great chase, quite a steeple chase; a neck-or-nothing affair; and all
day long, over hill and dale, rock and brake, the hunting had thundered,
and still Hagar, the slight agile girl, on her flying black steed, had
kept the advance; and still, with wild mirth and fearless defiance, she
had cheered them forward! down the most precipitous steeps, through the
most violent torrents, over the most frightful chasms, until the brush
was taken. The hunters dispersed, and many of them rode over to Heath
Hall, in company with Gusty May and Hagar. And there when all lips were
carelessly, mirthfully speaking of her feats of horsemanship that day,
and the dark girl’s cheek kindled more with the proud consciousness of
power than with pleasure at their admiration, she sought Raymond’s face.
Raymond never joined these hunts, his tastes did not lie that way. She
sought Raymond’s countenance at the very moment that some one spoke of
her leap across “Devil’s Gorge.” She sought Raymond’s countenance half
in doubt. He heard—she felt he did, although his eyes were fixed upon
the book before him. He disapproved—she felt, with a strange pain, a
strange sense of loss that he did, although no glance, gesture, or frown
betrayed rebuke. And somehow, all Hagar’s gladness escaped in a long
drawn sigh! She felt not quite so much of a young lioness as she had a
moment since; and the presence of the company annoyed her, and she
wished from her soul that they would eat their suppers and go along
home; she wished to hear Raymond speak to her alone, that she might know
how much she had lost, and perchance recover it. Well, at last they did
go, and Hagar, after, in the Maryland manner, seeing the last guest to
the door herself, came back in her riding habit, which she had not yet
had time to change—she came back, that slight, dark girl, looking so
elegant in her graceful black habit, her shining blue-black ringlets
glittering down her crimson cheek; her gleaming eyes and teeth were
veiled and covered, one by the purple lips, the other by the long black
fringes; how gentle she seemed now, gentle as the half-dozing
leopardess, with her tusks and claws covered with the softest fur. And
she _was_ gentle just now, she glided softly near Raymond and stood by
him, so humbly! He did not see her attitude or expression as she stood a
little behind and on one side of him, but he felt her there, turned
softly, and passing his hand gently around her shoulders drew her down
to his side. They were on the sofa between the two windows, and the
light of the candles on the mantel-piece fell upon the picture—he drew
her small and elegant head down upon his bosom with the radiant face
turned towards him, and he gazed down on it as though his soul would
escape through breath and glance, and die upon it. She could not meet
those tender deep blue eyes, fixed so earnestly on her face; her black
eye-lashes fell upon her crimson cheeks, and her brow burned; he stooped
till his golden curls mingled with her black ringlets, and pressed his
lips to hers. Quickly she whirled her head from under his arm, but
continued to sit by him; he was silent, thoughtful, while he held her
hand and pressed it from time to time.
“Raymond!” at last she said. “Love!”
“What is the matter?”
“Why, dearest Raymond, you are grave, unusually grave—will you tell me
the reason?”
“If my Hagar, in her deepest heart, is conscious of having given me
cause for pain, is not that enough?”
The girl turned her glowing cheek and heaving bosom away from him; her
heart was struggling violently with its chains, she did not speak for
some time. At last he said—
“Have I offended you; have I wounded you, Hagar?”
“No—no—_neither_—you are too gentle and generous to do either, but I
have hurt myself in your estimation.”
He drew her to his bosom in the gentlest embrace, and bowed his soft
cheek upon her face so slowly, tenderly; but she broke from his loving
hold with a strangled sob and escaped to her eyrie. Yes, it was too
true, her liberty was gone. The caress of love had riveted the chain of
bondage about the maiden’s will—the kiss of love had left the mark of
ownership upon the maiden’s cheek. Yes, the wild falcon was caught in
the jesses. True, hers was the most gentle captor in the world, it was
the gentleness that disarmed her, the tenderness that subdued her; still
she _was_ caught, disarmed, subdued, and she did not like it—she could
have reproached her own heart as though it had been a traitor, sitting
up before her. Why, she softly inquired of herself, why should Raymond’s
good or ill opinion bring _her_ joy or pain who utterly defied all other
opinion? She could not tell, she could neither break her fetters nor
understand how they came to be riveted so fast—verily, she was like the
young wild horse of the prairie struggling with the lasso around her
neck, unknowing how it came there, unable to shake it off. This feature
in love was new to her; this subjugation of the will, this thorn in the
rose, and it rankled not a little. She would do as she pleased, she said
to herself. Sophie had never controlled her; Emily had never controlled
her; and her horse’s hoofs had naturally and very unconsciously spurned
dust and defiance in the faces of those who had pursued her with blame.
Now comes this power stealing into her bosom, and gently, so gently, yet
so tightly, winding round and round her free heart, so that in its wild
throbs it bruised itself against the pressure. Yes, she _would_ do as
she pleased; she would ride another hunt if only to convince herself
that she might do so. And she did so; yet when flying over the moor or
heath, when thundering down some declivity, or spurring her horse to
some fearful leap, a hand of air would seem to fall upon her wrist
arresting it, a voice of air fall on her ears forbidding her, and
impatiently, like a young courser throwing up his head and champing the
bit, she would shake off the hand and voice of air, and take the leap;
but then—a pain would drop and sink heavily, more heavily, upon her
spirits, weighing them utterly down—no more glad triumph! no more waving
of the cap, or _if_ the cap was waved it was in defiance of the heart
sinking like a plumb-weight through the bosom. “I _will_ do as I
please,” many times she would say to herself. “Well, who hinders you?”
“herself,” would say to her; “not Raymond, certainly, he never attempts
such a thing, he only _suffers_ when he sees you thus.” So Hagar
struggled against the power that was subduing her. It was when this
struggle was nearly over that Hagar and Raymond sat in the piazza under
the moonbeams, shining through the trellis work. Hagar, as I said, with
her slight form erect, and her glittering eyes fixed upon the opposite
end of the trellis. Raymond holding her small hand that quivered in his
palm like the heart of a captured bird—Raymond with his graceful head
bowed to catch her words.
“Not yet, dearest Raymond, not _just yet_.”
“But, Hagar, love, _why_, what _now_ hinders our marriage? Just see,
dearest, how you have put me off! bethink you, from the time of my
arrival at the Heath before my father’s death, I began to love you,
would have married you, my father wished particularly to unite us and
bless our union before he died, but you, Hagar, came daily with your
‘not yet’ weekly, monthly; with your ‘not yet’ until the old man died
without seeing the desire of his eyes. Was that kind, wild Hagar? Well!
and since his death, you have said ‘not yet, do not let us join our
hands over a scarcely closed grave,’ and I agreed with you. I took leave
of you and returned to the charge of my preparatory school. A year
passed, and procuring a substitute to take care of my school, I came
again—again renewed my entreaty, and again Hagar with paling cheek
insisted ‘not yet,’ and again I left the Hall alone. Believing, although
you would not confess it, that your reluctance arose from an
unwillingness to leave your native place, without consulting you I
abandoned my business and came down here; here I have lingered weeks,
and still Hagar pales and flushes and tells me ‘not yet.’ Now what am I
to think of this, Hagar? _why_ not yet, do you not love me, will not my
love make you happy?”
Most tenderly he raised that little dark and fluttering hand to his
lips, most gently he spoke as he said—
“Now, my Hagar, tell me why do you insist upon this delay?”
“Not insist, oh! not insist, Raymond—_plead_—I plead this delay—your
love make me happy? oh! yes, _so_ happy I am afraid to stir for fear of
disturbing it. I feel like a dreamer who has fallen asleep in foreign
lands, and dreams that he is standing in his own garden—afraid to stir
lest I wake up—not yet, dear Raymond—do not let us wake yet, do not
break this dream, dispel this illusion, spoil this love yet!”
“‘Spoil this love,’ why what do you mean by that, Hagar?”
“I mean that we are so happy as we are, Raymond—now that I have partly
tamed my wild heart to your gentle hand—now that I no longer grieve or
wound you, or ride steeplechases, or shock the neighborhood into
electric life by some galvanic feat of desperation; now that I am
winning ‘golden opinions from all sorts of people,’ and no longer
mortifying you—why we are so happy, this is such a fairy-land,
dream-like happiness. Think, we are under the same roof, sit daily at
the same table, ride to church together every Sunday, visit together,
read together, ramble together, my twin-brother,” said she, suddenly
yielding herself to his embrace with affectionate abandonment. “So we
are _so_ happy! alas! don’t spoil it, don’t let us become a humdrum Mr.
and Mrs. Withers yet—a tobacco-planting, corn-growing, butter-churning
Mr. and Mrs. Withers! don’t! the very idea ‘withers’ my heart,” and the
wild girl, wild still! laughed like the explosion of a squib.
Raymond folded his long fair hands together and fell into thought; at
last he said:
“Hagar, I have always heard, read, and dreamed much about the
_confiding_ love of woman, but I see little of it in you; how is this,
Hagar?”
“Have I want of confidence—is it that? Perhaps it is,” said the girl
seriously. “I who neither fear to risk life, limb, nor good opinion; I
fear, oh! how I _do_ fear to lose the affection of one who loves me; I
fear to be too much with them, to ask anything of them; I feel as though
I would always rather serve them than receive service from them.
Raymond, young as I am, I have already suffered so much from wounded
sensibilities; I know you would not readily believe this, but oh!
listen—the first thing I loved in this wide world was Sophie; the first
thing I remember was sleeping on her bosom every night with her sweet
breath on my cheek; I do suppose she spoiled me, I was always with her,
she was devoted to me, absorbed in me, until a new enthusiasm seized
her, and she—oh! but, Raymond, forgive me, I suppose it was all right,
only I did not comprehend it, and when I was suddenly severed from
Sophie, I wept all night, screamed all day, and then when she continued
to neglect me, and when after the arrival of Rosalia, all the child
spoilers in the house and in the neighborhood left me altogether, and
clustered around Rosalia like bees around a clover blossom; well,
Raymond! perhaps it was my nature after all, I took to the forest for my
home, and to animals for my companions; I consoled myself at first for
the want of affection, and, afterwards, I grew really independent of it!
my heart was so high and strong, I did not care for love—not I! I loved
others in a half contemptuous right royal way, but I asked no sort of
return; indeed, I think, it would have annoyed me; but now, Raymond! now
I love you, and I have your love, and I tremble—I tremble lest I lose
_that_ also; no heart has been steady to me, no human heart I mean, up
to this time (it remains to be seen whether yours will be, Raymond)—no
human heart, I said—my pointers, Remus and Romulus, have been, and
dog-like always will be. Do you know, Raymond, by the way, why I called
my two favorites Remus and Romulus?”
“I guess you thought, bitter girl, that the fate of the poor twins cast
out to the wolf to be nursed was not unlike that of little Hagar rocked
upon the tree tops.”
“Yes, that was it.”
“My dear Hagar, you must forget these things; it were unmerciful to
remember them against my unhappy father, most cruel to remember them
against dearest Sophie, whose mild life has been one offering for
others.”
“I do not remember them ever. I only recall them when forced to the
recollection, and when I have to account to myself, or to you, for some
strange trait foreign to a young girl’s character, and then I recall
them without bitterness as facts, not as injuries.”
“Then, Hagar, love,” said he, “I am now perfectly serious in what I am
about to say, I must either marry you very soon or tear myself away from
you. Hagar, through the influence of one of my father’s old friends, I
have been offered the situation of _attaché_ to the new embassy to the
Court of Madrid; they sail in three weeks from Brooklyn. Come, Hagar,
shall I go?”
Hagar was silent.
“Listen, Hagar,—if I go it is probable I shall remain three or four
years—shall I go?”
Hagar’s eyes burned holes in the floor.
“Hagar, I am very weary of entreaty, hear me! I must either marry you or
tear myself away from you! one or the other! and soon! Come! which shall
I do, Hagar?”
“We are very happy as we are; remain with us, this is your home, stay,
you shall have as much of my company as you wish, the more the better; I
will give up all my out-door amusements when you cannot accompany me, I
will do anything in the world to gratify you—except get married—oh, not
yet.”
He jumped up—it was strange to see the gentle and graceful Raymond
exhibit so much emotion.
“‘Not yet.’ Oh! for heaven’s sake do not ring the changes on those two
odious syllables any longer, Hagar; I am getting restive under it.”
Then he dropped down into his seat again with a sigh, saying,
“Bear with me; Hagar, it is not often that I lose patience, but indeed,
my wild love, you are a trial! now hear me, Hagar. I shall write and
accept that situation, I shall make preparations for my journey, and in
two weeks from this night I shall leave Heath Hall to join the embassy
that will sail in one week from that time. I shall, unless dearest Hagar
in that time places her little hand in mine and trusts me with the care
of her future happiness—well, Hagar?”
“Well, Raymond?”
“What have you to say to that?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“_Nothing._”
“Ungentle! Unwomanly!”
“Perhaps _too_ ungentle, _too_ unwomanly to be able to make you happy,
Raymond!”
“Hagar!”
“Well!”
“Mad girl! why do you act in this way?”
“What way? I beg you to remain with us; I promise you to do everything
to make you happy, except marry you; and you should rest content,
especially as I wish to marry no one else.”
“But why? why?”
“Because I am afraid!—afraid!” said the girl.
And then she arose, and wishing him good night, hurried into the room.
As she passed in, a pale figure intercepted her further progress—
“Gusty!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, ‘Gusty!’”
“I did not know that you were here.”
“I have been here for half an hour. I passed right through the piazza,
but you and Raymond were too deeply engaged in conversation to hear me.
Perceiving your absorption, I would not interrupt you; I came in here,
and borne down with fatigue, and stunned with despair (for, Hagar, the
first words of your conversation betrayed the state of affairs between
you and Raymond) I threw myself upon the sofa and there I lay until I
heard you arise and enter the house—don’t be disturbed, Hagar, I only
heard the few words as I passed through the piazza. I would not, you may
be assured, have heard one word that I could have avoided hearing, and
the words I heard were providential—they have been good for me, they
have stunned, benumbed my senses into a sort of peace. Well, Hagar, when
is it to come off?”
“What, Gusty?”
“You know—your marriage with Raymond!”
But Hagar, wafting him a good night, fled up the stairs to bed. And
Gusty, to avoid Raymond, whom he had not the power just now to meet in a
friendly manner, Gusty having ascertained that Sophie was not visible,
slunk out through the back way and disappeared.
Days passed at Heath Hall, and Gusty was not seen. Raymond had written
his letter of acceptance, had gone to Hagar’s eyrie in the fourth story,
and leaning over the back of her chair, had read it to her. She had
heard it with little visible emotion.
“Now, Hagar, I am about to seal it. Tarquinius is mounted in the yard
ready to take it to the post-office;—tell me, Hagar, shall I send it, or
not?”
“Just as you please.”
“Then I please _not_ to send it on condition that you give me your
hand.”
“I cannot—yet I implore you to stay—do not leave us—I—I shall be very
unhappy when you are gone.”
“Marriage or flight, Hagar; those are my alternatives.”
She said no more. He lingered.
“Shall I send the letter, Hagar?”
“As you please.”
He took a wafer from her writing-desk, and sealing the letter, directed
it; then going to the window, he beckoned Tarquinius. The boy
dismounted, and coming into the house ascended the long flight of
stairs, and in time entered the room. Raymond looked at Hagar as he
slowly gave the letter into the hands of the boy. Hagar did not offer to
interfere. Tarquinius left the room, and five minutes after she saw him
ride out of the yard, letter in hand. Their eyes met then; there was
sadness in the expression of both—the sadness of reproach upon Raymond’s
face, the sadness of deprecation on Hagar’s. Indeed either of them could
have wept, but that Raymond for his manhood, and Hagar for that early in
her brave childhood she had made a sort of silent pledge of total
abstinence from tears, refrained. He left the room very soon.
Sophie entered it. She paced it in her soft, slow manner, and sinking
down in one of the old leathern chairs by the window at which Hagar
stood looking out upon the bay, she said—
“Hagar, my love, I have come to have a talk with you: my dear child,
what is the matter between you and Raymond? why have you grieved and
repulsed him again? and, if I am not very much mistaken, permitted him
to make arrangements for that foreign mission?”
“Did he tell you that, Aunt Sophie?” said Hagar, turning around.
“Of course not, my love; I met him coming down, I saw his face
overshadowed, and I had seen just before that, the superscription of the
letter in the hand of Tarquinius; now, what is it all about? Trust me,
Raymond looks distressed to death.”
Hagar ran her slender, dark fingers, through her glittering blue-black
ringlets, and looked down in perplexity into the soft brown eyes of
Sophie, raised to hers with their old look of pleading love. Then
turning her eyes quickly away, she looked from the window; she did not
wish to speak upon the subject.
“You want a loving trust, Hagar,” said Sophie, sadly.
“Perhaps I do,” as sadly replied the girl.
“I never saw one so young as you with so little confidence, so little
trust as you have—your distrust is more like a hardened man or woman of
the world than a simple girl, a maiden not yet eighteen.”
“But I am _not_ a simple girl—love, hope, trust, faith, were crushed out
of me while I was yet an infant, and you know it; or perhaps you do not
know it, Sophie; though you had some hand in the work.”
“Hagar, love! you afflict me—tell me what you mean by that?”
“Nothing! nothing!”
“Nay, tell me, Hagar! I must know the meaning of your sad words.”
“Nothing! nothing! I will explain nothing! account for nothing!
investigate, analyse nothing! I will accuse no one! I did not mean to
hint at a wrong! I was betrayed into it!”
“This is growing very serious by your energy of manner, Hagar—have I
injured you in any way?—my own dear child, do not turn away, but answer
me.”
“No, no; never lifted your finger, or raised your voice, to hurt me the
least. Oh! nonsense, my dearest aunt! I am a scamp to make you
sad—nothing! only _this_, that _my_ experience has so schooled me, young
as you think I am, that I am afraid to launch my happiness in the
uncertain seas of other hearts.”
“You want faith, Hagar. Ah! Hagar, I partly guess now what you mean; but
if you had known how much I loved you, all the time you thought I was
neglecting you! Have faith, Hagar. Good Heavens!” said she, speaking
with unaccustomed energy, “have faith! the world could not go on without
faith. There is a great deal of faith in the world—social faith, and
commercial faith; political faith, and domestic faith, and Christian
faith, which embraces all the others; but there is not faith enough
anywhere—and you, Hagar, are deplorably deficient; cultivate that small
speck of faith that is in your heart until it grows strong and gives you
happiness. You _cannot_ live without faith—with it you have all things,
without it you have nothing. Have faith first in God, in His wisdom,
goodness, power, and love, in His all-surrounding con”—
“Oh, I do! you know I do, Sophie, and all the sin and suffering I see on
earth does not in the least shake my faith in God—but—”
“But you have little or no faith in your fellow creatures; cultivate
that little then, Hagar. Oh! trust, and its opposite, mistrust, how
powerful they are; the one for evil, the other for good. Trust! why,
Hagar, it is the moral philosopher’s stone, that transmutes, not base
metals to gold, but better, evil to good. Believe me; I think, Hagar,
the story of the philosopher’s stone was an allegory, and meant this
same faith. Why faith will convert the unfaithful by the very appeal it
makes to their better nature. Faith plunges straight through all that is
ill in a heart, and seizes on that which is good, though half smothered
in sin, brings it out into life and action, cherishes it until it is
strong and able to struggle with and perhaps to overcome the evil. Why,
Hagar, just take a case: suppose a person whose interests are jostled
with yours in the conflict of this world becomes your opponent, seems
your enemy, gives you a great deal of trouble, perhaps works you much
woe in one way or another, yet have faith in _him_, believe that _his_
heart is not _all_ selfishness, nor treat it as though it were; believe
that in that soul watches a _conscience_ that speaks for you, if it
could be heard; in that heart a _human sympathy_ that still suffers for
you, if it could be felt; a spark of divine and human love, in a word,
that, however covered up and crusted over by sin and selfishness, still
lives, may still be nursed into a healthful and regenerating flame by
your love. Have faith in the human feeling, even of the selfish. Believe
that somewhere down in the deeps of their souls, buried though it be,
there lives some good that _your_ goodness might elicit; some love that
_your_ love might arouse; some faith that _your_ faith might sustain;
some conscience that your forbearance or forgiveness may awaken. And on
the other hand, Hagar, mistrust of good, doubt of good, how fraught with
evil it is; doubt chains the sinner to his sin, keeps the weak man on
his couch of weakness. Trust is health, life; mistrust is illness,
death.”
“But, aunt, if you had been robbed by a person, for instance, would you
trust that person with your purse?”
“I do not mean superficial trust,” said Sophie; “no, perhaps I would not
leave my purse in the way of a proved thief, unless I had some guarantee
of his reformation; but I would have _trust_ in _his capabilities for
reformation_, and I would run some risk of loss, if necessary, in
advancing his reformation.”
They were silent some time. Then Hagar said—
“But you are mistaken, Sophie, if you think that I doubt or mistrust
Raymond; it is not exactly that, it is a vague, undefined fear—dread.”
“It is the same thing, arises from the same thing, Hagar; but conquer
it, my dear. Come, Hagar, you love Raymond—long months ago you promised
him your hand—you were miserable whenever he left the Hall, even for his
northern school; you will be wretched when once he has left the shores
of the United States—you will nearly die. I know something of that
despair, Hagar,” said she, trembling; then suddenly stopped, as though
frightened at her own words.
“You, Sophie; why, who ever left you?”
“Hush, my love, hush!” said Sophie, growing very pale.
“Ah!” thought Hagar to herself, “see how she loved _Rosalia_.”
“Come, Hagar, let me recall Raymond—he loves you, he deserves you—come,
Hagar,” said Sophie, laying her hand on the dark girl’s arm and looking
up into her face pleadingly, as though _she_ were the child, and Hagar
the woman. But the girl shook her head; that last incident in the
conversation, as she understood it, was not a propitious one.
A few days rapidly slid away, and the morning of Raymond’s departure
arrived. It was a very rainy day. His trunks had been corded, and were
carried down to the beach, to await the passing of the packet in which
he was to sail.
Breakfast was over; and Sophie, Hagar, and Raymond were standing at the
window that overlooked the bay. Raymond held a spy-glass in his hand,
which Hagar would sometimes take from him and level at a distant object,
and Raymond would watch, momentarily hoping, expecting, that she would
drop a whisper, even at this last moment, and say, “Stay, Raymond.” But
she did not. He thought her fingers quivered slightly as she returned
him the spy-glass, and that her voice faltered as she said, “There is
the vessel in sight, Raymond; look and see if it be not.”
It was the packet.
“Now she will relent,” he said to himself.
The packet bore rapidly down the bay.
“Good-by, dearest Sophie, _petite belle mère_,” said he, drawing Sophie
to his bosom, and kissing her brow with an assumption of gay
indifference.
“God bless and prosper you, Raymond—God send you back to us, healthful
in body, soul, and spirit—good-by, poor, dear Raymond—I am so sorry you
are going again!” and Sophie sank down in the corner of the sofa, bowed
her head, and sobbed.
“Now she _will_ relent,” smiled Raymond to himself, as he went to Hagar,
held out his arms, and said, “Farewell, love! farewell, dear, hard
Hagar!”
“I am going down to the beach with you,” said she.
And then Raymond smiled more to himself, and again pressing the hand of
the weeping Sophie, he drew Hagar’s arm within his own, and left the
house. Hagar had thrown a large cloak over her head and shoulders, and
Raymond hoisted a large umbrella—Tarquinius Superbus strutting before
them with his arms full of small packets, &c. They arrived at the
beach—stood upon the sand, with the rain pouring down from above, and
the tide hurrying against their feet below as the boat from the packet
was rowed towards them. He turned and looked in her face—all its
expression was turned inwards, it was so pale, cold, blank. “_Ah! I said
so_,” thought Raymond, “relenting little queen!” He could not take a
lover’s leave of her there—not before the rough boatmen, who were
devouring them with their eyes—but he took her hand and pressed it; oh!
it was so cold and clammy! pressed it to his lips—
“Farewell, dear Hagar!”
No answer.
“Good-by, Hagar. Do you hear me? I say, farewell!”
“Yes! Good-by!” said she, almost wildly.
“Well, it is _indeed_ good-by, then, Hagar?”
“Yes! Good-by!” gulped Hagar.
He was disappointed—oh! how deeply—he stooped, however, and said—
“Hagar, I did not think that you would have held out so firmly thus
long; now! quick! in mercy to me—in mercy to yourself—tell me to stay—it
is not too late—put your hand in mine—that will be enough!”
Hagar withdrew both hands.
“Boat waitin’, zur!” now broke in the hoarse voice of the waterman.
“Well, Hagar? Well?”
“Good-by!”
“Is that all?”
“Yes! Good-by!”
He caught her—he could not help it then—he strained her to his bosom,
and kissed her—the boatmen might laugh, he did not see them—and tore
himself away, stepped into the skiff, and was rowed to the packet. Soon
the packet had resumed its course down the bay; and the rain poured down
as she stood there, with Tarquinius holding the umbrella over her head.
How pale, and cold, and still she stood, with all the fire of her
temperament concentrated in her gaze, which burned upon the sails of the
receding packet, until it was lost, even to her falcon glance, while the
rain poured down around her, and the waves washed up to her. At last,
“just to see the obstinacy of men!” she said; and turning, wandered
listlessly home.
* * * * *
The packet wended its way down the bay, it was bound for the port of New
York; the weather was bad, and grew worse; contrary winds kept it back,
and it was many days longer than usual on the voyage. At last it
anchored in the port of New York. Raymond went to a hotel and called for
paper, pen, and ink, with which to write to his friends at Churchill
Point. Having finished his letters, he took them to the Post Office, and
after mailing them, ran his eye down the published list of letters, as
if by hundredth hazard his name might be there. It was not. Indeed he
did not expect to see it. It was an idle thing, he thought, but still he
would ask the clerk if there was a letter there for him.
“_What_ name, sir?”
“Raymond Withers.”
“Here is your letter, sir, came in this morning’s mail.”
He seized the letter—just as you seized _that_ letter of yours, you
know, reader. It—Raymond’s letter, and not yours—was from Sophie, and
ran thus—
“Come home, dear Raymond. Hagar has been nearly delirious since you
have been gone, yet I believe she would expire before she would recall
you herself; however, come home; I will engage to say that we will
have a bright little wedding at Heath Hall, yet; indeed, so certain am
I of that fact, that I have engaged extra assistance, and have
commenced preparations.”
The other part was in a different hand—a dear, familiar, light, airy
hand, that seemed to skim, scarce touching the paper; it ran thus—
“I have come to Sophie’s writing-desk, and read over her shoulder what
she has just written—I, too, say—Come home, Raymond!—I place my
‘little hand’ in yours.”
In ten minutes Raymond had written an answer, being an _avant courier_
of himself; in ten more he had penned a letter of resignation of his
appointment; and in an hour he had removed his baggage from the packet
to another bound by the bay to Baltimore _viâ_ Churchill Point.
* * * * *
Just a week after sailing from New York, and three weeks from the date
of his leaving Churchill Point, Raymond stepped from a boat upon the
beach under the promontory, and as true as you live, reader, it was
pouring rain just as fast as it rained upon the day of his departure.
And there stood a slight dark girl, muffled in a black cloak, and behind
her, with the whites of his eyes and teeth conspicuous, stood Tarquinius
Superbus, holding an umbrella over her. It seemed to Raymond that he had
only dozed a minute, and dreamed the last three weeks. He was by her
side in an instant, had pressed her hand and drawn it through his arm,
and walking on with her was bending forward and downward, looking into
her dark and sparkling face with an expression, half affection, half
triumph, on his superb brow and beautiful lips; but the mirth sparkling
up from Hagar’s face defied him.
“Do you know—does your little highness happen to know, Princess Hagar,
what inconvenience you have put me to—what an agreeable three weeks I
have passed—two weeks confined in the close cabin of a little sea-tossed
packet, drenched with rain and beset with easterly winds which were of
course contrary; then one week’s voyage back, in weather a little worse
than the other, except that the wind was favorable; to say nothing of
the seeming folly of resigning my appointment at the moment the embassy
was to sail. You have inconvenienced the administration also, Hagar!
think of their having to _improvise_ a successor for me at the last
moment.”
“But who would have thought that you would have been so stubborn?”
laughed Hagar.
“Stubborn! it was _you_ who were stubborn, Hagar. Good heavens! I never
encountered such a will in my life!”
“I could not have believed that you would have gone!”
“I could not have believed that you would have suffered me to go.”
“But I expected you to give up.”
“And I wished you to yield. Where is that boy? Where is Tarquinius? Oh,
immediately behind us; I thought so. Come, Tarquinius! come, Superbus!
hurry home and get tea in—you waited tea for me, Hagar?”
“Oh, of course.”
Tarquinius toiled with all his might and main ahead; but hurrying home,
up that steep, slippery cliff, was not such sure and expeditious work,
and Tarquinius kept near them perforce, while poor Raymond, still
bending forward, looked down into Hagar’s liquid eyes and lips, like
Tantalus looked at the spring that was sparkling, leaping, and laughing
invitation and defiance in his face.
“_Oh-h!_” groaned and smiled Raymond.
“Are you tired?” questioned Hagar, maliciously.
“No, you monkey.”
“I am afraid you are,” said Hagar.
In reply to which Raymond stooped down, and lifting her lightly in his
arms, ran up the steep with her, and set her down upon the top, then
smilingly drew her arm again within his own, and they went to the house.
How cheerfully the firelight and the candle-light glowed from the two
windows under the shed of the piazza!
“I love to see a light within the house at night so much!” said Raymond,
“and I like it better even in cities than in the country—it looks so
very cheerful; and then to go through long streets at night, in which
the houses are closed up from top to bottom, and you only guess life
within through a chink in the shutter—it has to me the most ungenial,
unsocial, selfish look in the world. I always kept the windows of my
lodgings open until I went to bed, would you believe it of me, Hagar,
just to add a little to the cheerfulness of our dark back street.”
Sophie came out to meet them smiling, with her brown eyes looking so
loving, and conducted them in.
Raymond had changed his clothes, and tea was over, and they gathered
around the fire, Sophie with her needle-work, Hagar, the idle one, with
a spiteful black kitten on her lap, whose antics amused her, and
distressed Remus and Romulus, who were _couchant_ at her feet.
“I love a chill, rainy evening just at this season of the year,” said
Sophie, “because it makes it necessary to have a fire, and to gather
around it with our work.”
And then Raymond, smiling, drew from his pocket a book.
“What is it, Raymond?” exclaimed both ladies in a breath,—(those were
not the days of cheap literature, reader, nor was that the
neighborhood)—in those days, and in that country, all “books” were
“books.” “What is it, Raymond?”
And Raymond turned the back, and held it to them.
Both read in a breath—“Childe Harold,”—and both exclaimed in a breath,
“Read to us, Raymond.”
And Raymond opened the book, while Hagar pulled her kitten’s ear, and
made it spit and bite, and Sophie counted the stitches of her knitting,
and commenced reading, and there we will leave them for the present.