I SAID that harsh and hot as was the present, there were joyous gleams
of light playing over the future. How else could it be, when that fair
being whom I met first upon the wastes of ocean, and whose name, even,
is hallowed by the dying words of Isabel, is living in the same world
with me? Amid all the perplexities that haunt me, as I wander from the
present to the future, the thought of her image, of her smile, of her
last kind adieu, throws a dash of sunlight upon my path.
And yet why? Is it not very idle? Years have passed since I have seen
her; I do not even know where she may be. What is she to me?
My heart whispers—very much! but I do not listen to that in my prouder
moods. She is a woman, a beautiful woman indeed, whom I have known
once—pleasantly known: she is living, but she will die, or she will
marry; I shall hear of it by and by, and sigh, perhaps—nothing more.
Life is earnest around me; there is no time to delve in the past for
bright things to shed radiance on the future.
I will forget the sweet girl who was with me upon the ocean, and think
she is dead. This manly soul is strong, if we would but think so; it can
make a puppet of griefs, and take down and set up at will the symbols of
its hope.
—But no, I can not; the more I think thus, the less I really think thus.
A single smile of that frail girl, when I recall it, mocks all my proud
purposes, as if, without her, my purposes were nothing.
—Pshaw! I say—it is idle! and I bury my thought in books, and in long
hours of toil; but as the hours lengthen, and my head sinks with
fatigue, and the shadows of evening play around me, there comes again
that sweet vision, saying with tender mockery—is it idle? And I am
helpless, and am led away hopefully and joyfully toward the golden gates
which open on the Future.
But this is only in those silent hours when the man is alone and away
from his working thoughts. At midday, or in the rush of the world, he
puts hard armor on that reflects all the light of such joyous fancies.
He is cold and careless, and ready for suffering, and for fight.
One day I am traveling; I am absorbed in some present cares—thinking out
some plan which is to make easier or more successful the voyage of life.
I glance upon the passing scenery, and upon new faces, with that
careless indifference which grows upon a man with years, and, above all,
with travel. There is no wife to enlist your sympathies—no children to
sport with; my friends are few and scattered, and are working out fairly
what is before them to do. Lilly is living here, and Ben is living
there; their letters are cheerful, contented letters; and they wish me
well. Griefs even have grown light with wearing, and I am just in that
careless humor—as if I said—jog on, old world—jog on! And the end will
come along soon, and we shall get—poor devils that we are—just what we
deserve!
But on a sudden my eyes rest on a figure that I think I know. Now the
indifference flies like mist, and my heart throbs, and the old visions
come up. I watch her, as if there were nothing else to be seen. The form
is hers; the grace is hers; the simple dress—so neat, so tasteful—that
is hers, too. She half turns her head—it is the face that I saw under
the velvet cap in the park of Devon.
I do not rush forward; I sit as if I were in a trance. I watch her every
action—the kind attentions to her mother who sits beside her—her naïve
exclamations as we pass some point of surpassing beauty. It seems as if
a new world were opening to me; yet I can not tell why. I keep my place,
and think, and gaze. I tear the paper I hold in my hand into shreds. I
play with my watch chain, and twist the seal until it is near breaking.
I take out my watch, look at it, and put it back—yet I can not tell the
hour.
—It is she—I murmur—I know it is Carry!
But when they rise to leave, my lethargy is broken; yet it is with a
trembling hesitation—a faltering, as it were, between the present life
and the future—that I approach. She knows me on the instant, and greets
me kindly—as Bella wrote—very kindly, yet she shows a slight
embarrassment, a sweet embarrassment, that I treasure in my heart more
closely even than the greeting. I change my course and travel with them;
now we talk of the old scenes, and two hours seem to have made with me
the difference of half a lifetime.
It is five years since I parted with her, never hoping to meet again.
She was then a frail girl; she is now just rounding into womanhood. Her
eyes are as dark and deep as ever; the lashes that fringe them seem to
me even longer than they were. Her color is as rich, her forehead as
fair, her smile as sweet as they were before—only a little tinge of
sadness floats upon her eye, like the haze upon a summer landscape. I
grow bold to look upon her, and timid with looking. We talk of Bella;
she speaks in a soft, low voice, and the shade of sadness on her face
gathers—as when a summer mist obscures the sun. I talk in monosyllables;
I can command no other. And there is a look of sympathy in her eye when
I speak thus that binds my soul to her as no smiles could do. What can
draw the heart into the fulness of love so quick as sympathy?
But this passes; we must part, she for her home, and I for that broad
home that has been mine so long—the world. It seems broader to me than
ever, and colder than ever, and less to be wished for than ever. A new
book of hope is sprung wide open in my life: a hope of home!
We are to meet at some time not far off in the city where I am living. I
look forward to that time as at school I used to look for vacation; it
is a _point d’appui_ for hope, for thought, and for countless
journeyings into the opening future. Never did I keep the dates better,
never count the days more carefully, whether for bonds to be paid or for
dividends to fall due.
I welcome the time, and it passes like a dream. I am near her, often as
I dare; the hours are very short with her, and very long away. She
receives me kindly—always very kindly; she could not be otherwise than
kind. But is it anything more? This is a greedy nature of ours, and when
sweet kindness flows upon us we want more. I know she is kind; and yet,
in place of being grateful, I am only covetous of an excess of kindness.
She does not mistake my feelings, surely; ah, no—trust a woman for that!
But what have I or what am I to ask a return? She is pure and gentle as
an angel, and I—alas—only a poor soldier in our world-fight against the
devil! Sometimes, in moods of vanity, I call up what I fondly reckon my
excellencies or deserts—a sorry, pitiful array that makes me shame-faced
when I meet her. And in an instant I banish them all. And I think that
if I were called upon in some high court of justice to say why I should
claim her indulgence or her love, I would say nothing of my sturdy
effort to beat down the roughness of toil—nothing of such manliness as
wears a calm front amid the frowns of the world—nothing of little
triumphs in the every-day fight of life, but only I would enter the
simple plea—this heart is hers!
She leaves; and I have said nothing of what was seething within me; how
I curse my folly! She is gone, and never perhaps will return. I recall
in despair her last kind glance. The world seems blank to me. She does
not know; perhaps she does not care if I love her. Well, I will bear it.
But I can not bear it. Business is broken; books are blurred; something
remains undone that fate declares must be done. Not a place can I find
but her sweet smile gives to it either a tinge of gladness or a black
shade of desolation.
I sit down at my table with pleasant books; the fire is burning
cheerfully; my dog looks up earnestly when I speak to him; but it will
never do! Her image sweeps away all these comforts in a flood. I fling
down my book; I turn my back upon my dog; the fire hisses and sparkles
in mockery of me.
Suddenly a thought flashes on my brain—I will write to her—I say. And a
smile floats over my face—a smile of hope, ending in doubt. I catch up
my pen—my trusty pen, and the clean sheet lies before me. The paper
could not be better, nor the pen. I have written hundreds of letters; it
is easy to write letters. But now, it is not easy.
I begin, and cross it out. I begin again, and get on a little
farther—then cross it out. I try again, but can write nothing. I fling
down my pen in despair, and burn the sheet, and go to my library for
some old sour treatise of Shaftesbury or Lyttleton, and say—talking to
myself all the while—let her go! She is beautiful, but I am strong; the
world is short; we—I and my dog, and my books, and my pen, will battle
it through bravely, and leave enough for a tombstone.
But even as I say it the tears start—it is all false saying! And I throw
Shaftesbury across the room, and take up my pen again. It glides on and
on as my hope glows, and I tell her of our first meeting, and of our
hours in the ocean twilight, and of our unsteady stepping on the heaving
deck, and of that parting in the noise of London, and of my joy at
seeing her in the pleasant country, and of my grief afterward. And then
I mention Bella—her friend and mine—and the tears flow; and then I speak
of our last meeting, and of my doubts, and of this very evening—and how
I could not write, and abandoned it—and then felt something within me
that made me write and tell her—all!—“That my heart was not my own, but
was wholly hers; and that if she would be mine—I would cherish her and
love her always!”
Then I feel a kind of happiness—a strange, tumultuous happiness, into
which doubt is creeping from time to time, bringing with it a cold
shudder. I seal the letter, and carry it—a great weight—for the mail. It
seemed as if there could be no other letter that day, and as if all the
coaches and horses and cars and boats were specially detailed to bear
that single sheet. It is a great letter for me; my destiny lies in it.
I do not sleep well that night—it is a tossing sleep; one time joy—sweet
and holy joy, comes to my dreams, and an angel is by me; another time
the angel fades—the brightness fades, and I wake, struggling with fear.
For many nights it is so, until the day comes on which I am looking for
a reply.
The postman has little suspicion that the letter which he gives
me—although it contains no promissory notes, nor money, nor deeds, nor
articles of trade—is yet to have a greater influence upon my life and
upon my future, than all the letters he has ever brought to me before.
But I do not show him this; nor do I let him see the clutch with which I
grasp it. I bear it as if it were a great and fearful burden to my room.
I lock the door, and, having broken the seal with a quivering hand—read:
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