A week had passed since the Dundee Centennial, and life in the
parsonage had been in outward aspect like the weather--still and
sunny. The oldest Dundeeian had never known before so early and
genial a season. Eunice's roses were in luxuriant bloom; the
clover-meadows were pink and fragrant; the forests had burst into
full leafage; the strawberries upon the southern terrace of the
kitchen-garden were swelling globes, white on the nether, scarlet
upon the upper sides.
The ways of the household, always simple and methodical, were not
otherwise now. Roy spent a couple of hours each forenoon with his
betrothed. Orrin rarely made his appearance until two or three hours
after dinner when the cousins came up from the hotel together, and
did not return to their lodgings before ten o'clock at night. Mr.
Kirke had daily interviews with Mr. Wyllys in the course of the
walks and drives they took in company, and brought home accounts of
his suavity, wit, and varied information, which were endorsed by
Eunice, which Jessie heard with growing bewilderment at the chance
or purpose that withheld her from participation in what was freely
enjoyed by her father and sister. Even their music practice had not
melted the ice that lay, an impassive mass, just beneath the surface
of his deportment whenever he approached or addressed her. Her
liveliest sallies and most friendly overtures, met with a response,
ready and civil, indeed, but so unlike the gentle courtesy, the
kindliness and graceful deference of his behavior to Eunice that
nothing but a spirit determined and unsuspicious of evil as was our
heroine's could have kept her to her resolve to win his friendship.
Roy found her very charming under the light veil of pensiveness this
secret solicitude cast over her. She never intimated to him that his
kinsman had not met her expectation in every respect. She was
thankful, instead, that her betrothed did not see for himself that
all was not right between them. Some day, when the frost was quite
dispelled, they would laugh over it together--over her fears, her
innocent stratagems for the accomplishment of her object, Orrin's
stateliness, and Roy's blindness to her perturbation. She had
patience and hope. She would await the vanishment of the mist,
passing content, meanwhile, with the heart-riches that were hers
beyond peradventure. She had not heard of the German University
scheme. It was unlike Roy Fordham to hang back from making a
revelation which must come in the end, which delays could not
soften, and which could cause no more distress now than if it were
withheld until the close of his vacation. His judgment said that
Jessie would better endure the prospect of the separation while he
was with her, to lead her thoughts to the great and manifest
advantages that would accrue to him from the year of foreign study,
and--overleaping the gulf of absence--to paint the delight of
re-union. Mr. Kirke represented that Jessie was a girl of sense and
strength; that she would be better pleased to be confided in, and
consulted as his future wife, than be blinded and petted as a child;
and Roy, acquiescing in this opinion, still put off the evil hour.
Was it loving consideration for her--or presentiment--that struck
him with dumbness?
The lovers sat on the piazza, one afternoon, just after the sunset
repast. Jessie's "trial effort" had been made with ease that augured
rapid recovery, but she was forbidden to walk without assistance, or
to bear her whole weight upon the injured foot.
"While I feel strong enough to run a race with you down to the
mill," she said, pointing to a venerable building, a quarter of a
mile distant. "You can form no idea of the perversity of the
restless thing that used to be a manageable member, when I had leave
to walk, or sit still as I liked. I have a terrific attack of the
fidgets!"
"Penalty of insubordination--a return to the lounge and
oriel-window!" smiled Roy, in warning.
"That would be no punishment at all! When I am strong and active
again I mean often to play helpless, upon that dear old lounge, to
lie within the window and dream. I love it!"
Her voice sank in an intonation of ineffable tenderness that went to
Roy's heart in a pang, not a thrill. This evening he meant to tell
her that for many months she must sit alone in what he had named
their "betrothal-nook;" that the year they had agreed upon as the
period of their engagement must be passed apart, the one from the
other. He had made up his mind to another thing. If she asked the
sacrifice at his hands, he would abandon the cherished hope of
years, the fruition of which seemed now so near, and she should
never guess the extent of his self-denial. She was so dear to him!
this incarnation of frolic, passion, and of fancies--gay, graceful,
as whimsical as various--but all beautiful to him; she, whose eyes
deepened and softened and glowed with the tender cadence of those
three words--"I _love_ it!" He had never succeeded in telling Orrin
why he loved her. His spoken analysis of her character was cold and
imperfect. Had Orrin uttered aloud his unflattering, "pert
Amaryllis," Roy would have resented the epithet warmly, yet
acknowledged, secretly, that his own portrait of her was hardly more
like the reality. He could not describe her trait by trait, feature
by feature. But for himself, he knew that she was the embodied glory
of his life; that every ray that kept his heart warm and bright with
a very summer of gladness, could be traced to her,--her love, and
the influence the consciousness of this had upon his thoughts of the
present, and dreams of days to come.
"The oriel is enchanted ground to me. We will build one like it, in
our own home, and cover it with jessamine and wisteria," he said,
noting, with loving amusement, the crimson flush that always bathed
her face at direct allusions to their marriage. "Orrin shall sketch
it for me. He is a universal genius, and his taste is marvellous.
His bachelor apartments are a notable exception to any others I ever
saw. They are furnished _almost_ as well, kept almost as neatly, as
if he were married."
"Isn't he a bit of a Sybarite?" queried Jessie, abruptly. "If he has
a fault--or, no! you wouldn't own that he has--but, isn't his foible
a love of luxury--of comfort, if you prefer to call it so--bodily
and mental?"
"He is certainly not indolent. I know no other man who will work
more persistently, although quietly, to gain a coveted end. And if
he loves the ease of the flesh, why so do we all--don't we? His
philosophy teaches that it is folly for one to be miserable, when he
can as readily be happy and comfortable. His has been a prosperous
life, thus far. He has known little of sorrow or trial. Should these
come, they will ripen, not sour him, for the original material is
good. I am the more anxious that you should know and appreciate him
because--"
The gate swung open to admit a visitor--a farmer's lad, in whose
attempts at self-education the young professor took a lively
interest.
"I found this in the field on the other side of the mountain,
to-day," he said, laying a piece of stone in Mr. Fordham's hand. "I
think there's ore in it."
Roy inspected it closely.
"Miss Jessie"--he gave her no more familiar address in the hearing
of common acquaintances--"is your father in his study?"
"I believe so," she replied, eyeing the intruder less amiably than
her lover had done, in the anticipation of the prolonged
interruption.
"Mr. Kirke has an acid that will test this in a few minutes,"
continued Fordham to the boy. "Will you excuse me for a little
while?" turning to Jessie with a smile loving for herself, and
entreating her forbearance for his _protege_.
Her ill-humor vanished instantly under the benignant ray.
"Certainly!" she replied, nodding cordially to the bashful lad. "He
is the noblest man GOD ever made!" she said aloud, when she was
alone.
She leaned back in her easy chair, her hands folded in blissful
contentment, enjoying the breeze from the mountains, the sunset
clouds, the incense from the flower-garden, and the hum of the
mill-wheel, mentally recapitulating her hero's perfections, until
her heart ached with happy sighs, and she saw the landscape through
an iridescent haze.
"I am a baby!" was her indignant ejaculation, as she cleared her
eyes with an impatient brush of her hand. "I grow more ridiculous
every day!"
As a means of growing wiser, she fell to watching her sister and
Orrin Wyllys, who were busy tying up wandering rose-bushes in
Eunice's pet labyrinth. Mr. Wyllys had his back to Jessie, when she
first observed them. He was fastening back a branch which Miss Kirke
held in its place, and their hands were very close together. It may
have been this circumstance, it may have been the heat of the day,
or the reflection of a bunch of pink moss-roses overhead--it could
hardly have been anything which her companion was saying which
brought the delicate roseate flush to the face usually pale and
calm. His attitude was far too dignified and respectful to hint the
possibility of gallant badinage on his part. _Bona-fide_ love-making
was, of course, out of the question, since they had not known each
other ten days.
"Euna is handsome!" mused her sister in complacent affection.
"What a high-bred face and bearing she has! She looks the lady
in her morning-gowns of print and dimity; but that lawn with the
forget-me-not sprig becomes her rarely. I am glad I insisted
upon her putting it on. But she wouldn't let me fasten the
lilies-of-the-valley in her hair! Her only fault is a tendency to
primness. She and Mr. Wyllys get on admirably together. He
evidently admires her, and it is a treat to her to have the society
of a cultivated gentleman. I know," smiling and blushing anew, "it
is a salvo to my conscience to see them satisfied with each other's
company, needing Roy and myself as little as we need them. I
should else blame myself for our seeming selfishness."
Rambling on discursively, she struck upon an idea, too fraught with
delightsome mischief not to urge her to immediate action. Eunice had
turned her head away, and Orrin was concealed by a tall shrub. The
grassy alley leading from the porch to where they were standing
would not give back the sound of footsteps. How frightened and
amazed the careful elder sister would be, if she were to steal down
the walk and present herself before her! How solemnly Orrin would
look on while she submitted to be lectured for her imprudence, and
how she, in the end would triumph over her custodians, Roy included
(who, by the way, was staying away an unconscionable time), when she
should demonstrate that she knew better than they what she could do
and bear; that she was none the worse for the escapade that had
wrought their consternation. She only regretted that she must lose
the sight of Roy's horrified visage when he should return to
discover her flight.
Her eyes gleaming with mirth, she arose cautiously, favoring the
unused joint, and stepped off the low piazza. Even when she felt
the cool, delicious turf under foot, she steadied herself by
grasping the nearest objects that offered a support. First it was a
clump of box, then the stout prickly branches of a Japan apple-tree,
then a fan-shaped trellis, which would by and by be covered with
Cyprus vines. She would do nothing rashly--would come to her own by
degrees. But when another step would bring her within arms' length
of the florists, she trod firmly upon both feet, and feeling neither
pain nor weakness, laughed aloud in wicked glee, and took that step.
She saw Eunice start and grow white; saw Orrin's grave yet courtly
surprise as he advanced to offer his arm. Ere he could reach her,
the treacherous ankle gave way with a wrench that drove breath and
sense in one quick shuddering breath from her body.
As they left her, she heard, like a strain of far-off music, a voice
say in her ear, "My poor child!" had a dizzy thought that strong
arms--stronger than Eunice's--received her.
Then, all was a blank until she awoke upon her lounge, hair and face
dripping with wet; the scent of _sal volatile_ tingling in her
nostrils, and a cluster of anxious faces about her. Eunice's was the
first she knew, Roy's next. He was on his knees by her, chafing her
hands. She pulled them feebly from his hold, and clasped them about
his neck, hiding her eyes upon his bosom.
"O, Roy! I was very wrong! very foolish! Don't scold me."
"Hush! hush!" he said, soothingly. "Nobody thinks of scolding you!
If you apologize to any one, it must be to this gentleman. He
brought you into the house, and I suspect his arms want looking
after more than your foot does."
He laughed, not quite steadily, in saying it, and Jessie felt his
fingers tighten upon hers. She flushed up rosily--was herself again,
as she looked around for Orrin. He was in the rear of the family
party, as was seemly, but his eyes were bent upon her with a
singular fixedness--the irids closing in upon a spark that flashed
and pierced like steel. Involuntarily, she shut hers, for a second,
as if blinded.
He came forward at that.
"Don't believe him!" said the same voice that had sent its echo
through her swoon. "I am none the worse for the slight exertion. I
consider myself very fortunate in having been near enough to help
you, when you fainted--am very thankful that you are better. Come
with me, Roy! Here is the doctor! If _he_ scolds you, Miss Jessie,
please consider me your champion."
The doctor, being an old friend, did scold the "madcap," who had, he
for a while averred, undone his and Nature's fortnight's work.
Relenting, finally, at Jessie's pretty show of penitence, he
confessed that less harm had been done than he had expected, and
contented himself with sentencing the delinquent to two days' strict
confinement to the sofa, and "serious meditation upon what might
have been the result of her imprudence--her reckless step."
"My misstep, you mean," said the incorrigible patient. "If I had not
lain here so long already as to forget how to walk straightly and
squarely, and to maintain the centre of gravity, this would not have
happened."
Altogether, the evening was gayer than usual to all. Jessie's
spirits were exuberant to a degree her sister feared was hysterical,
and Orrin seconded her sallies with a quieter humor, that amused the
rest and enchanted her.
"It was worth my while to faint!" she owned to him, _sotto voce_,
when he came up to say "Good-night." "I wish I had done it before!"
Her cheeks were red with excitement; her eyes laughed up into his
with arch meaning that was very bewitching and very indiscreet. His
pupils contracted suddenly to the blue spark, and his left palm
covered the little hand he held within his right.
"You are very kind!" was all he said with his lips.
"What treason are you two whispering there?" questioned Roy.
"Nothing that concerns you in the least!" answered Jessie, saucily.
"We will keep our own counsel--won't we?" to Orrin.
He was too sensible to lie awake thinking, at an hour when people
with accommodating consciences and gutta-percha hearts are wont to
sleep soundly. Nor had he ever contracted the unsafe and irrational
habit of talking audibly to himself--one to which poor Jessie was
addicted. Yet he had his thoughts as he put out the candle in his
bedroom that night.
"She is either a born flirt, and over-anxious to practise her
calling, or she is the most charming, because most novel compound of
naivete, cleverness, and feeling that has crossed my path for many a
day. In either case, she is a study."
The best and the worst women were with him resolved into
that--studies, all,--and when they had fed his vanity and
ministered to his individual gratification, they were laid aside for
other specimens. As the dissecter of men's bodies soon loses his
reverence for whatever of divinity the common mind may discern in
the human form; as the anemone and the nettle are to the botanist
but different combinations of stamen, pistil, and petal,--so your
professed student of character, your mortal searcher and tryer of
souls, merges heart into head in the practice of his art. Sorrow has
no sacredness; Love no warning purity; Pain no appeal to him.
Sensibilities are interesting only as they quiver and shrink beneath
his touch; Affection is his plaything; blasted hopes, withered and
wounded hearts, are the unconsidered _debris_ of the sacrificial
honors done the ensanguined Moloch of his Self-love.
It is the fashion to call such ornaments of Society. A better,
because truer, name, would be the Thugs of Civilization.