THE afternoon was still and sultry, as I gazed out of my window,
leaning on the sill, and waiting for Reuben to bring my fishing poles
and bait.
From the corn fields in the distance a trembling haze was continually
rising, and I could hear the occasional song of the negroes, as they
moved behind their plows slowly up and down the long green rows. In
the yard all was still; the chickens, with palpitating throats, were
lying under the bushes, flirting the cool dark earth up into their
feathers; and the ducks were gathered around the cool trough at the
well, bubbling the water with their bills, and shaking their wings as
if they wished to dive in it, if the trough were just wide enough;
the bull-dog, at the door of his kennel, was lying on his side, with
his head stretched out on the earth, from which he would raise it
constantly to snap at the flies biting his flanks. A solitary peacock,
with his tail all pulled out for the feathers, was sitting on the
fence, with his blue neck and coroneted head reverted, as if gazing
at the absence of his plumage. Down at the quarters I could catch the
changing hum of the spinning wheel, making echo to the nasal minor
strains of a negro woman at the wash tub. Everything was calculated to
inspire reverie, and I leaned there, thinking of the cool shady bank
of the creek, and of Lulie and myself sitting there alone; and musing
on the pleasure of the evening, and wondering if anything would occur
to mar it, I drew my eyes from the scenes in the yard, and gazed down
the side of the house, noticing every little dent in the planking and
the dark rain marks under the nails; and dropping bits of paper at a
lazy red wasp that was crawling slowly up the weather-boarding. Reuben,
passing under my window with the poles and a gourd full of worms, broke
my reverie, and taking my hat and gloves I went down stairs, where
Lulie was already awaiting me, looking sweeter than ever in a pink
gingham sun-bonnet. Holding an umbrella carefully over her, Reuben
leading the way with the poles, I went down the avenue through a long
lane, down a wooded hill, and stopped at “de bes’ fishin’ hole on de
creek,” as Reuben called it. ‘Twas a steep grassy bank under a large
sycamore, at a sudden curve in the stream, where the water, running
down heedlessly, struck the bank, and hurried off with many a curling
dimple of confusion for its carelessness. After Reuben had undone and
baited our lines, I dismissed him, and we both took our seats, pole in
hand.
The thick branches overhead made an impervious shade, except where they
opened here and there to let a little ray of sunlight dance upon the
water. The lines, serpent-like, curled down from the poles, and the
painted float circled up and down the eddy, but with no other motion
but what the water gave. Presently Lulie’s stood still, then bobbed
under and up, while the water rings retreated from it as if afraid;
again it goes down, and Lulie—like all lady fishers—gave the pole
such a jerk that the line and its hooked victim were lodged in the
branches above. All my efforts to disengage it were unavailing till,
at last, I broke off the line, and threw pieces of stick at the little
fish till I battered it down, its mouth torn out by the hook, and its
shining scales all beaten off. Lulie took her little victim in her hand
very tenderly, and almost shed tears over it. She declared she would
never come fishing again; that it was mean and cruel to catch the poor
little creatures out of the water when they were so happy.
“And, John,” she continued, “I am so sorry I broke your hook and line,
when you had fixed it up so nicely for me; I know you are really mad
with me about it.”
I did not notice her remark about the hook and line, but said (winding
the broken line around the pole, and laying it behind us on the grass):
“Your compassion and pity for the little fish are so sweet, Lulie, that
I wish I could be transformed into one, like another Indur.”
The old roguish twinkle came back to her eyes as she said:
“You can have my compassion now if you will be caught like this fish.”
“You know how quickly I would be, Lulie, but all your lines are
occupied.”
“No, indeed, John, you are the one in fault; but, then, you are
completely fastened by a hook baited with a pair of dark Cuban eyes.”
“Of course, Lulie, you refer to Carlotta; you are entirely mistaken;
she is only a sister, and a very reserved and distant sister at that. I
admire her beauty, but cannot love her.”
“Well, you look at her as if you did, any way, and I feel every time
that we three are together, that you are wishing I had not come up here
to spoil your pleasure, and be in the way.”
“Lulie!” I said softly, as I sat down by her on the cool green moss,
and as I said it a hot flush came over my face, for I felt there was no
retreat after such a tone, and that I must now tell her what I had been
hinting at by action and word through my life from a child. She, too,
well knew what I meant, for she dropped her eyes from mine, and laying
down the little fish, commenced to pick from her finger, with great
earnestness and effort, a bright scale that adhered to it.
“Let me get it off,” I said, taking her hand and flipping off the
scale, but still keeping the hand in mine; “Lulie, I am holding the
hand of the only girl in the world that I love. It is no jest now, but
solemn earnest truth. Darling, your own heart tells you how I have
idolized you from a child, and my heart tells me how I adore you now.
Sometimes I have felt that you did not care for me, and my despair has
been worse than eternal death; at other times I’ve thought, perhaps,
you did return my love, and the happiness would have been supreme but
for the dread uncertainty. But oh! Lulie, I can endure it no longer;
tell me, dearest, if you——”
She drew her hand suddenly from mine, and placing both hands over her
eyes, she burst into convulsive sobbing. I put my arm around her, and
tried to take her hands from her eyes. She turned towards me, putting
both arms around my neck, laid her face, streaming with tears, on my
shoulder, and cried as if her little heart would break. I sat still,
supporting her, and not knowing what to do or say. Gradually her hands
relaxed their clasp, and she raised her head from my shoulder, and,
wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, which she tremblingly drew
forth, said, with a tear-hoarse voice and a great sob:
“Oh!—John!”
“Lulie, darling,” I said, gazing at her tenderly, “have I distressed
you so much, and is it painful to you to know that I love you?”
“Yes, yes, dear John, the deepest pain, because—because I cannot love
you in return.”
“Not love me! Oh, Lulie! After all the years of fondest fidelity!”
“John, I do love you as the dearest friend I have on earth; as the
one of all others in whom I can confide most implicitly; and because
I love and esteem you so dearly your avowal of love causes me such
intense pain. I could tell another I did not love him without remorse,
but I know your noble heart is so truly in earnest, and its love is so
sincere, that it almost kills me to turn it away and to offer only in
return that bitterest of all words—friendship. But, John, by all the
magnanimity of your generous nature, I beseech you not to hate me now,
but hold me still as the same little Lulie of the nursery, when our
hearts knew love as only childhood’s friendship.”
I sat as if in a dream, and only murmured:
“Hate you, Lulie! Never! never!”
After a long pause, I at length said:
“Lulie, darling—for you will permit me to call you so this evening, at
least—the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I see so plainly what
a blind, blind fool I have been to grope on in vague belief that you
loved me. The fault has not been yours, for your actions have told me
a thousand times that my hopes were vain; but well, indeed, is Cupid
always pictured blind. And, darling, before we dismiss this subject
forever, I want to thank you for the grief, and I know ‘twas real, that
you felt in rejecting my proffered love. Had you heartlessly cast it
aside ‘twould have crushed me too deeply for fortitude. And for our
friendship, I vow before high Heaven it shall be deepened; and truer
than a brother, with the devotion of an unrequited yet undying love,
will I prove myself your friend.”
“Thank you. Oh! a thousand times thank you, John.”
“But, dearest Lulie,” I continued, “while my heart is bleeding, let me
tear it all it may be torn. Tell me, do you love Frank Paning? Does he
hold what I would give my life to win? Do not fear to hurt me now.”
“John, dear John, do not ask me;” and her frame commenced trembling
violently again.
“‘Tis as I expected,” I said, bitterly. “But, oh! this is the keenest
pain of all. Frank Paning! To know that he may hold your hand, and feel
it throb its love to his; that he may gaze into your eyes and read your
love for him; that he may know that Lulie, my darling, my idol, is his
alone; while I—— Oh, Lulie, I’d rather you’d love the veriest dog
that laps the dust around your door than Frank Paning.”
“Hush! hush! for the love of mercy hush!” she said, putting up her hand.
“Lulie, I cannot, will not hush. We will never talk together again as
we do now; and, as that dearest friend you have termed me, I wish to
warn you. He is not worthy of your love.”
She laid down the bonnet string, which she had been crimping in her
fingers while I was talking, and looking straight at me, the least
perceptible frown on her brow, and a flush on her cheek, said:
“John, I know you too well to believe you capable of meanly trying to
injure a rival simply because of his success. I do you the justice to
believe you sincere in your opinions, but your judgment is warped by
prejudice; you cannot know him as I do, or you would love and trust
him.”
“My dear Lulie, it is because I know him far better than you do that
I warn you against him. I expect you to believe that all I say in
regard to him is the fruit of my disappointment, but I must, ere we
close this subject forever, tell you why he is unworthy, and why I warn
you against him. And I trust, as you believe in my honor, you will
not think I am influenced by any hope of thus supplanting him in your
favor. I bow to your decision of this evening as final, nor would I
cause you to revoke it, if I could, by maligning him.”
“John, I believe you; and I thank you more than I can tell for your
intended kindness, but ‘tis better that we speak no further on this
subject. It might beget unpleasant feelings, and I would not feel,
nor have you feel, one shade of anger, for the world. My heart is
sad enough when I think what a change one hour has wrought. No
more the same John and Lulie we have ever been; no more the same
playful attentions you have always paid me, nor the same thoughtless
encouragement I have given. Respectful courtesy now our only
intercourse. Oh, how little did I think, when I lightly returned your
looks and smiles of love, to what it all would lead!”
“Lulie, darling, I cannot feel anger toward you, whatever you do; but,
even if you hate me for it, I must tell you of Frank Paning. He is
utterly destitute of principle. He does not love you, and if he did
would only love you as his slave. He is tyrannical and overbearing, yet
sycophantic in his nature, imposing on the weak and cringing to the
strong. He is free and forward in the presence of ladies, and impure
and slanderous in his remarks about them behind their backs. I have
known him to leave a company of ladies, and then, for the mere applause
of a vulgar throng, make witticisms on their appearance and manners
that would have caused a blush in Cyprus. He does not bear a proper
respect for you, for I have heard him publicly boast of your love, and
make remarks that I have been forced to resent.”
“John, do not revile him any more. You perhaps mean well, but ‘tis an
utter waste of breath. For years I have loved and trusted him; and if
an angel were to stand upon the rippling water there and warn me, I
would not believe Frank false. When I gave him my heart I gave him my
life, and, though you and all the world turn against him, I will cling
to him and trust him, and when he spurns me I will die.”
“May God protect you, Lulie, my own love, from all wrong,” and I kissed
gently and respectfully her dear, soft cheek, henceforth to be for
other lips. She did not reproach me, but sat gazing at the dancing
sunlight on the water. I rose and took up the pole that we had left
set in the bank. A fish had hung itself upon the hook, and, utterly
exhausted by its unheeded efforts to disengage itself, came up from the
water limp and motionless. Putting it on our string, and tying up our
tackle, I assisted Lulie over the rail fence, and we ascended the hill
and walked up the lane in silence.
Reader! did you ever love earnestly and devotedly? Did you ever, after
months, perhaps years, of doubt and hesitation, at last make up your
mind to declare it? and did you ever have it rejected, perhaps kindly,
perhaps cruelly? If so, you know what I felt then.
So bitterly disappointed, so deeply humiliated to have confessed
yourself so conceitedly mistaken, and such a wild despair in your heart
as you think how she will greet another with her smiles, while you,
poor fool, are forgotten; how another’s arms will fold her, another’s
lips press hers! Oh! there’s a world of sad meaning in those exquisite
lines of Tennyson’s:
“And sweet as those by hopeless Fancy feigned,
On lips that are for others.”
Again, before we reached home, we assured each other of our kind
feelings, and agreed to act as nearly as possible in the same old way.
When we reached the house the others were at tea, the table being
placed in the hall, without lamps, as the sun was hardly down. After
being rallied for our solitary fish we took our seats, and father,
taking from his pocket a bundle of letters, ran over them, and tossed
one to me. I excused myself, and read it at the table. How my face
burned and my hand shook as I found it was from Paning himself! His
father and mother had gone to South Carolina, leaving him to devote the
balance of his vacation to study. He had gotten lonely keeping house
by himself, had written to Ned to join him, and they were coming up to
spend a couple of weeks with me. They would not wait for my reply, as
they knew I would be glad to see them, but would leave Wilmington by
the next train.
I sat looking at the bold handwriting till the letters danced on the
page, and father said:
“John, that is the longest letter I ever saw to be written on one page.
We have nearly finished tea while you have been reading it. From whom
can it be?”
“It is from Frank Paning, sir. He and Ned Cheyleigh are coming up to
spend a week or two with me.”
I could not look at Lulie, as I said this, but I knew her face was bent
over her tea, with the blood scarcely beneath the skin.
“I am glad of that,” said mother, “for your sake, John; you will then
have some company in your rambles.”
I laughed as well as I could, and said “yes, indeed!”
“And while I think of it,” said father, taking another paper from
his pocket, “here is a railroad receipt for a horse, shipped from
Baltimore. He will be at Goldsboro’ to-morrow, and as you will go over
for the boys, you can bring him home with you.”
I assented, but asked what he wanted with another horse when he already
had several he did not use.
“But this is something extra, my son, and I did not buy him for myself,
but for a friend of mine. You will find his name on the bill of
shipment.”
I looked at it again, and saw that the Bay line had received, in good
order, but subject to a score of risks, one horse, to be sent to John
Smith, Jr., at Goldsboro’, N. C. I thanked him with all the gratitude
I could command under the conflict of feelings, and we all went out to
the front porch, and sat there till the twilight darkened into night.
Carlotta, with Lulie, took her seat on the steps, and I could hear her
rich voice even laughing heartily at times as they talked together in
low tones. I was glad that she was resuming her cheerfulness, and felt
that I ought to join them, and not be so silent and moody in my own
home. But I somehow wanted to be near mother to-night, and let her hand
caress my head, because I was in trouble.