{38}
“I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou overheard’st me ere I was ’ware
My love’s true passion; therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love.”
_Romeo and Juliet_.
The week that succeeded Hope Leslie’s interview with Magawisca was
one of anxiety to most of the members of Governor Winthrop’s family.
The habitual self-possession of the governor himself seemed somewhat
disturbed; he was abstracted and thoughtful; frequently held secret
conferences with Sir Philip Gardiner in his study; and, in relation to
this stranger, he appeared to have departed from his usual diplomatic
caution, and to have admitted him to the most confidential intimacy.
There were frequent private meetings of the magistrates; and it was
quite evident, from the external motions of these guardians of the
colony, that some state secret was heaving in their bosoms.
The governor was in the habit of participating with his wife his most
secret state affairs, moved to this confidence, no doubt, by his
strict views of her rights as his helpmate; for it cannot be supposed,
even for a moment, that one of the superior sex should find pleasure
in telling a secret.
But in this instance he communicated nothing to his trustworthy
partner, excepting some obscure intimations {39} that might be
gathered from the significant utterance of such general truths as,
“That it was impossible for human foresight to foresee everything;
that those who stood at the helm of state could not be too vigilant;
that ends were often brought about by unexpected means;” and similar
truisms, which, enunciated by grave and dignified lips, are invested
with importance from the source whence they proceed.
Madam Winthrop was happily too much absorbed with the feminine
employment of watching the development of her niece’s affairs to have
much curiosity in relation to cabinet secrets. She naturally concluded
that some dangerous adherent of that arch-heretic, Gorton, had been
discovered; or, perhaps, some new mode of faith had demanded
magisterial interference; whatever her mental conclusions were, it is
certain her thoughts all ran in another channel. In all ages of the
world, in every condition, and at every period of life, a woman’s
interest in the progress of a love-affair masters every other feeling.
Esther Downing was a favourite of her aunt; and as it had been urged
by Mr. Downing, as an objection to his removal to New-England, that
his daughters would have small chance of being eligibly married there,
it became a point of honour with Madam Winthrop, after he had been
persuaded to overlook this objection, to prove to him that it was
unfounded.
Madam Winthrop was too upright intentionally to do a wrong to any one;
but, without being herself {40} conscious of it, she was continually
setting off the lights of her niece’s character by what she deemed the
shades of Hope Leslie’s. Our heroine’s independent temper and careless
gayety of heart had more than once offended against the strict notions
of Madam Winthrop, who was of the opinion that the deferential manners
of youth, which were the fashion of the age, had their foundation in
immutable principles.
Nothing was farther from Miss Leslie’s intention than any disrespect
to a woman whom she had been taught to venerate; but, unfortunately,
she would sometimes receive what Madam Winthrop meant for affability
as if it were simply the kindness of an equal; she had been seen to
gape in the midst of the good lady’s most edifying remarks; and once
she ran away to gaze on a brilliant sunset at the moment Madam
Winthrop was condescendingly relating some very important particulars
of her early life. This was certainly indecorous; but her offences
were trifling, and were probably forgotten by Madam Winthrop herself
long before their effects were effaced from her mind.
Esther was always respectful, always patient, always governed by the
slightest intimation of her aunt’s wishes; and it must be confessed
that, even to those who were less partial and prejudiced than Madam
Winthrop, Miss Downing appeared far more lovely than our heroine
during the week when she was suffering the extremes of anxiety and
apprehension. No one who did not know that there was a {41} secret and
sufficient cause for her restlessness, her seeming indifference to her
friends, and to everything about her, could have escaped the
conclusion that forced itself on Everell’s mind: that fortune, and
beauty, and indulgence had had their usual and fatal effect on Hope
Leslie. In the bitterness of his disappointment, he wished he had
never returned to have the vision of her ideal perfection expelled
from his imagination by the light of truth.
With the irritable feeling of a lover, he watched the devoted
attentions of Sir Philip Gardiner to Hope, which she, almost
unconscious of them, received passively, but, as Everell thought,
favourably. Utterly engrossed in one object, she never reflected that
there had been anything in her conduct to excite Everell’s distrust;
and, feeling more than ever the want of that sympathy and undisguised
affection which she had always received from him, she was hurt at his
altered conduct; and her manner insensibly conforming to the coldness
and constraint of his, he naturally concluded that she designed to
repel him, and he would turn from her to repose in the calm and
twilight quiet that was shed about the gentle Esther, whom he knew to
be pure, disinterested, humble, and devoted.
Poor Hope, the subject of his unjust condemnation, was agitated, not
only by impatience for the promised meeting with her unfortunate
sister, but by fear that some unforeseen circumstance might prevent
it. She was also harassed with a sense of conflicting duties. She
sometimes thought that the duty of {42} restoring her sister to the
condition in which she was born was paramount to the obligation of her
promise to Magawisca. She would waver and resolve to disclose her
secret appointment; but the form of Magawisca would rise to her
recollection, with its expression of truth, sweetness, and confidence,
as if to check her treacherous purpose.
A thousand times she condemned herself for the rashness of her promise
to Magawisca, by which she had reduced herself, surrounded as she was
by wise and efficient friends, to act without their council and aid.
Had Everell treated her with his accustomed kindness, the habitual
confidence of their intercourse might have led her to break through
the restriction of her promise, but she dared not deliberately violate
her word so solemnly pledged. Oppressed with these anxieties, the
hours rolled heavily on; and when Friday, the appointed day, arrived,
it seemed to Hope that an age had intervened since her interview with
Magawisca.
She had taken care previously to propose an excursion on Friday to the
governor’s garden; and, contrary to usual experience when a
long-projected pleasure is to be realized, every circumstance was
propitious. The day was propitious--one of Nature’s holydays; the
governor, too, was propitious, and even promoted the party with
unprecedented zeal.
After various delays, which, however trifling, had increased Hope’s
nervous impatience, they were on the point of setting forth, when
Madam Winthrop, {43} who was not one of the party, came into the
parlour, and said, after a slight hesitation, “I am loath, my young
friends, to interfere with what you seem to have set your hearts on,
but really--” she paused.
“Really what, ma’am?” asked Hope, impatiently.
Madam Winthrop was not inclined to be spurred by Miss Leslie, and she
answered very deliberately, “I have a feeling as if something were to
happen to-day. I am a coward on the water at all times, more than
becomes one who fully realizes that the same Providence that watches
over us on the land follows us on the great deep.”
“But your fears, madam,” said Sir Philip, “did not prevent your
crossing the stormy Atlantic.”
“Nay, Sir Philip; and I know not what mettle that woman is made of
that would not go hand in hand with her husband in so glorious a cause
as ours.”
“Are we not all ready?” asked Hope, anxious to escape before Madam
Winthrop proposed, as she apprehended she was about to do, a
postponement of the party.
“Yes, all ready, I believe, Miss Leslie, but not _all_ too impatient
to await a remark I was about to make, namely, Sir Philip, that a
party of pleasure is very different from a voyage of duty.”
“Certainly, madam,” replied Sir Philip, who trusted that assent would
end the conversation, “widely different.”
“It is not necessary for me,” resumed Madam Winthrop, “to state all
the points of difference.”
{44}
“Oh! not in the least, ma’am,” exclaimed Hope.
“Miss Leslie!” said Madam Winthrop, in a tone of surprise; and then,
turning her eye to Everell, who was standing next to Esther, she said,
resuming her measured tone, “My responsibility is so great to my
brother Downing--I had an uncommon dream about you, Esther, last
night; and, if anything should happen to you--”
“If it is me you are concerned about, aunt,” said Esther, untying her
bonnet, “I will remain at home. Do not let me detain you,” she added,
turning to Hope, “another moment.”
Nothing seemed to Hope of any importance in comparison with the
prosecution of her plans; and, nodding a pleased assent to Esther, she
took her aunt’s arm in readiness to depart.
“How changed,” thought Everell, as his eye glanced towards her, “thus
selfishly and impatiently to pursue her own pleasure without the
slightest notice of her friend’s disappointment.” His good feelings
were interested to compensate for the indifference of Hope. “If,” he
said to Madam Winthrop, “you will commit Miss Downing to my care, I
will promise she shall encounter no danger that my caution may avoid
or my skill overcome.”
Madam Winthrop’s apprehensions vanished. “If she is in your particular
charge, Mr. Everell,” she said, “I shall be greatly relieved. I know I
am of too anxious a make. Go, my dear Esther; Mr. Everell will be
constantly near you--under Providence, your safeguard. I believe it is
not right to be too {45} much influenced by dreams. See that she keeps
her shawl round her, Mr. Everell, while on the water. I feel quite
easy in confiding her to your care.”
Everell bowed, and expressed his gratitude for Madam Winthrop’s
confidence, and Esther turned on him a look of that meek and pleased
dependance which it is natural for woman to feel, and which men like
to inspire, because, perhaps, it seems to them an instinctive tribute
to their natural superiority.
“Miss Leslie has become so sedate of late,” continued Madam Winthrop,
with a very significant smile, “that I scarcely need request that no
unwonted sounds of revelry and mirth may proceed from any member of
the governor’s family, which ever has been, as it should be, a pattern
of Gospel sobriety to the colony.”
Mrs. Grafton dropped a bracelet she was clasping on her niece’s arm,
but Madam Winthrop’s remark--half reproof, half admonition--excited no
emotion in Hope, whose heart was throbbing with her own secret
anxieties, and who was now in some measure relieved by Sir Philip
making a motion for their departure, by adroitly availing himself of
this first available pause, and offering her his arm.
As soon as they were fairly out of the house, “Revelry and mirth,”
exclaimed Mrs. Grafton, as if the words blistered her tongue, “revelry
and mirth, indeed! I think poor Hope will forget how to laugh if she
stays here much longer. I wonder, Sir Philip, if it is such a mighty
offence to use one’s laughing faculties, what they were given for!”
{46}
“I believe, madam,” replied the knight, with well-sustained gravity,
“that ingenious theologians impute this convulsion of the muscles to
some disorganization occasioned by Adam’s transgression; and, in
support of their hypothesis, they maintain that there is no allusion
to laughter in Scripture. Madam Winthrop, I fancy, intends that her
house shall be a little heaven on earth.”
Honest Cradock, who had taken his favourite station at Miss Leslie’s
side, replied, without in the least suspecting the knight’s irony,
“Now, Sir Philip, I marvel whence you draw that opinion. I have
studied all masters in theology, from the oldest down to the youngest,
and, greatest of all, Master Calvin, with whose precious sentences I
‘sweeten my mouth always before going to bed,’ yet did I never see
that strange doctrine concerning laughter. To me it appears--the Lord
preserve me from advancing novelties--but to me it appears that there
is no human sound so pleasant and so musical as the laugh of a little
child, and of such are the kingdom of Heaven. I have heard the walls
at Bethel ring with bursts of laughter from Miss Hope; and the thought
came to me (the Lord forgive me if I erred therein) that it was the
natural voice of innocence, and, therefore, pleasing to him that made
her.”
Hope was touched with the pure sentiment of her good tutor, and she
involuntarily slipped her arm into his. Sir Philip was also touched,
and, for once speaking without forethought, he said, “I would give a
kingdom for one of the laughs of my boyhood.”
{47}
“I dare say, Sir Philip,” said Cradock, “for truly there is no
heart-work in the transgressor’s laugh.”
“Sir” exclaimed Sir Philip, angrily.
The simple man started as if he had received a blow, and Hope said,
“You did not mean to call Sir Philip a transgressor?”
“Oh, certainly not, in particular, certainly not; Sir Philip’s
professions are great, and, I doubt not, practice correspondent; but
all of us add daily transgression to transgression, which, I doubt
not, Sir Philip will allow.”
“Yes,” said Hope, archly, “it is far easier, as is said in one of your
good books, Master Cradock, ‘to subscribe to a sentence of universal
condemnation than to confess individual sins.’”
“What blessed times we have fallen on,” retorted Sir Philip, “when
youthful beauties, instead of listening to the idle songs of
Troubadours, or the fantastic flatteries of vagrant knights, or
announcing with their ruby lips the rewards of chivalry, are exploring
the mines of divinity with learned theologians like Master Cradock,
and bringing forth such diamond sentences as the pithy saying Miss
Leslie has quoted.”
“Heaven preserve us! Sir Philip,” exclaimed Mrs. Grafton, “Hope Leslie
study theology! you are as mad as a March hare; all her theology she
has learned out of the Bible and Common Prayer-book, which should
always go together, in spite of what the governor says. It is peculiar
that a man of his commodity of sense should bamboozle himself with
{48} that story he told at breakfast. Oh, you was not there, Sir
Philip: well, he says that in his son’s library there are a thousand
books, and among them a Bible and Prayer-book bound together--one
jewel in the dunghill--but that is not what he says; it seems that
this unlucky Prayer-book is gnawed to mince-meat by the mice, and not
another book in the library touched.[1] I longed to commend the
instinct of the little beasts, that knew what good food was; but
everybody listened with such a solemn air, and even you, Hope Leslie,
who are never afraid to smile, even you did not move your lips.”
“I did not hear it,” said Hope.
“Did not hear it! that is peculiar; why, it was just when Robin was
coming in with the rolls--just as I had taken my second cup--just as
Everell gave Esther Downing that bunch of rosebuds: did you take
notice of that?”
“Yes,” replied Hope, and a deep blush suffused her cheek. She had
noticed the offering with pain, not because her friend was preferred,
but because it led her mind back to the time when she was the object
of all Everell’s little favours, and impressed her with a sense of his
altered conduct.
The telltale blush did not escape the watchful eye of Sir Philip; and,
determined to ascertain if the “bolt of Cupid” had fallen on this
“little Western flower,” he said, “I perceive that Miss Leslie is
aware that rosebuds, in the vocabulary of lovers, are made to signify
a declaration of the tender passion.”
{49}
Secret springs of the heart are sometimes suddenly touched, and
feelings disclosed that have been hidden even from our own
self-observation. Hope had been moved by Miss Downing’s story, and
taking a generous interest in her happiness, she had, with that ardent
feeling with which she pursued every object that interested her,
resolved to promote it in the only mode by which it could be attained.
But now, at the first intimation that her romantic wishes were to be
fulfilled, strange to tell, and still stranger to her to feel, there
was a sudden rising in her heart of disappointment, a sense of loss,
and, we shrink from recording it, but the truth must be told, tears,
honest tears, gushed from her eyes. Oh, pardon her, all ye youthful
devotees to secret self-immolation! all ye youthful Minervas, who hide
with an impenetrable shield of wisdom and dignity, the natural
workings of your hearts! Make all due allowance for a heroine of the
seventeenth century, who had the misfortune to live before there was a
system of education extant, who had not learned, like some young
ladies of our enlightened days, to prattle of metaphysics, to quote
Reid, and Stewart, and Brown, and to know (full as well as they,
perhaps) the springs of human action, the mysteries of mind, still
profound mysteries to the unlearned.
Hope Leslie was shocked, not that she had betrayed her feelings to her
companions, but at her own discovery of their existence; not that they
had appeared, but that they were. The change had been so gradual, from
her childish fondness for Everell, to {50} a more mature sentiment, as
to be imperceptible even to herself. She made no essay to explain her
emotion. Mrs. Grafton, though not remarkably sagacious, was aware of
its obvious interpretation, and of the pressing necessity of offering
some ingenious reading. “What a miserable nervous way you have fallen
into, Hope,” she said, “since you was caught out in that storm; she
must have taken an inward cold, Sir Philip.”
“The symptoms,” replied the knight, significantly, “would rather, I
should think, indicate an internal heat.”
“Heat or cold, Hope,” continued Mrs. Grafton, “I am determined you
shall go through a regular course of medicine; valerian tea in the
morning, and lenitive drops at night. You have not eaten enough for
the last week to keep a humming-bird alive. Hope has no kind of faith
in medicine, Sir Philip, but I can tell her it is absolutely
necessary, in the spring of the year, to sweeten the blood.”
Sir Philip looked at Hope’s glowing face, and said “he thought such
blood as mantled in Miss Leslie’s cheek needed no medical art to
sweeten it.”
Hope, alike insensible to the good-natured efforts of her aunt and the
flatteries of Sir Philip, was mentally resolving to act most
heroically, to expel every selfish feeling from her heart, and to live
for the happiness of others.
The experienced smile sorrowfully at the generous impulses and
fearless resolves of the young, who know not how costly is the
sacrifice of self-indulgence, {51} how difficult the ascent to the
heights of disinterestedness; but let not the youthful aspirant be
discouraged; the wing is strengthened by use, and the bird that drops
in its first flutterings about the parent-nest, may yet soar to the
sky.
Our heroine had rallied her spirits by the time she joined her
companions in the boat that was awaiting them at the wharf; and in the
effort to veil her feelings, she appeared to Everell extravagantly
gay; and he, being unusually pensive, and seeing no cause for her
apparent excitement, attributed it to Sir Philip’s devotion: a cause
that certainly had no tendency to render the effect agreeable to him.
When they disembarked, they proceeded immediately to the single
habitation on the island, Digby’s neat residence. The faithful fellow
welcomed Everell with transports of joy. He had a thousand questions
to ask and recollections to recall; and while Everell lingered to
listen, and Hope and Esther, from a very natural sympathy, to witness
the overflowings of the good fellow’s affectionate heart, their
companions left them to stroll about the island.
As soon as his audience was thus reduced, “It seems but a day,” he
said, “since you, Mr. Everell, and Miss Leslie were but children.”
“And happy children, Digby, were we not?” said Everell, with a
suppressed sigh, and venturing a side glance at Hope; but her face was
averted, and he could not see whether Digby had awakened any
recollections in her bosom responding to his own.
“Happy! that were you,” replied Digby, “and {52} the lovingest,” he
continued, little thinking that every word he uttered was as a
talisman to his auditors, “the lovingest that ever I saw. Young folks,
for the most part, are like an April day--clouds and sunshine: there
are my young ones, though they look so happy now they have your
English presents, Mr. Everell, yet they must now and then fall to
their little battles--show out the natural man, as the ministers say;
but with you and Miss Hope it was always sunshine: it was not strange,
either, seeing you were all in all to one another after that terrible
sweep-off at Bethel. It is odd what vagaries come and go in a body’s
mind; time was when I viewed you as good as mated with Magawisca;
forgive me for speaking so, Mr. Everell, seeing she was but a tawny
Indian, after all.”
“Forgive you, Digby! you do me honour by implying that I rightly
estimated that noble creature; and before she had done the heroic deed
to which I owe my life--yes, Digby, I might have loved her--might have
forgotten that Nature had put barriers between us.”
“I don’t know but you might, Mr. Everell, but I don’t believe you
would; things would naturally have taken another course after Miss
Hope came among us; and many a time I thought it was well it was as it
was, for I believe it would have broken Magawisca’s heart to have been
put in that kind of eclipse by Miss Leslie’s coming between you and
her. Now all is as it should be; as your mother--blessed be her
memory--would have wished, and your father, and all the world.”
{53}
Digby seemed to have arranged everything in his own mind according to
what he deemed natural and proper; and, too self-complacent at the
moment to receive any check to his garrulity from the silence of his
guests, he proceeded. “The tree follows the bent of the twig; what
think you, Miss Esther, is not there a wedding a brewing?” Miss
Downing was silent: Digby looked round, and saw confusion in every
face, and, feeling that he had ventured on forbidden ground, he tried
to stammer out an apology. “I declare, now,” he said, “it’s odd--it’s
a sign I grow old; but I quite entirely forgot how queer young people
feel about such things. I should not have blundered on so, but my wife
put it into my head; she is equal to Nebuchadnezzar for dreaming
dreams; and three times last night she waked me to tell me about her
dreaming of a funeral, and that, she said, was a sure forerunner of a
wedding; and it was natural I should go on thinking whose wedding was
coming, was it not, Miss Esther?”
Everell turned away to caress a chubby boy. Miss Downing fidgeted with
her bonnet-strings, threw back her shawl, and disclosed the memorable
knot of rosebuds. If they had a meaning, they seemed also to have a
voice, and they roused Hope Leslie’s resolution. Some pride might have
aided her, but it was maidenly pride, and her feelings were as near to
pure generosity as our infirm nature can approach.
“Digby,” she said, “it was quite natural for you both to think and
speak of Mr. Everell’s wedding; we are to have it, and that right
soon, I hope; you {54} have only mistaken the bride; and as neither of
the parties will speak to set you right,” and she glanced her eyes
from Esther to Everell, “why, I must.”
Esther became as pale as marble. Hope flew to her side, took her hand,
placed it in Everell’s, threw her arm around Esther, kissed her cheek,
and darted out of the house. Digby half articulated an expression of
disappointment and surprise, and, impelled by an instinct that told
him this was not a scene for witnesses, he too disappeared.
Never were two young people left in a more perplexing predicament. To
Everell it was a moment of indescribable confusion and embarrassment.
To Esther, of overwhelming recollections, of apprehension, and hope,
and, above all, shame.
She would gladly have buried herself in the depths of the earth.
Everell understood her feelings. There was no time for deliberation;
and with emotions that would have made self-immolation at the moment
easy, and impelled, as it seemed to him, by an irresistible destiny,
he said something about the happiness of retaining the hand he held.
Miss Downing, confused by her own feelings, misinterpreted his. She
was, at the moment, incapable of estimating the disparity between his
few, broken, disjointed, half-uttered words, and the natural, free,
full expressions of an ardent and happy lover. She only spoke a few
words, to refer him to her aunt Winthrop; but her hand, passive in
his, her burning cheeks and throbbing heart, told him what no third
person could tell, and what her tongue could not utter.
{55}
Thus had Hope Leslie, by rashly following her first generous impulses,
by giving to “unproportioned thought its act,” effected that which the
avowed tenderness of Miss Downing, the united instances of Mr.
Fletcher and Governor Winthrop, and the whole colony and world beside,
could never have achieved. Unconscious of the mistake by which she had
put the happiness of all parties concerned in jeopardy, she was
exulting in her victory over herself, and endeavouring to regain in
solitude the tranquillity which she was surprised to find had utterly
forsaken her; and to convince herself that the disorder of her
spirits, which, in spite of all her efforts, filled her eyes with
tears, was owing to the agitating expectation of seeing her long-lost
sister.
The eastern extremity of the island, being sheltered by the high
ground on the west, was most favourable for horticultural experiments,
and had therefore been planted with fruit-trees and grapevines; here
Hope had retired, and was flattering herself she was secure from
interruption and observation, when she was startled by a footstep, and
perceived Sir Philip Gardiner approaching. “I am fortunate at last,”
he said; “I have just been vainly seeking you, where I most unluckily
broke in upon the lovers at a moment of supreme happiness, if I may
judge from the faces of both parties; but what are you doing with that
vine, Miss Leslie?” he continued, for Hope had stooped over a
grapevine, which she seemed anxiously arranging.
“I am merely looking at it,” she said; “it seems drooping.”
{56}
“Yes, and droop and die it must. I am amazed that the wise people of
your colony should hope to rear the vine in this cold and steril land:
a fit climate it is not for any delicate plant.”
The knight’s emphasis and look gave a particular significance to his
words; but Miss Leslie, determined to take them only in their literal
sense, coldly replied, “that it was not the part of wisdom to
relinquish the attempt to cultivate so valuable a production till a
fair experiment had been made.”
“Very true, Miss Leslie. The governor himself could not have spoken it
more sagely. Pardon me for smiling; I was thinking what an admirable
illustration of your remark your friend Miss Downing afforded you. Who
would have hoped to rear such a hot-bed plant as love amid her frosts
and ice? Nay, look not so reproachfully. I admit there are analogies
in nature; in my rambles in the Alpine country, I have seen herbage
and flowers fringing the very borders of perpetual snows.”
“Your analogy does not suit the case, Sir Philip,” replied Miss
Leslie, coldly; “but I marvel not at your ignorance of my friend; the
waters gushed from the rock only at the prophet’s touch--” Hope
hesitated; she felt that her rejoinder was too personal, and she
added, in a tone of calmer defence, “surely she who has shown herself
capable of the fervour of devotion and the tenderness of friendship,
may be susceptible of an inferior passion.”
“Most certainly; and your philosophy, fair reasoner, agrees with
experience and poetry. An old {57} French lay well sets forth the
harmony between the passions; thus it runs, I think;” and he trilled
the following stanzas:
“‘Et pour vérité vous record
Dieu et amour sont d’un accord,
Dieu aime sens et honorance,
Amour ne l’a pas en viltance;
Dieu hait orgueil et fausseté,
Et Amour aime loyauté;
Dieu aime honneur et courtoisie
Et bonne Amour ne hait-il mie;
Dieu écoute belle prière,
Amour ne la met pas arrière.’”
Sir Philip dropped on his knee, and, seizing Hope’s hand, repeated,
“‘Dieu écoute belle prière,
Amour ne le met pas en arrière.’”
At this moment, when Hope stood stock still from surprise, confusion,
and displeasure, Everell crossed the walk. The colour mounted to his
cheeks and temples, he quickened his footsteps, and almost instantly
disappeared. This apparition, instead of augmenting Miss Leslie’s
embarrassment, restored all her powers. “Reserve your gallantries, Sir
Philip,” she said, quietly withdrawing her hand, “and your profane
verses for some subject to whom they are better suited; if you have
aught of the spirit of a gentleman in you, you must feel that I have
neither invited the one nor provoked the other.”
Sir Philip rose, mortified and disconcerted, and suffered Miss Leslie
to walk slowly away from him without uttering a word to urge or defend
his suit. He would have been better pleased if he had excited {58}
more emotion of any sort; he thought he had never seen her, on any
occasion, so calm and indifferent. He was piqued, as a man of
gallantry, to be thus contemptuously repelled; and he was vexed with
himself that, by a false step, he had retarded, perhaps endangered,
the final success of his projects. He had been too suddenly elated by
the removal of his rival; he deemed his path quite clear; and, with
due allowance for natural presumption and self-love, it was not
perhaps strange that an accomplished man of the world should, in Sir
Philip’s circumstances, have counted sanguinely on success.
He remained pulling a rose to pieces, as a sort of accompaniment to
his vexed thoughts, when Mrs. Grafton made an untimely appearance
before him. “Ah ha!” she said, picking up a bracelet Hope had
unconsciously dropped, “I see who has been here--I thought so; but,
Sir Philip, you look downcast.” Sir Philip, accustomed as he was to
masquerade, had not been able to veil his feelings even from the good
dame, whose perceptions were neither quick nor keen; but what was
defective in them she made up in abundant good-nature. “Now, Sir
Philip,” she said, “there is nothing but the wind so changeful as a
woman’s mind; that’s what everybody says, and there is both good and
bad in it: for if the wind is dead ahead, we may look for it to turn.”
Sir Philip bowed his assent to the truism, and secretly prayed that
the good lady might be just in her application of it. Mrs. Grafton
continued: “Now, what have you been doing with that rose, Sir Philip?
{59} one would think it had done you an ill turn, by your picking it
to pieces; I hope you did not follow Everell’s fashion; such a way of
expressing one’s ideas should be left to boys.” Sir Philip most
heartily wished that he had left his sentiments to be conveyed by so
prudent and delicate an interpreter; but, determined to give no aid to
Mrs. Grafton’s conjectures, he threw away the rose-stem, and, plucking
another, presented it to her, saying that “he hoped she would not
extend her proscription of the language of flowers so far as to
prevent their expressing his regard for her.”
The good lady courtesied, and said “how much Sir Philip’s ways did
remind her of her dear deceased husband.”
The knight constrained himself to say “that he was highly flattered by
being thus honourably associated in her thoughts.”
“And you may well be, Sir Philip,” she replied, in the honesty of her
heart, “for my poor dear Mr. Grafton was called the most elegant man
of his time: and the best of husbands he proved; for, as Shakspeare
says, ‘He never let the winds of heaven visit me.’” She paused to wipe
away a genuine tear, and then continued: “It was not for such a man to
be disheartened because a woman seemed a little offish at first. _Nil
desperandum_ was his motto; and he, poor dear man, had so many rivals!
Here, you know, the case is quite different. If anybody were to fall
in love with anybody--I am only making a supposition, Sir
Philip--there is nobody here but {60} these stiff-starched Puritans--a
thousand pardons, Sir Philip; I forgot you was one of them. Indeed,
you seem so little like them that I am always forgetting it.”
Sir Philip dared not trust Mrs. Grafton’s discretion so far as to cast
off his disguises before her, but he ventured to say that “some of his
brethren were over-zealous.”
“Ay, ay, quite too zealous, aren’t they? a kind of mint, anise, and
cummin Christians.”
Sir Philip smiled: “He hoped not to err in that particular; he must
confess a leaning of the heart towards his old habits and feelings.”
“Quite natural; and I trust you will finally lean so far as to fall
into them again, all in good time; but, as I was saying, skittishness
isn’t a bad sign in a young woman. It was a long, long time before I
gave poor dear Mr. Grafton the first token of favour; and what do you
surmise that was, Sir Philip? Now just guess; it was a trick of fancy
really worth knowing.”
Sir Philip was wearied beyond measure with the old lady’s garrulity;
but he said, with all the complaisance he could assume, “That he could
not guess; the ingenuity of a lady’s favour baffled conjecture.”
“I thought you would not guess; well, I’ll tell you. There’s a little
history to it, but, luckily, we’ve plenty of time on hand. Well, to
begin at the beginning, you must know I had a fan--a French fan I
think it was; there were two Cupids painted on {61} it, and exactly in
the middle, between them, a figure of Hope--I don’t mean Hope Leslie,”
she continued, for she saw the knight’s eye suddenly glancing towards
the head of the walk, past which Miss Leslie was just walking, in
earnest conversation with Everell Fletcher.
Sir Philip felt the urgent necessity, at this juncture of affairs, of
preventing, if possible, a confidential communication between Miss
Leslie and Fletcher; and his face expressed unequivocally that he was
no longer listening to Mrs. Grafton.
“Do you hear, Sir Philip?” she continued; “I don’t mean Hope Leslie.”
“So I understand, madam,” replied the knight, keeping his face towards
her, but receding rapidly in the direction Miss Leslie had passed,
till, almost beyond the sound of her voice, he laid his hand on his
heart, bowed, and disappeared.
“Well, that is peculiar of Sir Philip,” muttered the good lady; then,
suddenly turning to Cradock, who appeared making his way through some
snarled bushes, “What is the matter now, Master Cradock?” she asked.
Cradock replied by informing her that the tide served for their return
to town, and that the governor had made it his particular request that
there might be no delay.
Mrs. Grafton’s spirit was always refractory to orders from
headquarters; but she was too discreet or too timid for any overt act
of disobedience, and she gave her arm to Cradock, and hastened to the
appointed rendezvous.
{62}
When Sir Philip had emerged from the walk, he perceived the parties he
pursued at no great distance from him, and was observed by Hope, who
immediately, and manifestly to avoid him, motioned to Everell to take
a path which diverged from that which led to the boat, to which they
were now all summoned by a loud call from the boatmen.
We must leave the knight to digest his vexation, and follow our
heroine, whose face could now claim nothing of the apathy that had
mortified Sir Philip.
“You are, then, fixed in your determination to remain on the island
to-night?” demanded Fletcher.
“Unalterably.”
“And is Digby also to have the honour of Sir Philip’s company?”
“Everell!” exclaimed Hope, in a tone that indicated surprise and
wounded feeling.
“Pardon me, Miss Leslie.”
“Miss Leslie again! Everell, you are unkind; you but this moment
promised you would speak to me as you were wont to do.”
“I would, Hope: my heart has but one language for you, but I dare not
trust my lips. I may--I _must_ now speak to you as a brother; and,
before we part, let me address a caution to you which that sacred,
and, thank God, permitted love, dictates. My own destiny is
fixed--fixed by your act, Hope; Heaven forgive me for saying so. It is
done. For myself, I can endure anything, but I could not live to see
you the prey of a hollow-hearted adventurer.” The truth flashed on
Hope: she was beloved--she loved {63} again--and she had rashly dashed
away the happiness within her grasp. Her head became dizzy; she
stopped, and, gathering her veil over her face, leaned against a tree
for support. Everell grievously misunderstood her agitation.
“Hope,” he said, with a faltering voice, “I have been slow to believe
that you could thus throw away your heart. I tried to shut my eyes
against that strange Saturday night’s walk--that mysterious,
unexplained assignation with a stranger; knowing, as I did, that his
addresses had received the governor’s full approbation--my father’s,
my poor father’s reluctant assent, I still trusted that your pure
heart would have revolted from his flatteries. I believe he is a
heartless hypocrite. I would have told you so, but I was too proud to
have my warning attributed, even for a moment, to the meanness of a
jealous rival. I have been accused of seeking you from--” interested
motives he would have added, but it seemed as if the words blistered
his tongue; and he concluded, “It matters not now; now I may speak
freely, without distrusting myself or being distrusted by others.
Hope, you have cast away my earthly happiness; trifle not with your
own.”
Hope perceived that events, conspiring with her own thoughtless
conduct, had riveted Everell’s mistake; but it was now irremediable.
There was no middle path between a passive submission to her fate and
a full and now useless explanation. She was aware that plighted
friendship and troth were staked on the resolution of the moment; and
when {64} Everell added, “Oh! I have been convinced against my
will--against my hopes: what visions of possible felicity have you
dispersed; what dreams--”
“Dreams--dreams all,” she exclaimed, interrupting him; and, throwing
back her veil, she discovered her face drenched with tears. “Hark!
they call you: let the past be forgotten; and for the future--the
future, Everell--all possible felicity does await you if you are true
to yourself--true to--” her voice faltered, but she articulated
“Esther;” and, turning away, she escaped from his sight as she would
have rushed from the brink of a precipice.
“Oh!” thought Everell, as his eye and heart followed her with the
fervid feeling of love, “oh! that one who seems all angel should have
so much of woman’s weakness!” While he lingered for a moment to subdue
his emotion, and fit him to appear before Esther and less interested
observers, Sir Philip joined him, apparently returning from the boat.
“Your friends stay for you, sir,” he said, and passed on.
“Then he does remain with her,” concluded Everell; and the conviction
was forced more strongly than ever on his mind, that Hope had lent a
favourable ear to Sir Philip’s suit. “The illusion must be transient,”
he thought; “vanity cannot have a lasting triumph over the noble
sentiments of her pure heart.” This was the language of his affection;
but we must confess that the ardour of his confidence was abated by
Miss Leslie’s apparently wide departure from delicate reserve, in
permitting (as he believed {65} she had) her professed admirer to
remain on the island with her.
He now hastened to the boat, in the hope that he should hear some
explanation of this extraordinary arrangement; but no such consolation
awaited him. On the contrary, he found it a subject of speculation to
the whole party. Faithful Cradock expressed simple amazement. Mrs.
Grafton was divided between her pleasure in the probable success of
her secret wishes, and her consciousness of the obvious impropriety of
her niece’s conduct; and her flurried and half-articulated efforts at
explanation only served, like a feeble light, to make the darkness
visible; and Esther’s downcast and tearful eye intimated her concern
and mortification for her friend.