THE FLOWERING OF THE SOUL
Cynthia had said coldly that she did not wish to marry at present,
perhaps never. "I have been trying to love you to--to please some one
else, and it is a compliment for you to ask me. But any woman ought to
be sure before she makes a life-long promise. I must be honest--with
you, with myself."
Something in the solemn tone awed him. He had not been looking at the
serious side of love. She was pretty, bright, and winsome, with a good
deal of Puritan simplicity, a great power of enjoyment and difficult to
win. He liked to do the winning himself. He liked to find some new
qualities in girls, and Cynthia, with all her daintiness, had many sides
that surprised one. She had been brought up by a man--that made the
difference.
"We will wait a little," he said. "Talk to your cousin about it. I think
it will all come right. You are the first woman I ever desired to marry,
and I have been fond of girls, too."
That would have flattered some women. She said good-night in a strained,
breathless tone, and vanished through the door. He sat and thought.
There was no other lover, he was quite sure.
She went to bed at once. She did not cry, she was somehow stunned at
this revelation about herself, for she had resolved to accept him and
this sudden protest told her that it was quite impossible. If Cousin
Chilian was disappointed, if he was tired of her, there was a warm
welcome in Boston.
She did not sleep much. Rachel noted her heavy eyes, and the expression
as if she might be secretly upbraiding fate. What if Mr. Saltonstall had
been trifling?
Chilian went up to his study. He felt languid, he nearly always did now.
He took a book and sat by the open window. Two tall trees hid the
prospect, except a space of blooming garden. To-day a small outlook
pleased him, for his life was to be made narrower. She would come and
tell him--shut the golden gate forever. He could not, would not, enter
their paradise. Let him keep quite on the outside.
She came in a soft, white gown that clung to her virginal figure. The
swelling-out period had passed, even sleeves had collapsed to a small
puff, and for house wear the arms and neck were left bare.
The book was a Greek play. The letters danced before her eyes as she
stood there. He looked off the book, but not up at her.
"Cousin Chilian, I want to tell you"--her voice had the peculiar
softness that one uses to try to cover the hurt one cannot help
giving--"Mr. Saltonstall was here last evening. He has asked me to marry
him."
It seemed to her the silence lasted moments. Then he said in an
incurious tone, "Well?"
"I--will you be angry or disappointed when I confess that I cannot, that
I do not love him."
"Oh, Cynthia, child; what do you know about love?" he said impatiently.
"Enough to know that it would be wrong to take a man's love and give him
nothing in return." Now her voice was steady, convincing.
He had a sudden thought. Like a vision the stalwart form of the young
sailor rose before him. He had carried admiration, yes, love in his
eyes. What if he had carried more than that away?
"Cynthia, is there some one else, some one you _could_ love----"
"There is some one else." Her tone was very low, but brave. That
admission would settle the matter.
"Are you to wait three years for him?"
"For whom?" in surprise.
Then he glanced up. Her face, that had been lily-white, was flushed from
brow to neck. What was there in the beautiful, entreating eyes?
"Cynthia?" All his firmness gave way.
His arm stole softly around her, drew her a trifle down. "Tell me! Tell
me!" he cried, yet he had no idea he was asking her to lay her heart
bare. There was still the boy Anthony.
"Cousin Chilian, if a woman loved very much, would it be a shame to her
if, unasked, she----"
Her head sank down on his shoulder. He felt the warm, throbbing breath
on his cheek. He drew her closer. Did the slim, palpitating body betray
its secret?
"Oh, Cynthia, child, the most precious thing in all the world to me,
tell me that I will not have to give you to another, that I may keep you
to myself. For I cannot comprehend how so great a joy could come to me.
And whether I would have the right to take your sweet young life, that
should be replete with the joys of youth, with the gladness that is its
proper birthright."
"If I gave it to you? If I could never have given it to any other?"
He drew her down closer, and the gentle yielding, the sort of rapturous
sigh, answered him better than any words. He pressed kisses on the
unresisting lips, kisses that then were sacred to affianced lovers and
husbands.
Was it an hour or half a lifetime? He inclined her to his knee as he had
when she was a little girl, but at length he came back to his senses.
"Cynthia," he began with tender gravity, "there are many points to
consider. Do you know that I am more than double your age----"
"Don't tell that to me. Isn't love as sweet?"
Could he deny it in the face of that ravishing smile, those appealing
eyes.
"Still--the world will think about it. And you are a rich young woman,
you could take your pick of lovers----"
"But they are all so troublesome," she interrupted. "And one gets
affronted with the other. And if I picked very much I might be called a
flirt, perhaps I have been. I didn't want them, only to dance and be
merry with, and there are so many pretty girls in the world--enough for
all of them."
He smiled a little and it gave her a heartache to see how thin he had
grown, and there were new creases in his forehead that had been so fair
and smooth.
"And if some day you should repent?"
"I'm not going to repent. Why should one when one gets the thing one
wanted?"
There was a touch of the old brightness in her tone. Had she really
wanted him?
"I've been very naughty with all these lovers, haven't I? But no one
came near enough to really ask me that question until last night, though
Mr. Marsh thought he would if he were going to stay. And Cousin Chilian,
I had made up my mind truly, I thought, for I liked Mr. Saltonstall very
much, and it seemed to me you wanted me to----" Her voice died away in
pathos.
"I did. Oh, you must know the worst of me. When I found you were
growing into my very heart, and I began to feel jealous of the young
men, I took myself in hand as a most reprehensible old fellow. But I
found you had entwined yourself in every fibre of my heart, and it was
hard indeed to uproot you."
"And you really tried?" Her tone was upbraiding.
"I tried like an honest, upright man. I shall never be ashamed of the
effort. I would not mar or spoil your life. You see you might have loved
some of these brave young lads. You might have been very happy with
them."
"Oh, you can't have but one husband;" in laughing gayety.
He flushed at her mischief.
"I wonder when you began to love me? And what has made you so cold and
distant, as if you were taking your affection away?"
"I was--I was--Heaven forgive me! I was learning to live without you; to
go back to a life more solitary than it was before you came. And,
Cynthia, you were not altogether a welcome guest. I did not know what to
do with a little girl. I was set in my ways. I did not like to be
disturbed. I could have sent a boy off to school. And Elizabeth thought
it a trouble, too. You must read your father's letter and see the trust
he reposed in me. But you were such a strange, shy little thing, and so
delicate in all your ways. You never touched an article without
permission, you handled books so gently, you never made dog's-ears, or
crumpled a page. And that winter you were ill--and the faith you had in
his return. How many times my heart ached for you. After that I could
not have given you up, and I fell into a sort of belief that it would go
on this always. When the lovers began to come, I found I must awake from
my delusion. And then I knew that an oldish fellow could love a sweet
girl in her first bloom, but that it would be a selfish, unpardonable
thing."
"Not if she loved him!" She raised her face in all its sweet bravery of
color.
"But it was his duty to let her see what pleasure there was in the world
for youth; it was the promise to her dead father, who had confided his
treasure to him. And even now he hesitates, lest you shall not have the
best of everything."
"I shall have the best;" with winning confidence.
"I loved your mother. I was a young lad, and she some five years older.
I suppose I was like a young brother to her, because your father, her
lover, had been here so much. And somehow, you slipped into the place
where there never had been any other."
"It must have been kept for me," she said gravely. "And now I give you
warning that I shall never go out of it. No place could ever be so dear
as this house with all its memories. I am glad you knew and loved my
mother."
It came noon before they were talked out, or before they had settled
only one point, about which she would have her way. She wrote a pretty
note to Mr. Saltonstall, reiterating some things she had said the
evening before, and acknowledging that when she had tried to accept him,
she had found her heart was another's, "and you are worthy of a woman's
best love," she added, which did comfort him.
Still it puzzled him a good deal, but he finally settled upon Anthony
and thought it a rather foolish choice. No doubt but that Giles Leverett
was back of it all.
They told Cousin Eunice and Miss Winn. The former cried for sheer joy.
She seemed older than her years, but she was well and bid fair to live
years yet.
"Then you will never go away. I could not live without you, and as for
Chilian----"
"It would only be half a life," returned the lover, and he kissed Cousin
Eunice.
Miss Winn hardly knew whether to be pleased or not. She liked Mr.
Saltonstall very much for his gayety, good humor, and fine presence, and
then he had the divine gift of youth to match hers. Would she not tire
of Chilian Leverett's grave life?