"I assure you," I said, puzzling myself to reconcile her language with her eyes, which seemed to me brilliant with intelligence, "I have never studied these matters. I know nothing of them. They are idle speculations, and you should not indulge in them. They will make your solitude very oppressive."
"They make my solitude more than oppressive at times. But if the winds are tormented spirits, those flowers are good angels. They give me as much pleasure as the winds give me pain. All those flowers have souls. I am quite sure of that. But it is not pleasant to think, for I fear one morning I shall find them all dead through their souls having taken wing."
She pushed some transparent hairs behind her ear.
"I wish, Mrs. Fraser," I said, "you would do me the favour to inspect my garden. I employ two gardeners; but the three of us do not approach you in the delicacy of your taste."
"When do you want me to come?"
"Now, if you will."
"Not now. I must have time to consider. I hardly ever leave my house, and then onlyfor a short walk. And did not I tell you that I visit no one?"
"But you will oblige me in this?"
"I am not sure. You have no claims on me that I should favour you more than any one else. I will think over it, and tell you to-morrow. Will you come to watch me again at the gate?"
"If I may?"
"Oh, youmay. The fields are not mine; and I have no right to forbid trespassers."
"I will come to the gate at the hour I met you to-day."
"Yes."
"And you will accompany me over my grounds."
"I shall see. Now I must go in."
She held out her hand, I took and retained it.
"Before I leave you, Mrs. Fraser, willyou tell me that my society is not distasteful—that you no longer look upon me as an intruder?"
She did not offer to withdraw her hand. It seemed to me, indeed, that she hardly knew I held it.
"No. I am disposed to like you," she replied. "You weren't frank at first; but you have become frank since, and that makes you a pleasant companion. Oh! you will never know my abhorrence of the cant which politeness makes men and women talk. They treat each other like cats—stroke, and stroke, until truth is lost in a general purring. I like truthful people. They need not be insulting: they can always keep back unpleasant knowledge; but they need notlie. Polite peoplemustlie."
I would not argue. It pleased me better to watch the varying expressions of herbeautiful face, the soft curvings of her lips, the graceful gestures of her hands, than to contradict.
"Good-bye," she said.
"Until to-morrow," I answered.
Near the gate I halted to pick up the rose-bud she had thrown from her, and pressed it to my lips. Peeping furtively toward the house, I saw she watched me from the window.
I said next day to Martelli, "You will see Mrs. Fraser this afternoon, I hope. She has half promised to come and look at my flowers."
"What have I to do with Mrs. Fraser?" he exclaimed with a shrug. "My business is with books, not women. I can understand the one, but not the other."
"But I want to justify my love. Her beauty will do this for me."
"Have I not seen her?" he asked, stretching out his arms.
"Yes, by moonlight—with blank eyesand expressionless face. Her beauty by noon is somewhat different from her beauty by night."
"Sir, yellow hair and black eyes make no charm for me."
"You are a Goth."
"When I was a young man I fell in love once a week. That proves a catholic taste, at all events, for my Hebes must have varied."
"But you will let me introduce you to Mrs. Fraser? You can know and like without admiring her. You will be struck with her conversation."
"Does she talk well?"
"She talks strangely—what Shakespeare calls 'matter and impertinency mixed.' Her shrewd discursiveness pleases me."
"Ah, Sir, you are willing to be pleased."
"I cannot help being pleased. Hermusical prattle is very different from the sort of entertainment I am used to in other women. Dull decorous reason I can get anywhere.Hertalk is rare as her beauty."
"A kind of mad talk, Sir."
"Mad, indeed! You shall hear her yourself and judge."
"Pray excuse me. I will take my pipe, and while you enjoy yourtête-à-têtewill search for curious objects on the beach."
"Be it so, then," said I, somewhat chagrined: for I wanted to witness this chilly sceptic melting into admiration before my beautiful neighbour's eyes.
There goes a disappointed man (thought I, as I watched him enter the house). His austerity cloaks some odd experience, I dare swear. Could I but see into his memory I might witness a strange drama being played in that little theatre. Someunconscionable jilt has soured the ripe juices of his nature; and now he spits venom at the whole sex. Yet he makes wry faces over his cynicism. I don't think he relishes it much. He argues, I suppose, that the coming of a wife will prove the going of his occupation. He has a rich young fellow under his charge and has no wish to surrender him to the keeping of a woman. So he directs his forked tongue at her in the hope that I shall be influenced. My little signor, you will be disappointed, if you hope this!
He left the house after lunch.
At the proper hour I stood at the gate in the fields and peeped over. The garden was empty. I looked at my watch. It was past the time at which I had met her the day before. Twenty minutes passed. I walked to and fro, staring at the windows in the hope of catching a glimpse of herface. Believing she would disappoint me, I grew irritable. "Her conduct," I thought, "is unladylike, to say the least. She promised to meet me, and should come. If she is making a fool of me how will that Martelli exult! But it is my own fault. Am I not an independent man? If I want to marry, have I not but to open my arms to have them filled without the trouble of wooing? For how many women are there who would not cheerfully do all the courting for two thousand pounds a year? Then what do I here, in a hot field, tormented by that accursed gnat" (and here I aimed a prodigious but idle blow at the insect) "worrying my mind with conjectures, a spectacle for the pert eye of the widow's maid, who probably sits watching me from the ambush of a window-curtain?" And I was positively in the act of walking away, when suddenly, from amid a row of lilactrees close to the gate, stepped forth—Mrs. Fraser.
"Shall I tell you your thoughts?" she exclaimed, approaching me, without returning my salutation by smile or bow.
"If you please," I answered, my mood clearing in her presence as the cloudy heavens clear when the sun shines out.
"Stoop your ear then."
I inclined my head. She leaned across the gate and whispered, "Mrs. Fraser—— Oh!" she cried, springing back, and clapping her hands, "there are some words that are coarse and burning in the mouth as radishes. This is one. But it's true—and truth must be pungent."
"But before I can tell whether it is true or not, let me know what you think."
"Don't you think me—a humbug?"
"No, no!" I exclaimed with a laugh.
"Why do you say no?" with sudden earnestness.
"But I may tell you I was annoyed," I continued, "because I feared you would not come."
"I expected you would be, and so I determined to watch you.Youwatched me yesterday. It was not fair. When one is alone one indulges in all kinds of moods; and you might have seen me make myself ugly and foolish by pouting, grimacing, frowning, or smiling, just as the mood obliged me. I don't like to be caught unawares. I choose to smooth my face down so," looking gravely, "when I am watched. There is an expression I wear as a vizor; it's this."
As a three-year old child looks, who, being told not to smile, frowns, that it may appear grave, so looked she. Then, breaking into a sudden smile:
"I watched you frown. You stared at my poor little house as though you could have burnt it up with your eyes. How you flung your impatience at the tiny fly that annoyed you! 'Oh this treacherous woman!' you thought; 'how glibly she made the word of promise to the ear to break it to the hope!' Did you not think all this and as much more as would take me twenty minutes to tell? I watched you just as steadily as you watched me yesterday. I saw your weakness. Did you see mine? No—my hat hid my face. You couldn't see my eyes. And unless you see the eyes you can't tell what is going on in the mind."
"No, nor when you see the eyes can you always tell what is going on. It would be a delightful privilege," said I, looking steadily at her, "to be able to interpret those fiery hieroglyphics in which the soul writes her thoughts upon the eyes."
"I don't think so," she replied. "There would be little pleasure in life if we could read one another's thoughts."
"There would be no hypocrisy, at all events; we should have to speak the truth."
"And would you like that?" she asked. "Would the plain heiress like to hear her lover declare that his only motive in offering her marriage was to get her money? Would the father like to hear that the reason of his son's affection is that he may not be forgotten in his will? Life is a great mirage. Let it alone—pray, let it alone. Don't pour the light of truth on it, or it will vanish like a rainbow when the storm is over."
"I thought, Mrs. Fraser, you were so enamoured of truth?"
"Yes, among my friends. It pleases me to speak the truth, and I choose to hear thetruth spoken. I hate compliments, and fine language, and the gingerbread splendour ofpoliteness, as it is called. But it is not because I love truth that I would rob the world, which I hate, of the pleasure of telling lies."
"You spoke of my weakness just now. What weakness did my face or behaviour illustrate?"
"Impatience."
"Nothing worse?"
"If I had remarked anything worse, I should have let you go away."
"Allow me to open this gate. You will come and see my flowers?"
"It would not be fair in me to refuse you after keeping you waiting so long."
I held the gate open. She passed from her garden into mine.
"These grounds present no such prettycoup d'œilas yours," I said. "I am new at this sort of work, and for all I know my taste may be a little cockneyfied."
"Oh, but the garden is in beautiful order! Pray do not speak to me of my poor little slip of ground. That lawn is larger." We paced through the walks. I could hardly remove my eyes from her face. She had replaced her hat of yesterday by one resembling that worn by Peg Woffington in Reynolds's picture. Her dress was black silk, with a muslin body. A carved ivory cross hung on her bosom by a chain of white coral.
"Your presence here gives me great happiness," I exclaimed; "and it makes me proud to think that I should have been the first to cause you to break through your rule of solitude."
"I have lived here a long time now, and you are the only person I know," she answered.
"But you must have felt dull sometimes?"
"Often. How should I help feeling dull? I have no one to speak to."
"But this must be your own fault," I said gently. "You might easily have made acquaintances."
"Yes, but I would not risk it. I might not like them, and in a small place like this it is embarrassing to withdraw from society after one has mingled in it. Besides, people are apt to be impertinent when they have nothing to do. A widow is always an object of curiosity, especially to elderly spinsters—and there are many here. Now I will let any one discuss me to her heart's content—on one condition: that we remain strangers. Oh, what a glorious rose, Mr. Thorburn!"
I separated it from the tree and gave it to her.
"You should have offered it more timidly," she exclaimed, looking at me over the flower; "how did you know I would not reject it like I did your bouquet?"
"I didn't think. But you recall my wish to send you some flowers. Will you let me order the gardener to make you a bouquet?"
"If you please."
I called to one of the men and gave him the instructions. We got upon the lawn.
"What a pretty house!" she said, looking up. "It stands so cool and white from the road. What made you take it?"
"I got tired of London. I wanted to study."
"Oh, I remember—you told me. Do you study now?"
"Not much, I fear."
"Where do you study?"
"In my library there," said I, pointing to the window.
"You ought to be there now. I am keeping you from your books," she exclaimed, with a certain grave archness.
"You would be keeping me from my books, whether you were absent or present."
"Should I? How?"
"By making me think of you."
"And do you really think of me, Mr. Thorburn?"
"You have never been out of my mind since the evening I dreamt of you."
"It was curious you should have dreamed of me," she said, putting her hands behind her and leaning against the back of a garden-seat.
"It was mysterious," I answered gravely.
"And was my face in your dream exactly like it is here?" she asked, looking up that I might see her fully.
"It was more sad. You had a brokenhearted look in your eyes. What I saw in my dream was more like your face in your sleep, when I met you afterwards."
"What made you dream of me?"
"I cannot tell."
"Had you ever seen me?"
"Never."
"Nor heard me described?"
"No."
"How quickly the swallows fly!" she exclaimed, pointing in the air. "What would you give to be able to live all day long in that pure blue? This is a beautiful rose you have given me. How can the thick, ugly, common earth yield such lovely things?"
"You were questioning me, Mrs. Fraser. Do continue your examination."
"Questioning you? What about?" she asked, looking at me with a little bewildered air.
"About my dream. I have often wanted to discuss it with you, that I may understand it. You who inspired it should know what it means."
"I cannot tell you, indeed. I did not inspire it. I had never seen you nor heard of you."
"In the olden times it was the custom to examine dreams, in the belief that they were prophecies. I would like to revive the custom, to see what my dream forebodes."
"What should it forebode? Sadness, perhaps, since my eyes were so sad."
"Dreams go by contraries, they say."
"Then they are useless as prophecies."
"But I am by no means disposed to let my dream slip by so easily. I choose to think it significant in some sense which I wish explained."
"It was a prophecy, perhaps, that you should meet me: and you did."
"It was a prophecy perhaps, that our lives were to mingle, and they may."
"Nothing is impossible," she answered quietly.
She did not say this consciously. It was an answer obviously made without the slightest reference to its implication.
"How beautiful these grounds of yours look under the blue sky," she continued gaily. "I wish you had not made me see them. They will spoil me for my narrow garden."
"Why will you not use them as your own? Those gates were made for communication. You can always be alone by naming the hours it may suit you to come. I can dismiss the gardeners for that time, and hide myself in my study."
"Your offer is very polite, but I will notaccept it. I shouldn't care to wander about a place that doesn't belong to me; for there is little real satisfaction in admiring the possessions of others. Besides, my fingers would itch to be at the flowers. I should be picking the choicest. That is my way."
"You would be welcome to pick them all."
"Yet were I to come I would not wish you to hide yourself. Your company does me good. I have felt more cheerful since I knew you."
"You give me great pleasure in saying this, Mrs. Fraser."
"I mean it. I find you frank and easy and kind. You are not in the least tiresome. When you first spoke to me I saw your face set out with compliments andmots, like any other man's might have been. But I swept this sugary French repast awayand made you substitute hearty nourishing solids. This makes you agreeable."
Her grave innocent look forbade me to smile; yet it was not easy to preserve my gravity. I felt like a big boy lectured by some pretty little girl.
She stood looking pensively at her foot, which she waved to and fro on the heel; then exclaimed,
"I am going now."
I had no wish to part with her.
"Pray don't go yet. We have not been long together."
"No, not very long. But taste is refined by abstinence."
"Yes, but this sort of refinement is fretting. Your company is like that sweet wine, mentioned by a Persian poet, of which the more you drank the thirstier you became."
"Oh! here comes the gardener with my bouquet!" she cried.
The man presented it to her, cap in hand.
"Thank you, thank you," she exclaimed, inclining her sweet face over the flowers. And when the man had withdrawn, she drew close to me, and pointing with a white finger to the bouquet, said:
"Have you ever imagined what shapes and expressions the spirits of flowers take? The spirit of the lily would be a languid floating shape, with meek eyes and hands crossed on her bosom: but of course very, very small—smaller than the fairies. The violet would be a little baby boy with round blue eyes and a wee red mouth. The rose would be a young girl with a rich complexion. Her beautiful limbs would be tinted with a delicate pink like the shadow of the red rose in water. She would be haughty, with a glowing eye; and her hair would be bound by a circle of gold."
"And what flower," I asked, "should, at its death, take the form of a woman exquisitely modelled, with black eyes melting from one sweet expression into another, sometimes startled, sometimes pleading, always luminous with bright but tender alternations of thought"——
"I see," she interrupted gravely; "you agree with me; you believe in the resurrection of the flowers."
"I think you could make me believe in anything."
She uttered a laugh; its abruptness made it discordant.
"Good-bye," she exclaimed, "I will come and see your flowers again some day."
"May I not show you over my house?"
"What is there to be seen?"
"Come and judge."
I held the door open; she paused, entered, and returned.
"I'll not look over your house to-day. You have had enough of my company. You may walk with me to the gate."
She moved away, I followed her.
"How long do you think my bouquet will last, Mr. Thorburn?"
"Some days."
"I wonder that people who like one another should make presents of flowers. When a young man presents a bouquet to the girl he is in love with, do either of them think that the gift exactly typifies their passion—all human passion—which is bright to-day and withered to-morrow?"
"They would hardly think this. I can understand love seeking for expression in the most lovely and fragrant symbols the world has to offer. But the real truth is, the majority of lovers don't think at all.They imitate. They give what others give."
"Now that is the way I like to hear people talk," she exclaimed with a merry laugh; "I am quite sure that the only way to be truthful is to be cynical."
"I am afraid so."
"If I were a young and inexperienced girl, the person on whose judgment I should most depend would be the one who most sincerely disbelieved in the existence of virtue."
"No, no. Such an infidel would make a bad guide."
"An infallible guide, you mean. How could he err?"
"He would err by not being able to grasp the full character of the world's wickedness. He would underrate its depravity by allowing it no virtue whatever."
"I don't understand. This is a paradox," said she stopping, for we had reached the gate. "Would you increase the world's wickedness by making it virtuous?"
"Yes, up to a certain point. I speak in the sense of Dean Swift, who said we had all of us Christianity enough to make us hate one another. Virtue has a very fructifying power, and vice springs richly from its soil. A totally wicked world is an impossibility. That dreadful place to which we are told sinners will be consigned cannot be utterly wicked, or it could not exist."
"I almost catch your meaning, but you don't express yourself well, Mr. Thorburn."
"You are quite right. I am given, I am sorry to say, to walking round my thoughts too much." I could have added that such eyes as hers were not calculated to make a man logical or even disputatious, save in a love argument.
"I am then to believe that there is enough good in the world to make it more wicked than it would be were there no good?"
"Why, having advanced my position, I am bound to stick to it. You have said indeed what I think, but what I would not preach."
She stood lost in thought for some moments.
"Mr. Thorburn," she presently said, "I think the world very, very bad; it is cold-hearted, selfish, and dishonourable and mean and pitiless. I see now that it could not be all this if it had not what it calls virtue and religion to prompt it; for the virtue of the world teaches us to hate those whom it pronounces corrupt; and its religion"——she stopped with a bewildered look; "what does its religion teach?"
"History will answer that better thanI. But what have we to do with the world, Mrs. Fraser? Here, under that tender sky, amid these flowers, fanned by this soft air, we should not let thoughts of its wrongs and treacheries trouble us."
"If one could throw memory upon the air and bid the breeze bear its burden a thousand miles away, then would it be well. But the afternoon is passing. Good-bye, Mr. Thorburn."
"When may I see you again?"
"Oh, you will find a time," she answered with a little demure laugh; and so saying she passed through the gate.
Her manners, her moods, her beauty had fascinated me. My love for her was become a passion. I determined before long to declare it. But before doing so, I resolved to see more of her. I wanted to be sure that she loved me before I proposed. I felt my happiness would be staked on the issue of the offer, and dreaded the result of hasty action.
You may believe I thought very hard over the problem of her nature; but I could arrive at no solution that satisfied me. She had affirmed that she liked mycompany; but the assurance had been too much qualified by thenaïvetéof the declaration to be pleasing. A better illustration, at least a more satisfactory indication, lay in her not avoiding me.
But what an odd character was hers! How inadequate is language to represent her! I can only give you the bare uncoloured outline. It is beyond my power to fill it up with the details which must be accurately painted, before you can have before you, as I knew her, my beautiful, wayward, fantastical, child-like neighbour.
I suppose my love blinded me, or I should have attached more importance to the various little perplexing points of character which stole out during our conversations. Her candour was made too piquant by her eyes, her downright utterances too musical by her voice, her rapid divergence from one topic to another toopretty by the infantine air that accompanied it, to suffer me to note any other meaning than that which met the eye and ear.
I laid aside my books and my ambitions in my pursuit of her. Compared with winning her, all other pleasures and hopes were poor and small indeed. My love engrossed my thoughts, held me absent; and made me altogether more foolish than my sense of self-respect will suffer me to recall.
She was right when she told me I should find a time to meet her. I met her the next day. I met her the day after; and upon succeeding days again. Once I prevailed upon her to accompany me in a walk to the cliffs, by an unfrequented road leading to a spot where we stood in little danger of being intruded on. It was on this occasion that I witnessed in her more constrained air, in her speech more suave than usual, in her eyes which were sometimesshyly averted, the presence of an emotion I had waited for and sought to excite. The breakers creamed at our feet; a west wind cooled the air; the white gulls swept by on curved and steady wings; the sun reared an unbroken silver pillar in the sea. The scene, the sounds, the solitude were propitious to love; but I would not speak my feelings yet. I felt that the memory of this calm and tender hour we were passing together would do more for me than I could do for myself.
During the week Martelli and I had been little together. My mind had been too much employed with hopes and fears of its own to suffer me to remark him attentively; but I had noticed that he had been to the full as abstracted as I. But his abstraction was of a gloomy order. His dark eyes, his contracted brow, his set lips, proclaimed the sullenness of his thoughts.
I attributed his manner to my neglect of him, and to his resentment at being invited to a position which had been despoiled of its duties. I must confess my love may have impaired my politeness. I was no longer the attentive host, solicitous of his comfort, and on thequi viveto remove any unpleasant thoughts which his position would inspire, and which his language, indeed, would sometimes hint. But I could easily excuse my neglect, if neglect it were. It was not to be supposed that I could regard him altogether in the light of a guest. Or granting that I chose to do so, his long stay in my house would have justified a mitigation of the severe politeness which it would have been proper to extend to a man whose sojourn was brief. "Surely," I remember thinking, "under the circumstances, he should have sense enough at this time of day not to expectfrom me the anxious attention which I readily practised at the beginning of our acquaintance. I have fulfilled conditions which he could not have anticipated. I have suffered him to share my home as though he were a joint proprietor; and I have tacitly conceded every privilege which I could with justice to myself yield to him. I cannot consider him ill-used because I choose to absent myself in the company of Mrs. Fraser, in preference to spending my time with him. He no doubt frets and fumes at my love as indiscreet—as menacing his situation, and as illustrative of weakness in a nature that had at the onset promised a vigorous adherence to its original schemes. But surely," I thought, "it will be time enough for him to manifest anger when he shall have been told that I have abandoned my ambitious resolutions and no longer require his counsels."
On reaching home after that walk I have told you of with Mrs. Fraser, I found Martelli seated on the lawn. I joined him. He rose at my approach. His politeness was punctilious in proportion to his temper.
"Pray keep your seat," said I. "How have you been passing the afternoon?"
"In reading," he answered with a shrug.
"You say that reproachfully. You think I should be reading too?"
"Are you not master of your own actions, Sir?"
"Undoubtedly. I shall resume my reading by-and-by."
"I hope so, for your own sake. You are abandoning a fine future."
"Why do you say that? My future is still mine. I have not abandoned it. I have still my schemes and my hopes. I shall try to realise them."
"You will never realise them, Sir, if youallow your mind to be diverted by the first small attraction that happens to rise.
"Small attraction! But I can forgive you. You are a scholar, a student, a recluse—what should you know of love?"
His eyes shone.
"Nothing! nothing! I am ignorant of the passion," he exclaimed, flourishing his hand.
"Yet I should have taken you to be too wise a man to have neglected cultivating your sympathies in the direction where the most provocation lies. Love is so human a passion, its consequences are so manifold, its influences so remarkable, that were you anything of a philosopher you would have made it a study. How can you hope to understand men, when you are ignorant of the great master-passion of humanity?"
"How do you know I am so ignorant as you think me?"
"I judge so by the sneers you are disposed to level at love, and by the light contemptuous manner with which you treat it."
"May not that prove that I know too much?"
"I don't see how. Cynicism is of superficial growth. Deep knowledge makes one grave and compassionate. The painter knew life who gave a smirk to the fool and sadness to the sage."
"But it is to be expected of a man who has sounded this passion to its bottom that he should ridicule the belief in its depth, when he knows it to be shallow."
"Give me leave to push your metaphor. If you speak of yourself, you probably got among the shoals, and inferred from your soundings that the deep was everywhere shallow."
He gave one of his shrugs and sat silent. I took out my cigar-case and held it opento him. He declined with a wave of his hand. I glanced at his face; it was hard and angry.
"Martelli," said I, "you are too sensitive. What has vexed you?"
"How am I sensitive, Sir?" he asked, growing a shade pale.
"I cannot tell youhowyou are sensitive," I replied, stirred a little by the suppressed irritation of his voice; "but I think I can guess the cause of your vexation."
"Pray tell me, Sir."
"You think I am neglecting you for Mrs. Fraser?"
He gave a fierce nod.
"And you are disposed to resent my placing you in so anomalous a position as that which you now occupy?"
"Sir, never mind that. I admit you have disappointed me."
"I am sorry I cannot see how."
"How should you see? You are blinded by love."
"Signor Martelli, I must beg you to calm yourself. I cannot suffer such language as this."
"But, Sir, you provoke me!" he exclaimed, gesticulating and growing yet paler. "You raise expectations to disappoint them. When I came here, I secretly pledged myself to carry you through any schemes you had a mind to indulge. All my diligence, my time, my knowledge, my patience, I meant to give to you. I liked you, Sir. Your manners pleased me. It was charming to attend one so acute and so humble—so quick to perceive and so eager to be taught. And I too had my ambitions! They are gone."
"They are not gone, Martelli," I said, softened.
"They are, Sir!" he cried, clenchingboth fists. "It is a blow. I am a poor man. Had you let me do for you what I could have done, you would have requited me. Of that I am sure. Yes, Sir; I am not so ignorant of human nature as not to tell generosity when I see it; and yours is a generous mind. It made me this promise: it said, 'Martelli, serve me well, advance my schemes, impart the knowledge and the power your experience and learning can inspire, and when I have achieved the ends I covet I will reward you.' That is what you told me, Sir."
"But what did you expect?"
"As much as it was in your power to confer. You would not have forgotten the man who gave you help when you needed it. You might have made me your secretary—your agent—your amanuensis. You would have invented some post for me to fill—you would, at least, have rescued me from a lifeof drudgery. But now, I am forced back again upon my pitiful calling—teaching at schools, soliciting pupils, and starving as a teacher!"
"I see no necessity. Have I dismissed you?"
"I dismiss myself!" he cried, standing up and striking his chest with his fist.
I was impressed by his vehemence; at once pained and made curious by his manner.
"At all events," I said, "if you go, you go of your own accord."
"Of course," he replied sarcastically.
"But at the same time you will allow me to say that I think you foolish for exhibiting so much impatience."
"Impatience!" he exclaimed, with a sharp laugh. "Oh, no! I am not impatient. But, Sir, it is not pleasant to be given to drink of a wine that is dashed from yourlips after you have tasted enough to like its sweetness."
"But, my dear fellow, nobodyhasdashed the wine away, that I can see."
"You have! you have!" he cried, with a grin of anger.
"I? You are dreaming."
"Sacramento!don't tell me I dream!"
"I shall have to tell you something worse," said I, getting up; "if you don't moderate your temper, I shall have to tell you that you are mad."
"That it should come to this!" he muttered, looking up, as though he apostrophised the air.
"You speak English fluently," said I; "let me entreat you to express yourself intelligibly that I may understand your grievance."
He left me; walked to the edge of thelawn, returned, approached close to me, and said,
"It is your intention, Sir, to marry, is it not?"
"What of that?"
"When, Sir, do you marry?"
"I shall probably make the lady an offer to-morrow," I answered, compressing my lips to disguise a smile.
"Ah!" He nodded fiercely, walked once more to the edge of the lawn, and returned. "You are serious, Sir? You really mean to marry?"
I could not help laughing out, as I answered, "Yes."
"Then, Sir, pay me what you owe me, and let me go."
"Do you wish to leave at once?"
"At once!" he cried.
"Very well; come with me to the library.I will reckon what I am in your debt and pay you."
He followed me into the house. I seated myself at the writing-table. But hardly believing it possible he could be in earnest, or wishing at least to make one more effort to conciliate him, I said,
"Will you not defer this matter until to-morrow? Take to-night to think over your resolution. This kind of separation is very ungracious and unpleasant. I really do not wish you to go. I have told you before I like your company, and have found you most valuable. I repeat it now."
"But you are going to marry?"
"What of that? After my marriage we will continue our reading."
"But you are going to marry?" he repeated.
"Good heaven! Do you think Mrs. Fraser an ogress? Do you think she willeat you? When you know her you will like her." He shook his head furiously, and violently waved his hand before his face.
"Pay me, Sir, pay me, and let me go!" he exclaimed.
Disgusted by his irritable perversity, I drew out my cheque-book.
"Can you not pay me in gold?" he asked.
"Certainly, if you prefer it. But first let me see what I owe you."
I took a slip of paper and made my calculations; then went to an iron safe, drew out a cash-box and gave him the money.
"There," said I, "is the discharge of your proper claims. But I owe you something for the interest you have taken in me and the hearty industry you have employed on my behalf. This will perhaps make mygratitude more significant than were I to express it in words only."
And I handed a bank note for twenty pounds.
He took, folded, and put it in his pocket.
"I am obliged to you, Sir," he said, with a low bow, "but in taking it, it is 'my poverty, but not my will, consents.'"
"Shall my servant carry your portmanteau?"
"Thank you, no; it is not heavy. I can carry it myself."
"The phaeton is at your service, if you wish to drive to Cornpool."
"I will walk, Sir."
I held out my hand, but pretending not to notice the action he gave me another low bow and left the room. In less than twenty minutes I saw him walk,portmanteau in hand, down the front garden.
Thus ended my connection with this singular little man.
Had I had nothing else to do but to read and muse I should have greatly missed Martelli. As it was, I felt his absence on the evening that followed his departure. I missed his dark face, his glowing eye, his rapid speech, his tart questions. His arm-chair looked very empty without him. My supper too was somewhat tasteless, wanting the sharp condiment of his tongue and gestures. But how should I feel his absence very sensibly with Mrs. Fraser to comfort me? I only wonder I felt it at all. Our parting had not been calculated to sharpenregret. I had no notion he was such a passionate man. There was no doubt he had been insulting. But what in the world could have provoked such an outbreak? He would have had me believe it was my resolution to marry Mrs. Fraser that angered him. But what was Mrs. Fraser to him? Was he a monomaniac—mad on the subject of women? We know that there are people born with antipathies which nothing can shake. Lady Heneage would faint at the sight of a rose; the Marquis de la Rochejacquelin would turn white with fear before a squirrel; and I have read in some author of a man whose antipathy to old women was such, that once when his friends, by way of joke, introduced an elderly female into his presence, he fell in a fit and died. I do not say that I quite believed this to be Martelli's disease: but I was strongly disposed to think that he had some eccentricaversion to living in a house where there was a mistress.
I did not pass a quiet night. I had resolved to propose next day to my beautiful neighbour, and my resolution rather agitated me. A man may do in a moment of impulse what he would fear to attempt in cold blood. I was rather sorry I had not proposed that afternoon. I had been surrounded by conditions highly favourable to a declaration. It would have been over now, and I should have been able to sleep the sleep of the accepted.
I had told her I would call in the morning. At another time she might have asked me in her odd sweet way "Why?" but her silence was auspicious. She had lowered her beautiful eyes, and the conscious curve of her mouth gave me reason to believe she had guessed my mission.
So at about eleven o'clock, when the sunstood high and the land lay hot and still beneath its fiery gaze, I took my hat and stepped over to Elmore Cottage. There was no need of ceremony now to gain admittance. The girl knew I was a privileged visitor and admitted me with a smile.
I entered the little drawing-room. It was empty. The blinds were half drawn, and the window stood wide open. Signs of her recent presence were visible in the garden hat upon the sofa, in some drawing materials on the table, above all, in the soft peculiar perfume which I associated with her. She was such a strange woman that I thought she might have hidden on hearing my knock; and I looked behind the sofa, and the door, and in the corner protected by the piano, for her. Then I drew to the table to see what she was drawing. It was a man's head, unfinished though complete enough to offer a good likeness. The hairwas dark, the nose straight, the mouth firm, the eye sufficiently large. The slight line of whisker was not shaded. This sketch dissipated all my nervousness. I looked up with a smile, and met her eyes peering at me from the door.
"If I had known it was you I should have hid that," said she, coming forward in a somewhat defiant manner, but with a delicate pink on her cheek.
"Did you not want me to see it?"
"No."
"Why? It is charmingly done—the very image of me."
She came round to where I stood.
"Go and stand opposite," she said, "and then I shall be able to tell."
I did as she bade me.
"Hold your face in profile."
I looked at the wall. She was silent for some moments.
"Yes. It is not bad. My memory must be good."
"Mrs. Fraser," said I, "what made you take my face for a subject?"
"Are you annoyed?"
"No; and you don't think me annoyed?"
"Oh, I fancied you would think I had not flattered you enough."
"But what made you take my face?"
"Because it suited me."
I placed a chair for her and seated myself at her side.
"Mrs. Fraser, I know your Christian name—it is Geraldine. May I call you Geraldine?"
"How did you know that?" she asked suddenly.
"I read it at the corner of those drawings there."
She laughed.
"May I call you Geraldine?"
"If you like. Do you think it a pretty name?"
"A sweet name. Now, Geraldine, will you tell me what made you take my face for a sketch?"
The utterance of her name pleased her. She looked up at me with lighted eyes.
"Have I not told you?"
"No. Your answer was evasive. I want the truth."
"I wished to see if I could hit off its expression with my pencil."
"And you have drawn a good likeness. But I miss one thing."
"What is that?" she asked, getting up and looking at the drawing.
"Look at those eyes," I answered, bending over her and pointing.
"Well; they are bold—do you mean they are not large enough?"
"Oh, they are large enough. But they do not tell the truth."
"What should they tell?"
"My love, Geraldine."
She did not answer. I passed my arm round her waist.
"Do you see what I mean?"
She raised her eyes to my face. I searched them; they were calm, and pensive and soft, but radiant too, with a light that was new to them.
"I understand," she whispered.
I led her to a chair and knelt by her that I might see her face, holding her hand in both mine.
"Geraldine, you knew that I loved you?"
"No, I did not know it."
"But you suspected it."
"Yes, I could not help suspecting it."
"And do you love me, Geraldine?"
"Yes."
"Well enough to be my wife?"
"Yes."
I kissed her forehead. "How am I to thank you for your love?"
"By always, always, loving me."
"I will always love you, Geraldine."
"I am sure you will," she answered fondly, smoothing my cheek; "and your name is Arthur. May I call you Arthur?"
"Of course you may."
"Arthur," she said, looking earnestly into my eyes, "what makes you want me to be your wife?"
"My love."
"And what makes you love me?"
"Your sweetness—your waywardness—and all the little points and lights, the colour and shadow, which make up your character and your beauty."
"But would you like my character if I were not pretty?"
"Certainly I should."
"You would think me rude. My face islike charity to my character—it hides my multitude of sins."
"Your face is like music to poetry—it turns your character to song."
"Arthur, you may compliment me now if you like; I shall love to hear your praise."
"Dearest," I exclaimed, rising, "how proud and happy your love makes me feel! Finding you here in this solitude and taking you from it, makes me resemble one of those knights of old who rescued beautiful damsels from the guardianship of the horrible dragons which then flourished. Your dragon is more matter-of-fact than the scaly brutes the poets sing of; but let me tell you it is quite as formidable.Ennuiis its name."
"Come into the garden," she exclaimed, springing up; "I prefer talking in the sunshine."
"Come into my garden," I answered; "there are trees there and we shall like the cool shade." And she tied on her hat before the looking-glass, regarding me with her black eyes, though she seemed to regard herself. I said, "Would you like to live at Elmore Court when we are married?"
"Oh, yes!" she answered, turning quickly round, "I would not choose to live anywhere else."
"But will you not find it dull?"
"Not with you," she replied.
I kissed her hand. "At all events," I said, "we can live there until the term I have taken it for is expired."
"We will live there always," she exclaimed earnestly. "But come into the garden. You can tell how much I care for the world by living here," she continued, as we left the house; "indeed I never wish to see the world again. I will make youpromise always to live at Elmore Court, for there we shall be alone. I shall want you all to myself, Arthur. Indeed you will find me jealous, dear—would you like me to be jealous?"
"It is the most genuine test of love. You will find me jealous too."
"Shall I?" she cried, clapping her hands. "And it will be very proper that you should. But I doubt if you'll have occasion."
We passed through the gate and entered the grounds of Elmore Court.
"How could you think I should be dull here?" she asked, prettily folding her hands, whilst she paused to look at the building and the brilliantcoup d'œilof the garden. "All day long I should be busy with my flowers, and in the evening you should read to me, and teach me all you know, that I may become as wise as you."
"I will show you over the house presently, Geraldine. Meanwhile let us seat ourselves under those trees. Dearest," I said, taking her hand, "I have been so long looking forward to this time, when I may call you and think of you as my own, that now it is come I cannot believe it here."
"You have not had to wait very long. Did you expect to win me so easily?"
"I don't know; but I felt you would become my wife."
"But I was not destined for you, or I should have married you first. Is it here we are to sit?"
"We are in the shade here."
She passed her hand through my arm and pressed her shoulder against mine.
"Do you feel happy, Arthur?"
"Perfectly happy."
"Do you wish to ask me any questions about my past, dearest?"
"No. If there is anything I should know you will tell me."
She sighed and pressed her cheek against my shoulder.
"Arthur," she whispered, "my marriage was not a happy one."
"I should have thought that, Geraldine, by your eyes."
"Are they so very mournful?"
"Sometimes. But mournful does not so well define their expression as pensive. Your heart is sometimes troubled."
"With the past," she rejoined quickly and eagerly. "My husband did not love me. He left me. When I became a widow I resolved to bury my sorrow and my life in some quiet obscure corner like Cliffegate. I have a little income, Arthur—why do you not ask me about it? Other men would."
"I hope you will not find me altogetherlike other men; though I hope I am no Pharisee."
"I have two hundred a year. It was left me by grandmamma. Her solicitor sends me fifty pounds every quarter. You may have it all, Arthur."
"Thanks, dear; and in return you shall have two thousand a year to spend with me."
"Is that your fortune?" she asked, opening her eyes.
I nodded, with a smile.
"How rich you are! But it is nice to have plenty of money, and I shan't love you the less for having it. No; many women would pretend that they would much rather have found you poor, that they might feel sure you knew you were loved only for yourself. Now I am glad you are rich; not because I care for your money, but because I know that such a fortune asyours must have enabled you to see life, and that your choice of me comes after an experience of the world. It will be a matured choice, so that I shall not be likely to lose you."
"Geraldine, you talk the language of wisdom, as the Turks say. Ihaveseen life, and can promise you that my love is not the caprice of a greenhorn."
"Now you shall show me over your house," she said, jumping up.
I conducted her in by the balcony, and when we were in the library I said, "This is the room in which I first saw you."
"Here?"
"Yes; I fell asleep, and in that sleep I saw your face."
"Were you frightened, Arthur?"
"It was only a dream. But I was frightened when I saw you afterwards."
"What a quantity of books you have!"she exclaimed, standing on tiptoe to read the backs of the volumes on the upper shelves. "Have you read them all?"
"I wish I had. I should be a wiser man."
"Too wise to marry me, perhaps?"
"The wisdom that would prohibit that would be very closely allied to insanity. I have had little reason during my life to flatter myself on my judgment; but I think I may boast of my wisdom now."
"This room is very pretty, and those grounds look lovely from the window; yet you must have felt dull here."
"I confess I did—in spite of the entertainment provided for me by a sharp sinister little foreigner named Martelli, whom I hired to keep me company—a little man—humorous, passionate, and I daresay vengeful."
"I dislike foreigners," she said, with ashudder. "Why did you not employ an Englishman?"
"The fact was, I wished to learn Italian."
"Was he an Italian?" she asked quickly.
"Yes. Don't you like Italians?"
"I hate them!" she exclaimed, her face flushing with sudden passion while her eyes flashed irefully.
"Then it was fortunate he resolved to leave me. You and he would hardly have got on. Perhaps," I said, laughing, "his subtle sagacity pierced the marble of your face when he saw you, and discerned your aversion to his compatriots."
"I thought you were alone?"
"On the first night I was. On the second night I hadn't positively spirit enough to risk a second encounter. But, dearest, I have come to show you over the house."
"I am ready," she exclaimed, her face and manner changing in one of thoseabrupt alternations that made so curious a feature of her character.
"But first," said I, touching the bell, "there is an imposing ceremony to be gone through. I must introduce you to Mrs. Williams, my housekeeper; a very worthy woman, whom you will find a most useful minister to help you in the government of this little kingdom."
When Mrs. Williams entered I said, "This is my housekeeper, Geraldine;" and then to the other, "Mrs. Williams, this lady, I hope, will shortly come here to take possession of Elmore Court as its mistress. I wished her to become acquainted with you."
She curtseyed without any expression of surprise. Geraldine took her hand.
"I am sure I shall like you, Mrs. Williams. The appearance of this house, so far as I have seen, tells me how valuable you will be to me."
"I am grateful for your kind opinion, ma'am," said Mrs. Williams.
"Are you not surprised to hear of Mr. Thornburn's resolution to marry me?" asked Geraldine, in her pretty downright way.
Mrs. Williams smiled quietly.
"I didn't think it would happen so soon," she replied; "but I guessed it would end in his marrying you, ma'am."
"There, Geraldine," I said, "you see Mrs. Williams knows how I have thought of you."
"Did I want Mrs. Williams to tell me?"
"At all events it is well to have a witness."
She slipped her soft little hand into mine as we left the room; and so, conducted by Mrs. Williams, we passed from one room to another. My darling's delight was genuine. Her child-like pleasure at all she saw was delicious to me to watch. She wasincessant in her praises of Mrs. Williams' taste and orderliness; and to do that good woman justice, she deserved all the admiration she received. She listened complacently to Geraldine's prattle; and when she found that she was no longer required, slipped quietly away.
We stood at the drawing-room window. She had thrown aside her hat, and the sunlight made gold of her beautiful hair.
"Do you like Elmore Court?" I asked.
"It is a sweet home."
"And do you think you will be happy here?"
"Cannot you guess? I feel perfectly happy now, Arthur; and that implies great trust in you—if I did not think you loved me with all your strength I could not be happy. Yet there was a time when I thought I could never be happy again—never happy again," she repeated, with alittle sigh. "It was winter with me then, but it is summer now. It is sweet to be loved. There are women who say they could live without love; but I do not believe them. Women were born to be loved."
"Some women were," I answered, toying with her hand.
"I have been very lonely, Arthur. Sometimes I thought I should go mad. It is bad for the mind to feed upon itself. The longer its abstinence the more painful grows its craving; and to satisfy itself at last, it invents strange fancies and dreadful thoughts—and that is how people become crazy. Your face and voice are a new life to me. I feel that I am not dead now. But there have been times when I thought myself a ghost. Did you ever have that feeling? It always brought a pain here;" she touched her forehead. "See there!" she suddenlyexclaimed, "what a beautiful butterfly! If I were a little girl I should love to chase it. But I would not now," she added, shaking her head; "those who have suffered much are always merciful."
"Now, Geraldine, I want to speak to you of our marriage."
"Yes." She looked up.
"Are you not a Roman Catholic?"
"I am. Do you like Roman Catholics?"
"Quite as well as Protestants, though I am a stanch Protestant."
"After all we are agreed upon the chief points of religion?"
"Very nearly. Toleration is the most material point in which we differ. But Christianity is the religion of love; and love is large and can find room for many sects. But to revert to our wedding—we shall have to be married in two churches."
"I know."
"Is there a Roman Catholic church here?"
"No. But there is one at Cornpool. I know Father John; he is my confessor."
"How often do you confess?"
"I do not like to say," she replied, timidly; "it is not often enough."
"Once a year?"
"Oh, Arthur, no! Once a month."
"So often?"
"So often! I should confess by right once a week. Would you mind me going to Father John?"
"No."
Let me say this concession was only an act of policy. I determined to try to convert her.
"The want of a church," she continued, "was a great drawback to Cliffegate. But I knew there was one at Cornpool. Yet the little cottage suited me so well, and theplace was so secluded, I could not resist taking it."
"Then, Geraldine, we shall have to be married at Cornpool. And now, dearest, when?"
"When you wish, Arthur."
"I want to possess you, dearest. This life is so full of uncertainty that, now you have accepted me, I should not be happy until we are married. Will the end of the month be too soon?"
"Impatient Arthur!" she said, pressing my hand to her cheek.