CHAPTER XVI.CONCEALMENTS AND SUSPICIONS.
And now I have an existence, I am a human soul growing like a flower in the warmth of that young bosom, flitting through the house and haunting my mother’s lap like a bird. The first memory that I have is like a starbeam, as quick and vivid. My mother sat in a little room somewhere in an angle of the building just at sunset. Her hair was down; the Spanish woman had unbraided the long tresses, and shakenthem apart in dark wavy masses. They fell over the crimson cushions of her chair to the ground. The sash doors were open into a stone balcony choked up with clematis. The sunset came through in golden flashes, kindling up those black waves till they shone with a purple bloom. Her dress was crimson, of camel’s hair, I think, with a violet tinge, and flowing down her person in soft folds, that glowed in the light like pomegranates on the bough. Half over her shoulders and half upon the chair, was a cashmere shawl of that superb palmleaf pattern which looks so quiet, but is so richly gorgeous; a profusion of black lace fell around her arms and neck, contrasting the golden brown of her complexion. Her eyes—I never saw such eyes in my life—so large, so radiant, yet so soft; the lashes were black as jet, and curled upward.
It is useless. I can remember, but not describe her, that peach-like bloom, those soft lips so full, so richly red. I have no idea where I was at the time, only that I saw her sitting in that room so much like a picture, and felt that she was my mother.
She was looking into the garden with an expression of tranquil expectation on her face. I remember watching the shadows from her eyelashes as they lay so dreamily on her cheeks, for though she evidently expected some one, it was not with doubt; she was quiet as the sunbeams that fell around her, now and then turning her head a little as the Spanish woman gathered up a fresh handful of her hair, but still with her half-shut eyes fixed upon the footpath that led through the wilderness.
I sat down upon some cushions that had been left in the balcony, and watched her through the open sash till the heavy folds of hair were braided like a coronet over her head, and her look became a little anxious. Then I too began to gaze across the intervening flower-beds upon the footpath, as if a share in the watchfulness belonged to me.
At last, as the golden sunset was turning to violet, and one felt the unseen dew as it fell, I saw, through the purple mist, aman walking slowly along the footpath. My heart leaped, I uttered a little shout, and clasping my hands, looked up to my mother. Her lips were parted, and her eyes flashed like diamonds.
“It is the Busne—the Busne,” I said.
She took me in her arms, and smothering me with glad kisses, murmured, “My Busne, mine, mine!”
I answered back. “No, no, mine,” holding my hand to her mouth, and still shouting “mine!”
Her beautiful face grew cloudy. My words made her restive: she would not have her entire right questioned even in sport by her own child. She placed me upon the cushions, and turning away entered the room again.
My father came across the flower garden with a quicker pace. He held a light basket in his hand which I saw with a shout, making a desperate effort to clamber over the old stone balustrade, which was at least ten feet from the ground. He held up his hand reprovingly, called for me to go back, and turning a corner of the house, was in the room with my mother before I could disentangle my hands and clothes from the multiflora and clematis vines into which I had plunged.
This too was the first time that the person of my father fixed itself definitely on my remembrance. He stood leaning over my mother’s chair, holding her head back with a soft pressure of the hand upon her forehead, and gazing down into her upturned eyes with a smile that might have been playful, but for a certain undercurrent of sadness that could not escape the sharp perception of a child like me. Yet even this added to the singular beauty of his face, a strange type of beauty that combined the most delicate physical organization with a high order of mental strength. His forehead, square and high, without being absolutely massive, was white as an infant’s, and in moments of rest as smooth. But a painful thought or a disturbing event would ripple over its delicate surface like the wind over a snow-drift. The brows grew heavy; two faint lines marked themselves lengthwise upon the forehead justbetween the eyes; a peculiarity that I have never seen save in persons of high talent. The contrast between him and my mother was almost startling, he, so fair, so refined, so slender, with a reservation as if he concealed half; she, dark, vivid, resplendent, with every impulse sparkling in her eye before it reached the lip; wild as a bird—uncalculating as a child, but with passion and energy that matched his. When two such spirits move on harmoniously it is heaven, for the great elements of character are alike in each; but when they clash, alas! when they clash!
I cannot tell what feelings actuated my parents, or if anything had happened to disturb them, but they grew sad, gazing into each other’s eyes, till with a faint smile he dropped his hand from her head, saying, “am I late, Aurora!”
She answered him, and rising with a bright smile, drew the shawl around her. He sat down in her chair, and she sunk noiselessly as a woman of the Orient down to the cushions.
I was completely overlooked, but if they were forgetful, I was not. The little basket stood upon the floor, where my father had placed it. I crept that way softly, took up a layer of fragrant blossoms, and there, interspersed with vine leaves, I discovered some of the most delicious hothouse grapes, purple and amber-hued, with peaches that seemed to have been bathed in the sunset.
In my delight, I uttered an exclamation. My father looked round.
“Come hither, mischief,” he said, threatening me with his finger! “Come hither with the fruit. It is for your mother.”
She half started from her cushion, and held out both hands, as I came tottering across the carpet, with the basket in my arms. It was for her, and he brought it. That was enough to render anything precious; besides the fruit was very fine, and the hothouses at Greenhurst had produced none that season. Her eyes sparkled as she received the basket in her lap.
“There,” she said, filling my greedy hands with a peach and a bunch of grapes; “go away, little ungrateful, to forgetpapa’s kiss in searching after plunder—sit down and be quiet.”
I sat down, and while devouring my fruit, watched and listened as children will.
“How beautifully they are arranged!” said my mother, placing and replacing the peaches with her hand, for she had the eye and taste of an artist; “how rich, all the exquisite delicacy of spring blossoms with a fruity ripeness! One can almost taste the fragrance in a peach; at least, I fancy so.”
“Your fancy would almost create a reality!” said my father, smiling.
“How beautiful, how kind in you to devote so much time and so much taste all for us!” continued my mother, lifting her radiant eyes to his; “for I know who did all this, not the old gardener, nor dear good Turner, they could never have blended these leaves.”
“Nay, nay,” answered Lord Clare, over whose lips a mischievous smile had been playing, “do not fling away so much thankfulness; neither the gardener, Turner, or myself had anything to do with it. The fruit came from some kind neighbor, I fancy, who wishes to break my gardener’s heart, for not a peach or grape has ripened as yet under his supervision. I found the basket on a table in my room, and as it was prettily arranged, and looked deliciously ripe, I saved it for you and the child.”
A shade came over the superb eyes of my mother, but she smiled and murmured, “Very well, you brought them, that is real at least.”
“Yes, yes, I brought them sure enough,” he answered, laughing, as he watched me crowding one grape after another into my mouth, while I devoured the rest with my eyes. “See, it is one of Murillo’s children eating grapes. You remember the picture in Munich?”
“Yes, oh, it is very like! What eyes the creature has! How greedily she eats, she is the picture itself!” and my motherlaughed also, the last thoroughly gleeful laugh that I ever heard from her lips.
I did not trouble myself about the Murillo, but the fruit was delicious, that was quite enough for me, so I shook my head and would have laughed too had that been possible with so many grapes in my mouth.
“Ah, what is this?” exclaimed my mother, holding up a rose-colored note which she had found among the cape jessamines that lay in a wreath between the basket and the fruit.
“This will explain who has sent the gift, I fancy,” answered my father, taking the note; “I searched for something of the kind at first, but could find nothing.”
He unfolded the paper carelessly as he spoke. She was looking up, and I had stopped eating, curious to know all about it. I shall never forget the change that came over my father as the writing struck his eye. His face, even to the lips, whitened. He felt her gaze upon him, and crushed the note in his hand, while flashes of red came and went across his forehead.
She turned pale as death, and without asking a question stood up, swaying as if a current of air swept over her. Some magnetic influence must have linked us three together. Surely the pulses in my father’s heart reached some string in ours by those subtle affinities that no wisdom has yet explained. I felt a chill creeping over me; the fruit lay neglected in my lap, I cast it aside upon the carpet, and creeping to my mother, clung to her hand, hiding myself in the folds of her robe.
My father still held the note, gazing upon it in silence, buried in thought. His face had regained its pallid composure; he seemed to have forgotten our presence. At length he looked up, but not at us, and with a forced smile broke the seal. He glanced at the contents, then held it toward my mother with the same constrained air and smile; but his hand shook, and even I could see that something very painful had come over him.
“From Marston Court.”
This, with a date, was all the note contained. She read it over and over again. It explained nothing. It was but a single sentence, the name of a place of which she had never heard, but she looked in his face and remained pale as before. The intuition of a heart like hers is stronger than reason.
A constraint fell upon us. I crept away among my cushions, and felt the twilight darken around us. Then I sunk into a heavy-hearted sleep, for my parents were both silent, and I was soon forgotten.
When I awoke the windows were still open, and the room seemed empty. The moonbeams lay white and full upon the clematis vines, and their blossoms stirred beneath them like masses of snow. Children always turn to the light. Darkness seems unnatural to them. I crept out into the balcony, and clambering up the old balustrade, looked out on the garden. Close by the wilderness where the shadows lay deepest, I saw a man walking to and fro like a ghost. Once he came out into the moonlight, and I knew that it was my father.
A narrow flight of steps, choked up with creeping vines, ran down from the balcony. I scrambled over them on my hands and knees, tearing my way through the clematis like a wild animal, and leaving great fragments of my dress behind. I ran through the flower-beds, trampling down their sweet growth, and pausing on the verge of the shadow—for I was afraid of the dark—called out.
My father came up hurriedly with an exclamation of surprise, and evidently alarmed. His hat was off—his beautiful brown hair, damp and heavy with night dew—but his hands were hot as he lifted me up, and when I clung to his neck and laid my cheek to his, it was like fire. Moonlight gives almost supernatural brilliancy to the human eye. His glittered like stars.
“My child, my poor child,” he said, “what is the matter? How came you abroad? Your little feet are wet with dew, wet, clothes and all; what has come over us, my pet, my darling?”
He took out his watch and looked at it in the moonlight. It was twelve o’clock. Holding me close to his bosom, he strode across the garden and up the steps, crushing the vines beneath his feet. There was no light in the chamber, but upon the cushion which she had occupied at his feet sat my mother. The moon had mounted higher, and its light fell like a great silver flag through the casement. She sat in the centre motionless and drooping like a Magdalene, with light streaming over her from the background, as we sometimes, but rarely, see in a picture.
At the noise of my father’s footstep, she started up, and came forth with a wild, wondering look.
“How is this, Aurora?” he said, in a voice of mild reproof, “I left you with the child hours ago, and now when I thought you both at rest, she is wandering away in the night, wet through and shivering with cold.”
“I did not know it. When you went out a strange numbness fell upon me. It seemed as if I were in the caves at Granada again, and that all our people were preparing to take me to the Valley of Stones, I was so passive, so still!”
“Aurora!” said my father, in a tone of bitter reproof, “you know how I loathe that subject—never mention it again—never think of it!”
“I never have thought of it till to-night,” she answered, abstractedly, “why should I?”
“And why to-night?”
“I do not know. My life has two sides, one all blackness,” here she shuddered—“the other all light; the barranca at Granada, and this house, my grandmother and you.”
Her face became radiant with affection, as she lifted it to his in the moonlight.
“Why should she come between us even in my thought? You are here, you, my child, my home. What has cast this heavy burden on my soul? It is the gipsy blood beginning to burn again: surely nothing has happened.”
She questioned him closely with her eyes, thus pleading withhim to silence the vague doubts that haunted her; he answered faintly, “Nothing, child, nothing has happened.”
She drew a deep breath, and gave forth a faint laugh.
“Ah, how strangely I have felt. It must have been the cold night air. This England is so chilly, and you, how damp your clothes seem. Your hair is saturated! Come in, beloved, come in, my poor child, my bird of Paradise, she will perish!”
Lord Clare bore me into the chamber. Lights were obtained, and my wet garments were exchanged for a night robe of delicate linen.
“See if I do not take care of her,” said my mother, folding the cashmere shawl around me, while great tears crowded to her eyes, and she looked timidly into his face.
“I do not doubt it,” he answered, kindly, “she is warm now and getting drowsy upon your bosom. Go to rest; both need it. Do you know it is after midnight?”
He touched her forehead with his lips, and kissing me, prepared to go. She looked after him, and her great eyes said a thousand times more than she would have dared to speak.
He hesitated, said something about the necessity of being early at Greenhurst, and then, as if restraint had become irksome beyond endurance, laid his hand on the stone balustrade, and leaped over.
My mother drew me closer and closer to her bosom, as his footsteps died on the still air. I remember no more, only that in the morning I awoke in her arms with the shawl folded around me. She had not been in bed all night.