Bressant Part 11

"Can't understand it," said the old gentleman to himself; "the fellow acts like a wild-beast as regards his appreciation of human sympathy, in spite of his refined intellect and cultivation. A wounded animal has the same instinct to crawl away, and suffer in private."

When brought into the house, Bressant had been laid in the spare room adjoining the professor's study. After he had done all he could for his comfort, the warm-hearted old gentleman, being overcome with fatigue, retired to rest; the patient lay sullenly quiet, wishing it were day, and, again, wishing day would never come: at length the composing draught which had been given him took effect, and he sank heavily into sleep.

It was broad daylight when he awoke, and stared feverishly around him.

The room was a pleasant one, facing the north and east, and the morning sun came cheerfully in through the open windows, slanting down the walls, and brightening on the carpet. It was a great improvement upon his rather gloomy room at the boarding-house, and he could not but feel it so. A small ormolu clock ticked rapidly upon the mantel-piece, the swing of the gilded pendulum being visible beneath. Bressant watched it with idle interest. He felt so weak, in mind and body, that the clock seemed company just fitted for his comprehension.

The door opened by-and-by, and Cornelia's smiling face peeped in, looking the sweeter for an expression of tender anxiety. Seeing that he was awake, her eyes took on an extra sparkle, and she advanced a step into the room, still clinging with one hand to the door-k.n.o.b, however, as if afraid to lose its support.

"You feel a little better, don't you? Is that mattress comfortable? I'm going to bring you your breakfast in a few minutes."

Bressant only grew red and bit his mustache for answer. He would gladly have covered himself up out of sight, but he could not move hand or foot.

Cornelia had in her mind a little speech she meant to deliver to Bressant, on the subject of the previous night's event, but, at the critical moment, she felt her courage forsaking her. The topic was so weighty--and then she shrank from speaking out what was in her head, perhaps because her auditor was there as well as her sentiments. Still, she felt she ought to try.

"Mr. Bressant," began she, with a kindling look, "Mr. Bressant, I--"

here her voice faltered; "oh! you don't know--I can never tell you--I can never forget what you did last night!" This was the end of the great speech.

Bressant became still more red and uncomfortable. "I made a fool of myself last night," said he, dejectedly. "I wish you hadn't been there; if I'd known what a piece of work--"

"But you saved my papa's life!" interrupted Cornelia, in a blaze.

The young man looked as if struck with a new idea. It seemed as if he had not before thought of looking upon the professor as an independent quant.i.ty in the affair. The whole episode had presented itself to him as a difficult problem which he was to solve. The accident to himself had been an imperfection in the solution, of which he was deeply ashamed.

But he was somewhat consoled by the reflection that the old gentleman had really needed preservation on his own account.

"That does make it better," said he, half to himself, with the first approach to good-humor he had shown since his misfortune.

Cornelia still remained glowing in the door-way, turning the latch backward and forward, not knowing what more to say, and yet unwilling to say nothing more. She did not at all comprehend Bressant's att.i.tude, and therefore admired him all the more. What she could not understand in him was, of course, beyond her scope.

"You may think nothing of it, but I know I--I know we do--I can't say what I want to, and I'm not going to try any more; but I'm sure you know--or, at least, you'll find out some time--in some other way, you know."

Bressant could not hear all this, nor would he have known what it meant, if he had; but he could see that Cornelia was kindly disposed toward him, and was conscious of great pleasure in looking at her, and thought, if she were to touch him, he would get well. He said nothing, however, and presently his bodily pain caused him to sigh and close his eyes wearily. Cornelia immediately kissed her soft fingers to him twice, and then vanished from the room, looking more like a blush than a tea rose.

Before long she returned with the sick man's breakfast on a tray.

"Do you like to be nursed?" asked she, as she put the tray on a table, and moved it up to the bedside.

"No!" said Bressant, emphatically, and with an intonation of great surprise.

"Oh! why not?" faltered Cornelia, quite taken aback.

"I hate disabled people; they're monstrosities, and had better not be at all. I wouldn't nurse them."

"You think there's no pleasure in doing things for people who cannot help themselves?" demanded Cornelia, indignantly.

"There can be no pleasure in nursing," reiterated he. "It might be very pleasant to be nursed--by any one who is beautiful--if one did not need the nursing!"

Cornelia was becoming so accustomed to Bressant's undisguised manners that she forgot to be disturbed by this guileless compliment. Many hours afterward, when she was alone in her chamber, the words recurred to her, devoid of the version his manner had given them, and then they brought the blood gently to her cheeks.

"You're very foolish," said she, as she poured out some tea, and cut up a mutton-chop into mouthfuls. "Now, you have to drink this tea, though you wouldn't the last time I poured you out a cup; and I'll give you your chop. Open your mouth."

So the athlete of the day before was obliged to submit to having his tea-cup carried to his lips and tipped for him by a woman, and the chop administered bit by bit on a fork. It was very degrading; but once in a while Cornelia accidentally touched him, or her face, lit up by interest in her occupation, came so near his own that he felt warm and thrilled, and went near to admit it was worth all the broken bones in the world, and the sacrifice of pride accompanying them.

Ere breakfast was over, Professor Valeyon entered with his slippers, his pipe, and a remarkably benevolent expression for one of such impending eyebrows.

"Well, my boy," said he--ever since the accident he had addressed Bressant thus--"you look in a better humor with yourself this morning.

You'll be well used to this room before you leave it," he continued, with kindly gravity, as he felt his patient's pulse. "You'll know all about the number and relative position of the bars and bunches of flowers on the wall-paper opposite, and how many feet and inches it is from the window-frame to the room-corner, and which pane of gla.s.s is the crookedest, and how much higher one post of your bedstead is than the other; and plenty more things of that kind. And, to tell you the truth, my boy, I don't believe a course of such studies, by way of variety, will do you any harm. Now, let's look at this collar-bone of yours.--O Cornelia! you'd better be finishing your packing, hadn't you?" he added, to his daughter, who was leaning on the back of his chair, sympathizing with the sick man to her heart's content. She walked obediently to the door, but, before she disappeared, turned and sent back a smile charged with all the warmth of her ardent, womanly nature. Bressant got the whole benefit of it; and it lingered with him most of the morning.

"How long must I be here?" inquired he, after Cornelia was gone.

"Three months at least," replied the surgeon; "more if you worry yourself about it."

"Three months!" repeated the young man, aghast. "What's to become of my studies? I can't hold a book; I can't write; I had to have my breakfast fed to me this morning," continued he, biting his mustache and looking away. The professor smiled thoughtfully.

"I have hopes," said he, "that you'll know more about Divinity when you come out of this room than you did before you went into it. We'll see when the time comes."

"I've found out already that my bones are like other men's," remarked Bressant, with a sigh.

"So much the better," returned the old man. "You never would have learned that out of your Hebrew Lexicon. The best way to reach this young fellow's soul is through his body," declared he, silently, to the bandage he was preparing for the broken head. "This is nothing but a blessing in disguise." But he had too much tact to carry the conversation further, and presently left his patient alone to digest his breakfast and the lesson it had inculcated.

This was Cornelia's last day at home; she was to take the eight-o'clock train next morning to the city. The young lady's mood was unequal: sometimes she drooped; anon would break forth into much talk and merriment, which would evaporate almost as quickly as the froth of champagne. This was her first departure from home, and the ease, freedom, and beloved old ways of home-life, a.s.sumed more of their true value in her eyes. She had acquired a sentiment of awe for Aunt Margaret's grandeur. She would be obliged to sleep in corsets and high-heeled shoes; everybody would be going through the figures of a stately minuet all day long.

Then she began to feel in advance the wrench of separating from those with whom her life had been spent, and from one other in whose company she had lived more--so it seemed to her--than in all the years since she ceased to be a child. Bressant was very prominent in her thoughts; nor could she be blamed for this, for the short acquaintance bad been emphasized by a disproportional number of memorable events: First, there was the thunder-storm evening by the fountain; afterward, the dance at Abbie's; and, following in quick succession, the celestial arch, the walk homeward, and the catastrophe in which he had borne the chief part.

Besides, he was so different from common men.

"So perfectly natural and unaffected," she argued to herself. "He means all he says; of course I shouldn't let him say such things to me as he does if it weren't so; but it would be affectation in me to object to it as it is!"--a most plausible deduction, by-the-way, but dangerous to act upon. To persuade herself that, because he was an exceptional sort of person, his plain way of talking to her was justifiable, was to establish a secret understanding between him and herself, which placed her at a disadvantage to begin with; and unreservedly to accept compliments, even ingenuous ones, was to indulge in a luxury that must ultimately render callous her moral sensitiveness and refinement.

On the other hand, her toleration would be almost certain to have a bad effect upon Bressant, no matter how sincere and well-meaning he might be at the outset. A man is apt to know when he has power over a woman; and, although he may have no expectation of it, nor wish to use it, yet, as time goes on and accustoms him to the idea, he must have strong principles or cold blood who does not finally yield to temptation. Plain speaking, where pleasant things are said, is smelling poisonous flowers for both parties.

A steady fall of rain set in during the night, and made the morning of departure gray. Blurred clouds rested helplessly on the backs of the hills, and wept themselves into the wet valley without seeming to grow less lugubrious for the indulgence. There was no wind; trees and plants stood up and were soaked in pa.s.sive resignation. The weather-beaten boards of the barn were drenched black, except a small place right under the eaves, which looked as if it had been painted a light gray. When the covered wagon was brought around to the gate, it speedily acquired a brilliant coat of varnish; Dolly's bay suit was streaked and discolored, and the reins, thrown over her back, got all wet and uncomfortable.

Michael now came for Cornelia's trunk--a ponderous structure packed within an inch of its existence. Cornelia stood at the head of the stairs and saw it go thump! thump! thump! down to the bottom, and then sc.r.a.pe unwillingly over the oil-cloth to the door. Such a heavy-hearted old trunk as it was! Then she walked to the hall-window, and watched its further journey along the glistening marble causeway, which dimly reflected its square ponderosity, and the tugging Michael behind it.

Now the gate had to be pulled open; the rasp of its rattle and sharpness of its flap were somewhat impaired by the wet, but it managed to give the trunk a parting kick as it went out, as much as to say the house was well rid of it.

"Cornelia!" called the Professor from down-stairs, "you've just five minutes to say good-by in. Get through and come along!"

She pa.s.sed through Sophie's open door; her sister held out her arms, her eyes overflowing with tears, but smiling with the strange perversity that possesses some people on these occasions. Cornelia was troubled with no such misplaced self-dental; she threw herself impatiently down by Sophie, and sobbed with all her might. Possibly it was more than one regret that found utterance then.

"You'll be all well and walking about when I come back, won't you dear?"

said she, at last, in a shaking voice.

"I shall get well thinking what a splendid time you're having, darling."

"Sophie--will you be quite the same to me when I come back?"

"Why, Neelie, dear, what a question! I shall always be the same to you."

"But I feel as if there were going to be something--that something was going to come between us;" and Cornelia began to droop like a flower under an icy wind. "You never could hate me, could you, Sophie?"