Ernest Linwood Part 10

Strange, all beautiful as she was she did not attract, as one would suppose, the admiration of the other s.e.x. Perhaps there was something cold and shadowy in the ethereality of her loveliness, a want of sympathy with man's more earthly, pa.s.sionate nature. It is very certain, the beauty which woman most admires often falls coldly on the gaze of man. Edith had the face of an angel; but hers was not the darkening eye and changing cheek that "pale pa.s.sion loves." Did the sons of G.o.d come down to earth, as they did in olden time, to woo the daughters of men, they might have sought her as their bride. She was not cold, however; she was not pa.s.sionless. She had a woman's heart, formed to enshrine an idol of clay, believing it imperishable as its own love.

Mrs. Linwood gave Richard a cordial greeting. I had an unaccountable fear that she would not be pleased that he escorted me home so frequently, though this was the first time he had accompanied me to the lawn. She urged him to remain and pa.s.s the evening, or rather asked him, for he required no urging. I am sure it must have been a happy one to him. Edith played upon her harp, which had been newly strung. She seemed the very personification of one of Ossian's blue-eyed maids, with her white, rising hands, and long, floating locks.

I was pa.s.sionately fond of music, and had my talent been early cultivated I would doubtless have excelled. I cared not much about the piano, but there was inspiration in the very sight of a harp. In imagination I was Corinna, improvising the impa.s.sioned strains of Italy, or a Sappho, breathing out my soul, like the dying swan, in strains of thrilling melody. Edith was a St. Cecilia. Had my hand swept the chords, the hearts of mortals would have vibrated at the touch; she touched the divine string, and "called angels down."

When I retired that night and saw the reflection of myself full length, in the large pier-gla.s.s, between the rosy folds of the sweeping damask, I could not help recalling what Richard Clyde had said of my personal improvement. Was he sincere, when with apparent enthusiasm he had applied to me the epithet, _beautiful_? No, he could not be; and yet his eyes had emphasized the language of his lips.

I was not vain. Few young girls ever thought less of their personal appearance. I lived so much in the world within, that I gave but little heed to the fashion of my outward form. It seemed so poor an expression of the glowing heart, the heaven-born soul.

For the first time I looked upon myself with reference to the eyes of others, and I tried to imagine the youthful figure on which I gazed as belonging to another, and not myself. Were the outlines softened by the dark-flowing sable, cla.s.sic and graceful? Was there beauty in the oval cheek, now wearing the warm bloom of the brunette, or the dark, long-lashed eye, which drooped with the burden of unuttered thoughts?

As I asked myself these questions, I smiled at my folly; and as the image smiled back upon the original, there was such a light, such a glow, such a living soul pa.s.sed before me, that for one moment a triumphant consciousness swelled my bosom, a new revelation beamed on my understanding,--the consciousness of woman's. .h.i.therto unknown power,--the revelation of woman's destiny.

And connected with this, there came the remembrance of that haunting face in the library, which I had only seen on canvas, but which was to me a breathing reality,--that face which, even on the cold, silent wall, had no repose; but dark, restless, and impa.s.sioned, was either a history of past disappointment, or a prophecy of future suffering.

The moment of triumph was brief. A pale shadow seemed to flit behind me and dim the bright image reflected in the mirror. It wore the sad, yet lovely lineaments of my departed mother.

O how vain were youth and beauty, if thus they faded and vanished away!

How mournful was love thus wedded to sorrow! how mysterious the nature in which they were united!

A shower of tears washed away the vain emotions I blushed to have felt.

But I could not be as though I had never known them. I could not recall the guileless simplicity of childhood, its sweet unconsciousness and contentment, in the present joy.

O foolish, foolish Gabriella! Art thou no longer a child?

CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. Regulus still called me "child." We had quite a scene in the academy one day after the school was dismissed, and I was preparing as usual to return home.

"Will you give me a few moments' conversation, Miss Gabriella?" said he, clearing his throat with one of those hems which once sounded so awful.

He looked awkward and disconcerted, while my face flushed with trepidation. Had I been guilty of any omitted duty or committed offence?

Had I suffered an error on the blackboard to pa.s.s unnoticed, or allowed a mistake in grammar to be unconnected? What _had_ I done?

I stood nervously pulling the fingers of my gloves, waiting for him to commence the conversation he had sought. Another hem!--then he moved the inkstand about a foot further from him, for he was standing close to his desk, as if to gather round him every imposing circ.u.mstance, then he took up the ruler and measured it with his eye, run his finger along the edge, as if it were of razor sharpness.

"Is he going to punish me?" thought I. "It looks ominous."

I would not a.s.sist him by one word; but maintaining a provoking silence, took up a pair of compa.s.ses and made a circle on the green cloth that covered the desk.

"Miss Gabriella," at length he said, "you must forgive me for taking the liberty of an old friend. Nothing but the most disinterested regard for your--your reputation--could induce me to mention a subject--so--so very--very peculiar."

"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "my reputation, Mr. Regulus?"

I felt the blood bubbling like boiling water, up into my cheek.

"I do not wish to alarm or distress you," he continued, becoming more self-possessed, as my agitation increased. "You know a young girl, left without her natural guardians, especially if she is so unfortunate as to be endowed with those charms which too often attract the shafts of envy and stir up the venom of malice,"--

"Mr. Regulus!" I interrupted, burning with impatience and indignation, "tell me what you mean. Has any one dared to slander me,--and for what?"

"No one would dare to breathe aught of evil against you in my presence,"

said he, with great dignity; "but the covert whisper may pa.s.s from lip to lip, and the meaning glance flash from eye to eye, when your friend and protector is not near to shield you from aspersion, and vindicate your fame."

"Stop," I exclaimed; "you terrify--you destroy me!"

The room spun round like a top. Every thing looked misty and black. I caught hold of Mr. Regulus's arm to keep me from falling. Foes in ambush, glittering tomahawks, deadly scalping-knives, were less terrible than my dark imaginings.

"Bless me," cried my master, seating me in his great arm-chair and fanning me with an atlas which he caught from his desk, "I did not mean to frighten you, my child. I wanted to advise, to counsel you, to _prevent_ misconstruction and unkind remark. My motives are pure, indeed they are; you believe they are, do you not?"

"Certainly I do," I answered, pa.s.sing my hand over my eyes, to clear away the dark specks that still floated over them; "but if you have any regard for my feelings, speak at once, plainly and openly. I will be grateful for any advice prompted by kindness, and expressed without mystery."

"I only thought," said he, becoming again visibly embarra.s.sed, "that I would suggest the propriety of your not permitting young Clyde to accompany you home so often. The extraordinary interest he took in you as a boy, renders his present attentions more liable to remark. A young girl in your situation, my child, cannot be too particular, too much on her guard. College boys are wild fellows. They are not safe companions for innocence and simplicity like yours."

"And is this all?" I asked, drawing a long breath, and feeling as if Mont Blanc had rolled from my breast.

"It is."

"And you have heard no invidious remarks?"

"Not yet, Gabriella, but--"

"My dear master," said I, rising with a joyous spring from my chair. "I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your anxious care of my good name. But I am sure Mrs. Linwood would not have sanctioned an impropriety. I have always felt towards Richard as I imagine I would towards a brother, were I so blest as to have one. He has made my lonely walks very pleasant by his lively and intelligent conversation. Still, I do not care to have him accompany me so often. I would rather that he would not. I will tell him so. I dare say you are right, Mr. Regulus; I know you are. I know so little of the world, I may offend its rules without being aware of it."

I felt so unspeakably relieved, so happy that the mountain of slander which my imagination had piled up was reduced to an _antic.i.p.ated_ molehill, that my spirits rebounded even to gaiety. I laughed at the sight of my torn glove, for I had actually pulled off the fingers by my nervous twitches.

"I thought you were going to apply the spatula. I feared you thought me guilty of writing another poem, Mr. Regulus; what else could make you look so formidable?"

"Ah! Gabriella, let bygones be bygones. I was very harsh, very disagreeable then. I wonder you have ever forgiven me; I have never forgiven myself. I know not how it is, but it seems to me that a softening change has come over me. I feel more tenderly towards the young beings committed to my care, more indulgence for the weaknesses and errors of my kind. I did not mind, then, trampling on a flower, if it sprung up in my path; now I would stoop down and inhale its fragrance, and bless my Maker for shedding beauty and sweetness to gladden my way. The perception of the beautiful grows and strengthens in me. The love of nature, a new-born flower, blooms in my heart, and diffuses a sweet balminess unknown before. Even poetry, my child--do not laugh at me--has begun to unfold its mystic beauties to my imagination.

I was reading the other evening that charming paraphrase of the nineteenth Psalm: 'The s.p.a.cious firmament on high,' and I was exceedingly struck with its melodious rhythm; and when I looked up afterwards to the starry heavens, to the moon walking in her brightness, to the blue and boundless ether, they seemed to bend over me in love, to come nearer than they had ever done before. I could hear the whisper of that divine voice, which is heard in the rustling of the forest trees, the gurgling of the winding stream, and the rush of the mountain cataract; and every day," he added, with solemnity, "I love man more, because G.o.d has made him my brother."

He paused, and his countenance glowed with the fervor of his feelings.

With an involuntary expression of reverence and tenderness, I held out my hand and exclaimed,--

"My dear master--"

"You forgive me, then," taking my hand in both his, and burying it in his large palms; "you do not think me officious and overbearing?"

"O no, sir, I have nothing to forgive, but much to be grateful for; thank you, I must go, for I have a long walk to take--_alone_."

With an emphasis on the last word I bade him adieu, ran down the steps, and went on musing so deeply on my singular interview with Mr. Regulus, that I attempted to walk through a tree by the way-side. A merry laugh rang close to my ear, and Richard Clyde sprang over the fence right before me.

"It should have opened and imprisoned you, as a truant dryad," said he.

"Of what _are_ you thinking, Gabriella, that you forget the impenetrability of matter, the opacity of bark and the incapability of flesh and blood to cleave asunder the ligneous fibres which oppose it, as the sonorous Johnson would have observed on a similar occasion."

"I was thinking of you, Richard," I answered with resolute frankness.