Ernest Linwood Part 14

"I shall be happy to avail myself of the privilege of uttering so charming a name. Does Miss Gabriella play?"

"No, no, that is not right yet, Ernest; you must drop the Miss. Do not answer him, Gabriella, till he knows his lesson better."

"Does Gabriella play?"

The name came gravely and melodiously from his tongue. The distance between us seemed wonderfully diminished by the mere breathing my Christian name.

"I do not," I answered, "but my love of music amounts to a pa.s.sion. I am never so happy as when listening to Edith's voice and harp."

"She has never taken lessons," said Edith; "if she had, she would have made a splendid musician, I am confident she would. Dear mother, when we go to the city next winter, Gabriella must go with us, and she must have music-masters, and we will play and sing together. She has taught in that old academy long enough, I am sure she has."

"I think Gabriella has been taking some very important lessons herself, while teaching in the old academy, which chances to be quite new, at least her part of it," answered Mrs. Linwood; "but I have no intention of suffering her to remain there too long; she has borne the discipline admirably."

As I turned a grateful glance to Mrs. Linwood, my heart throbbing with delight at the prospect of emanc.i.p.ation, I met the eyes, the earnest, perusing eyes of her son. I drew back further into the shadow of the curtain, but the risen moon was shining upon my face, and silvering the lace drapery that floated round me. Edith whispered something to her brother, glancing towards me her smiling eyes, then sweeping her fingers lightly over the harp-strings, began one of the songs that Ernest loved.

Sweetly as she always sang, I had never heard her sing so sweetly before. It seemed indeed "Joy's ecstatic trial," so airily her fingers sparkled over the chords, so clearly and cheerily she warbled each animated note.

"I know you love sad songs best, Ernest, but I cannot sing them to-night," she said, pushing the instrument from her.

"There is a little German air, which I think I may recollect," said he, drawing the harp towards him.

"You, Ernest!" cried Edith and his mother in the same breath, "you play on the harp!"

He smiled at their astonishment.

"I took lessons while in Germany. A fellow-student taught me,--a glorious musician, and a native of the land of music,--Italy. There, the very atmosphere breathes of harmony."

The very first note he called forth, I felt a master's touch was on the chords, and leaning forward I held my breath to listen. The strains rose rich and murmuring like an ocean breeze, then died away soft as wave falls on wave in the moonlight night. He sang a simple, pathetic air, with such deep feeling, such tender, pa.s.sionate emotion, that tears involuntarily moistened my eyes. All the slumbering music of my being responded. It was thus _I_ could sing,--_I_ could play,--I knew I could.

And when he rose and resumed his seat by his mother, I could scarcely restrain myself from touching the same chords,--the chords still quivering from his magic hand.

"O brother!" exclaimed Edith, "what a charming surprise! I never heard any thing so thrillingly sweet! You do not know how happy you have made me. One more,--only one more,--Ernest."

"You forget your brother is from a long and weary journey, Edith, and we have many an evening before us, I trust, of domestic joy like this,"

said Mrs. Linwood, ringing for the night-lamps. "To-morrow is the hallowed rest-day of the Lord, and our hearts, so long restless from expectation, will feel the grateful calm of a.s.sured happiness. One who returns after a long journey to the bosom of home, in health and safety, has peculiar calls for grat.i.tude and praise. He should bless the G.o.d of the traveller for having given his angels charge concerning him, and shielding him from unknown dangers. You feel all this, my son."

She looked at him with an anxious, questioning glance. She feared that the mysticism of Germany might have obscured the brightness of his Christian faith.

"I _am_ grateful, my mother," he answered with deep seriousness, "grateful to G.o.d for the blessings of this hour. This has been one of the happiest evenings of my life. Surely it is worth years of absence to be welcomed to such a home, and by such pure, loving hearts,--hearts in which I can trust without hypocrisy and without guile."

"Believe all hearts true, my son, till you prove them false."

"Faith is a gift of heaven, not an act of human will," he replied. Then I remembered what Richard Clyde had said of him, and I thought of it again when alone in my chamber.

Edith peeped in through the door that divided our rooms.

"Have we not had a charming evening?" she asked.

"Yes, _very_," I answered.

"How fond you are of that little adverb _very_," she exclaimed with a laugh; "you make it sound so expressively. Well, is not Ernest very interesting?"

"Very."

"The most interesting person you ever saw?"

"You question me too closely, Edith. It will not do for me to speak as extravagantly as you do. I am not his sister, and the praise that falls so sweetly from your tongue, would sound bold and inappropriate from mine. I never knew before how strong a sister's love could be, Edith.

Surely you can never feel a stronger pa.s.sion."

"Never," she cried earnestly, and coming in, she sat down on the side of the bed and unbound the ribbon from her slender waist. "The misfortune that has set me apart from my youthful companions will prevent me from indulging in the dreams of love. I know my mother does not wish me to marry, and I have never thought of the possibility of leaving her. I would not dare to give this frail frame and too tenderly indulged heart into the keeping of one who could never, never bestow the love, the boundless love, which has surrounded me from infancy, like the firmament of heaven. I have been sought in marriage more than once, it might be for reputed wealth or for imagined charms; but when I compared my would-be lovers to Ernest, they faded into such utter insignificance, I could scarcely pardon their presumption. I do not think he has ever loved himself. I do not think he has ever seen one worthy of his love. I believe it would kill me, Gabriella, to know that he loved another better than myself."

For the first time I thought Edith selfish, and that she carried the romance of sisterly affection too far.

"You wish him, then, to be an old bachelor!" said I, smiling.

"Oh! don't apply to him such a horrid name. I did not think of that.

Good night, darling. Mamma would scold me, if she knew I was up talking nonsense, instead of being in bed and asleep, like a good, obedient child." She kissed me and retired but it was long before I fell asleep.

CHAPTER XVII.

The next morning, as I was coming up the steps with my white muslin ap.r.o.n fall of gathered flowers, I met Ernest Linwood. I was always an early riser. Dear, faithful Peggy had taught me this rural habit, and I have reason to bless her for it.

"I see where you get your roses," said he; I knew he did not mean the roses in my ap.r.o.n, and those to which he alluded grew brighter as he spoke.

"Am I indebted to you for the beautiful flowers in my own apartment?" he asked, as he turned back and entered the house with me, "or was it Edith's sisterly hand placed them there?"

"Are you pleased with them?" I said, with a childish delight. It seemed to me a great thing that he had noticed them at all. "As Edith is lame, she indulges me in carrying out her own sweet tastes. I a.s.sure you I esteem it an inestimable privilege."

"You love flowers, then?"

"O yes, pa.s.sionately. I have almost an idolatrous love for them."

"And does it not make you sad to see them wither away, in spite of your pa.s.sionate love?"

"Yes, but others bloom in their stead. 'T is but a change from blossom to blossom."

"You deceive yourself," he said, and there was something chilling in his tone, "it is not love you feel for them, for that is unchangeable, and admits but one object."

"I was not speaking of human love," I answered, busily arranging the flowers in their vases, in which I had already placed some icy cold water. He walked up and down the room, stopping occasionally to observe the process, and making some pa.s.sing remark. I was astonished at finding myself so much at ease. I suppose the awe he inspired, like the fear of ghosts, subsided at the dawning of morning. There was something so exhilarating in the pure fresh air, in the dewy brightness of the hour, in the exercise of roaming through a wilderness of sweets, that my spirits were too elastic to be held down. He seemed to take an interest in watching me, and even altered the position of some white roses, which he said wanted a shading of green.

"And what are these beautiful cl.u.s.ters laid aside for?" he asked, taking up some which I had deposited on the table.

"I thought," I answered, after a slight hesitation, "that Edith would like them for your room."

"Then it is only to please Edith you place them there, not to please yourself?"