Ernest Linwood Part 25

Ernest Linwood, for it was he, knelt down by me, and putting his arms round me, raised me from the ground, without any volition of my own. I know not what state I was in. I was perfectly conscious; but had no more power over the movement of a muscle than if I were dead. My eyes were closed, and my head drooped on his breast, as he raised me, bowed by its own weight. I was in a kind of conscious catalepsy. He was alarmed, terrified. As he afterwards told me, he really believed me dead, and clasping me to him with an energy of which he was not aware, adjured me in the most tender and pa.s.sionate manner to speak and tell him that I lived.

"Gabriella, my flower-girl, my darling!" he cried, pressing my cheek with those pure, despairing kisses with which love hallows death. Had I indeed pa.s.sed the boundaries of life, for my spirit alone was conscious of caresses, whose remembrance thrilled through my being.

The reaction was instantaneous. The chilled blood grew warm and rushed through every vein with wild rapidity. Then I became physically conscious, and glowing with confusion I raised myself from my reclining position, and attempted to look up into the face of Ernest. But I could not do it. Contending emotions deprived me of the power of self-command.

"This is madness, Gabriella! This is suicide!" he exclaimed, lifting me from the grave, and still supporting me with his arm. "Why do you come here to nurse a grief so far beyond the limits of reason and religion?

Why do you give your friends such exquisite pain, yourself such unnecessary misery?"

"Do not reproach me," I cried. "You know not what cause I have for anguish and despair."

"Despair, Gabriella! You cannot know the meaning of that word. Despair belongs to guilt, and even that is not hopeless. And why do you come to this lone place of graves to weep, as if human sympathy were denied to your sorrows? Is not my mother kind,--is not Edith tender and affectionate? Am not I worthy to be trusted, as a friend,--a protector,--a redresser; and if need be, an avenger of wrongs?"

"My own wrongs I might reveal; but those of the dead are sacred," I answered, stooping down and gathering up the ma.n.u.script, which was half concealed in the long, damp gra.s.s. "But do not think me ungrateful. What I owe to your mother and Edith words can never tell. In every prayer I breathe to heaven I shall call down blessings on their head. And you too,--you have been more than kind. I never can forget it."

"If it be not too presumptuous, I will unite your name with theirs, and pray that G.o.d may bless you, now and ever more."

"This will never do," said he, drawing me forcibly from the mournful place. "You _must_ confide in my mother, Gabriella. A dark secret is a plague spot in the heart. Confide in my mother. It is due to her maternal love and guardianship. And beware of believing that any thing independent _of yourself_ can alienate her affections. Can you walk? If it were not for leaving you alone, I would go and return with the carriage."

"Oh, yes; I am quite well and strong again."

"Then lean on me, Gabriella. Shrink not from an arm which would gladly protect you from every danger and every wrong. Let us hasten, lest I utter words which I would not for worlds a.s.sociate with a scene so cold and sad. Not where the shadow of death falls--no--not here."

He hurried me through the gate, and then paused.

"Rest here a moment," said he, "and recover your composure. We may meet with those who would wonder to see you thus, with your hair wildly flowing, your scarf loose and disordered."

"Thank you," I exclaimed, my thoughts coming to the surface, and resting there with shame. I had forgotten that my bonnet was in my hand, that my comb had fallen, leaving my hair loose and dishevelled. Gathering up its length, and twisting it in thick folds around my head, I confined it with my bonnet, and smoothing my thin scarf, I took his arm in silence, and walked on through the purple gloom of twilight that deepened before us. Slight shivers ran through my frame. The dampness of the grave-yard clung to me, and the night dews were beginning to fall.

"Are you cold, Gabriella?" he asked, folding my light mantle more closely round me. "You are not sufficiently protected from the dewy air.

You are weary and chill. You do not lean on me. You do not confide in me."

"In whom should I confide, then? Without father, brother, or protector, in whom should I confide, if ungrateful and untrusting I turn from you?"

As I said this, I suffered my arm to rest more firmly on his, for my steps were indeed weary, and we were now ascending the hill. My heart was deeply touched by his kindness, and the involuntary e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns he uttered, the involuntary caresses he bestowed, when he believed me perfectly unconscious, were treasured sacredly there. We were now by the large elm-tree that shaded the way-side, beneath whose boughs I had so often paused to gaze on the valley below. Without speaking, he led me to this resting-place, and we both looked back, as wayfarers are wont to do when they stop in an ascending path.

Calmly the shadows rested on the landscape, softly yet darkly they rolled down the slope of the neighboring hills and the distant mountains. In thin curlings, the gray smoke floated upwards and lay slumberously among the fleecy clouds. Here and there a mansion, lifted above the rest, shed from its glowing windows the reflection of departing day. Bright on the dusky gold of the west the evening-star shone and throbbed, like a pure love-thought in the heart of night; and, dimly glimmering above the horizon, the giant pen seemed writing the Mene Tekel of my clouded destiny on the palace walls of heaven.

As we thus stood, lifted above the valley, involved in shadows, silent and alone, I could hear the beating of my heart, louder and louder in the breathing stillness.

"Gabriella!" said Ernest, in a low voice, and that _master-chord_ which no hand but his had touched, thrilled at the sound. "If the spot on which we stand were a desert island, and the valley stretching around us the wide waste of ocean, and we the only beings in the solitude of nature, with your hand thus clasped in mine, and my heart thus throbbing near, with a love so strong, so deep, it would be to you in place of the whole world beside,--tell me, could you be happy?"

"I could," was the low, irresistible answer; and my soul, like an illuminated temple, flashed with inward light. I covered my eyes to keep in the dazzling rays. I forgot the sad history of wrongs and disgrace which I had just been perusing;--I forgot that such words had breathed into my mother's ear, and that she believed them. I only remembered that Ernest Linwood loved me, and _that_ love surrounded me with a luminous atmosphere, in which joy and hope fluttered their heavenly wings.

How slight a thing will change the current of thought! I caught a glimpse of the granite walls of Grandison Place, and darkened by the shades, they seemed to frown upon me with their high turret and lofty colonnade, so ancestral and imposing. Then I remembered Mrs. Linwood and Edith,--then I remembered my mother, my _father_, and all the light went out in my heart.

"I had forgotten,--oh, how much I had forgotten," I cried, endeavoring to release myself from the arm that only tightened its hold. "Your mother never would forgive my presumption if she thought,--if she knew."

"My mother loves you; but even if she did not, I am free to act, free to choose, as every man should be. I love and _revere_ my mother, but there is a pa.s.sion stronger than filial love and reverence, which goes on conquering and to conquer. She will not, she cannot oppose me."

"But Edith, dear Edith, who loves you so devotedly! She will hate me if I dare to supplant her."

"A sister never can be supplanted,--and least of all such a sister as Edith, Gabriella. If you do not feel that love so expands, so enlarges the heart, that it makes room for all the angels in heaven, you could not share my island home."

"If you knew all,--if I could tell you all," I cried,--and again I felt the barbed anguish that prostrated me at the grave,--"and you _shall_ know,--your generous love demands this confidence. When your mother has read the history of my parentage, I will place it in your hands; though my mother's character is as exalted and spotless as your own, there is a cloud over my name that will for ever rest upon it. Knowing _that_, you cannot, you will not wish to unite your n.o.ble, brilliant destiny with mine. This hour will be remembered as a dream, a bright, but fleeting dream."

"What do I care for the past?" he exclaimed, detaining me as I endeavored to move on. "Talk not of a clouded name. Will not mine absorb it? What shaft of malice can pierce you, with my arm as a defence, and my bosom as a shield? Gabriella, it is you that I love, not the dead and buried past. You are the representative of all present joy and hope. I ask for nothing but your love,--your exclusive, boundless love,--a love that will be ready to sacrifice every thing but innocence and integrity for me,--that will cling to me in woe as in weal, in shame as in honor, in death as in life. Such is the love I give; and such I ask in return.

Is it mine? Tell me not of opposing barriers; only tell me what your heart this moment dictates; forgetful of the past, regardless of the future? Is this love mine?"

"It is," I answered, looking up through fast-falling tears. "Why will you wring this confession from me, when you only know it too well?"

"One question more, Gabriella, for your truth-telling lips to answer. Is this love only given in _return_? Did it not spring spontaneously forth from the warmth and purity of your own heart, without waiting the avowal of mine? Grat.i.tude is not love. It is _stone_, not bread, to a spirit as exacting as mine."

Again the truth was forced from me by his unconquerable will,--a will that opened the secret valves of thought, and rolled away the rock from the fountain of feeling. Even then I felt the despotism as well as the strength of his love.

I cannot, I dare not, repeat all that he uttered. It would be deemed too extravagant, too high-wrought. And so it was. Let woman tremble rather than exult, when she is the object of a pa.s.sion so intense. The devotion of her whole being cannot satisfy its inordinate demands. Though the flame of the sacrifice ascend to heaven, it still cries, "Bring gifts to the altar,--bring the wine of the banquet,--the incense of the temple,--the fuel of the hearth-stone. Bring all, and still I crave.

Give all, I ask for more."

Not then was this warning suggested. To be wildly, pa.s.sionately loved, was my heart's secret prayer. Life itself would be a willing sacrifice to this devotion. Suspicion that stood sentinel at the door of Faith, Distrust that threw its shadow over the sunshine of truth, and Jealousy, doubting, yet adoring still, would be welcomed as household guests, if the attendants of this impa.s.sioned love. Such was the dream of my girlhood.

When we entered the lawn, lights began to glimmer in the house. I trembled at the idea of meeting Mrs. Linwood, or the Amazonian Meg.

There was a side door through which I might pa.s.s un.o.bserved, and by this ingress I sought my chamber and locked the door. A lamp was burning on the table. Had I lingered abroad so late? Had the absence of Ernest been observed?

I sat down on the side of the bed, threw off my bonnet and scarf, shook my hair over my shoulders, and pushed it back with both hands from my throbbing temples. I wanted room. Such crowding thoughts, such overflowing emotions, could not be compressed in those four walls. I rose and walked the room back and forth, without fear of being over-heard, on the soft carpet of velvet roses. What revelations had been made known to me since I had quitted that room! How low I had been degraded,--how royally exalted! A child unent.i.tled to her father's name!--a maiden, endowed with a princely heart! I walked as one in a dream, doubting my own ident.i.ty. But one master thought governed every other.

"He loves me!" I repeated to myself. "Ernest Linwood loves me! Whatever be the future, that present bliss is mine. I have tasted woman's highest, holiest joy,--the joy of loving and being beloved. Sorrow and trial may be mine; but this remembrance will remain, a blessed light through the darkness of time,--'a star on eternity's ocean.'"

As I pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed the double mirror, my reflected figure seemed an apparition gliding by my side, I paused and stood before one of them, and I thought of the time when, first awakened to the consciousness of personal influence, I gazed on my own image. Some writer has said, "that every woman is beautiful when she loves." There certainly is a light, coming up from the enkindled heart, bright as the solar ray, yet pure and soft as moonlight, which throws an illusion over the plainest features and makes them for the moment charming. I saw the flower-girl of the library in the mirror, and then I knew that the artist had intended her as the idealization of Love's image.

And then I remembered the morning when we sat together in the library, and he took the roses from my basket and scattered the leaves at my feet.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A thundering rap at the door startled my meditations. I knew there was but one pair of knuckles in the house capable of beating such a tattoo, and I recoiled from admitting such a boisterous guest.

"Gabriella, Gabriella!" rung a voice through the pa.s.sage. "Are you asleep? Are you dead? Open the door, pray, or I shall kill myself squeezing in through the key-hole."

With a deep sigh of vexation, I opened the door, and she sprang in with the momentum of a ball hurled by a bat.

"My dear creature!" she exclaimed, catching me round the waist and turning me to the light, "what _have_ you been doing? where _have_ you been staying? Ill!--tired!--it is all a sham. He need not try to impose on me such a story as that. I never saw you look so brilliantly well.

Your cheeks and lips are red like the damask rose, and your eyes,--I never saw such eyes before. Come here and look in the gla.s.s. Ill!--ha, ha!"

"I have been ill," I answered, shrinking from her reckless hand, "and I was very tired; I feel better now."

"Yes, I should think you did. You rested long enough by the way, Heaven knows; we saw you climbing the hill at sunset, and the lamps were lighted before you came in. I was going after you, but Mrs. Linwood would not let me. Ah! you have animated the statue, thou modern Pygmaliona. You have turned back into flesh this enchanted man of stone.