Ernest Linwood Part 27

CHAPTER XXVII.

Edith came in, as usual, before she retired for the night, and expressed affectionate concern for my indisposition; but there was an air of constraint, which I could not help perceiving. My eyes fell before hers, with conscious guilt. For had I not robbed her of that first place in her brother's heart, which she had so long claimed as her inalienable right?

I had one duty to perform, and I resolved to do it before I laid my head on the pillow. With the ma.n.u.script in my hand, I sought the chamber of Mrs. Linwood. She sat before a small table, her head resting thoughtfully on her hand, with an open Bible before her. She looked up at my entrance, with a countenance of gentle seriousness, and extended her hand affectionately.

Walking hastily towards her, I knelt at her feet, and laying the ma.n.u.script in her lap, burst into tears.

"Oh! Mrs. Linwood," I cried, "will your love and kindness survive the knowledge of all these pages will reveal? Will a mother's virtues cancel the record of a father's guilt? Can you cherish and protect me still?"

She bent over me and took me in her arms, while tears trembled in her eyes.

"I know all, my dear child," she said; "there is nothing new to be revealed. Your mother gave me, on her death-bed, a brief history of her life, and it only increased your claims on my maternal care. Do you think it possible, Gabriella, that I could be so unjust and unkind, as to visit the sins of a father on the head of an innocent and unoffending child? No; believe me, nothing but your own conduct could ever alienate my affections or confidence."

"Teach me to deserve it, dear Mrs. Linwood,--teach me how to prove my love, my grat.i.tude, and veneration."

"By confiding in me as a mother, trusting me as a friend, and seeking me as a guide and counsellor in this most dangerous season of youth and temptation, you are very dear to me, Gabriella. Next to my own son and daughter, I love you, nor do I consider their happiness a more sacred deposit than yours."

"Oh! Mrs. Linwood," I exclaimed, covering my burning face with my hands, and again bowing it on her lap--"Ask me anything,--and nothing shall be held back--I cannot--I dare not--perhaps I ought not--"

"Tell me that my son loves you?"

I started and trembled; but as soon as the words pa.s.sed her lips I gathered courage to meet whatever she might say.

"If it be indeed so," I answered, "should not the revelation come from him, rather than me?"

"There needs no formal declaration. I have seen it, known it, even before yourselves were conscious of its existence--this all engrossing pa.s.sion. Before my son's return I foresaw it, with the prescience of maternal love. I knew your young, imaginative heart would find its ideal in him, and that his fastidious taste and sensitive, reserved nature would be charmed by your simplicity, freshness, and genius. I knew it, and yet I could not warn you. For when did youth ever believe the cautions of age, or pa.s.sion listen to the voice of truth?"

"Warn _me_, madam? Oh, you mean him, not _me_. I never had the presumption to think myself his equal; never sought, never aspired to his love. You believe me, Mrs. Linwood--tell me, you believe me in this?"

"I do, Gabriella. Your heart opened as involuntarily and as inevitably to receive him, as the flower unfolds itself to the noonday sun. It is your destiny; but would to G.o.d I could oppose it, that I could subst.i.tute for you a happier, if less brilliant lot."

"A happier lot than to be the wife of Ernest? Oh! Mrs. Linwood, Heaven offers nothing to the eye of faith more blissful, more divine."

"Alas! my child, such is always the dream of love like yours, and from such dreams there must be a day of awakening. G.o.d never intended their realization in this world. You look up to me with wondering and reproachful glance. You have feared me, Gabriella, feared that I would oppose my son's choice, if it rested on one so lowly as you believe yourself. You are mistaken--I have no right to dictate to him. He is more than of age, has an independent fortune and an independent will.

The husband lifts his wife to his own position in society, and his name annihilates hers. The knowledge of your father's character gives me pain, and the possibility of his ever claiming you as his child is a source of deep inquietude,--but it is chiefly for you I tremble, for you I suffer, my beloved Gabriella."

I looked up in consternation and alarm. What invisible sword hung trembling over the future?

"Ernest," she began, then stopping, she raised me from my kneeling att.i.tude, led me to a sofa, and made me seat myself at her side.

"Ernest," she continued, holding my hand tenderly in hers, "has many n.o.ble and attractive qualities. He is just, generous, and honorable; he is upright, honest, and true; the shadow of deceit never pa.s.sed over his soul, the stain of a mean action never rested on his conduct. But,"--and her hand involuntarily tightened around mine,--"he has qualities fatal to the peace of those who love him,--fatal to his own happiness; suspicion haunts him like a dark shadow,--jealousy, like a serpent, lies coiled in his heart."

"He has told me all this," I cried, with a sigh of relief,--"but I fear not,--my confidence shall be so entire, there shall be no room for suspicion,--my love so perfect it shall cast out jealousy."

"So I once thought and reasoned in all the glow of youthful enthusiasm, but experience came with its icy touch, and enthusiasm, hope, joy, and love itself faded and died. The dark pa.s.sions of Ernest are hereditary,--they belong to the blood that flows in his veins,--they are part and lot of his existence,--they are the phantoms that haunted his father's path, and cast their chill shadows over the brief years of my married life. The remembrance of what I have suffered myself, makes me tremble for her who places her happiness in my son's keeping. A woman cannot be happy unless she is trusted."

"Not if she is beloved!" I exclaimed. "It seems to me that love should cover every fault, and jealousy be pardoned without an effort, since it is a proof of the strength and fervor of one's affection. Let me be loved,--I ask no more."

"You love my son, Gabriella?"

"Love him!" I repeated,--"oh that you could look into my heart!"

Blushing at the fervor of my manner, I turned my crimson face from her gaze. Then I remembered that he knew not yet what might place an insurmountable barrier between us, and I entreated Mrs. Linwood to tell him what I wanted courage to relate.

"I will, my child, but it will make no difference with him. His high, chivalrous sense of honor will make the circ.u.mstances of your birth but a new claim on his protection,--and his purposes are as immovable as his pa.s.sions are strong. But let us talk no more to-night. It is late, and you need rest. We will renew the subject when you are more composed--I might say both. I could not give you a greater proof of my interest in your happiness, than the allusion I have made to my past life. Never before have I lifted the curtain from errors which death has sanctified.

Let the confidence be sacred. Ernest and Edith must never know that a shadow rested on their father's virtues. Nothing but the hope of saving you from the sufferings which once were mine, could have induced me to rend the veil from the temple of my heart."

"How solemn, how chilling are your words," said I, feeling very faint and sad. "I wish I had not heard them. Do joy and sorrow always thus go hand in hand? In the last few hours I have known the two great extremes of life. I have been plunged into the depths of despair and raised to the summit of hope. I am dizzy and weak by the sudden transition. I will retire, dear madam, for my head feels strangely bewildered."

Mrs. Linwood embraced me with unusual tenderness, kissed me on both cheeks, and accompanied me to the door with a fervent "G.o.d bless you!"

CHAPTER XXVIII.

As soon as I reached my chamber, I threw myself on my bed, which seemed to roll beneath me with a billowy motion. Never had I felt so strangely, so wildly. Confused images crowded through my brain. I moved on an undulating surface. Now, it was the swelling and sinking of the blue gray waves of ocean,--then, the heaving green of the churchyard, billows of death, over which the wind blew damp and chill. I had left the lamp unextinguished, where its light reflected the rosy red of the curtains, and that became a fiery meteor shooting through crimson clouds, and leaving a lurid track behind it.

I sat up in bed; frightened at the wild confusion of my brain, I pa.s.sed my hands over my eyes to remove the illusion, but in vain. The ma.s.sy wardrobe changed to the rocky walls of the Rip Raps, and above it I saw the tall form of the white-locked chief. The carpet, with its cl.u.s.ters of mimic flowers, on a pale gray ground, was a waste of waters, covered with roses, among which St. James was swimming and trying to grasp them.

"What is the matter?" I cried, clasping my burning hands. "Am I asleep, and are these images but the visions of a feverish imagination?"

"You dream, my love," answered the low, deep voice of Ernest; "but my mother is coming to awaken you with a cold and icy hand. I have scattered roses over you while you slept, but her blighting touch has withered them."

Thus vision after vision succeeded each other, hurrying along like clouds in a tempestuous sky. I suppose I must have slept at last, but the morning found me in a state of utter exhaustion. Nervous excitement, sitting so long on the damp gra.s.s, and lingering out in the dewy evening air, brought on an illness which confined me to my bed many days. Dr.

Harlowe threatened to put me in a strait-jacket and send me to a lunatic asylum, if I did not behave better in future.

"I must take you home with me," he said; "our quiet, humdrum mode of life is better for you, after all. Your little rocking chair stands exactly where you used to sit in it. I do not like to see any one else occupy it. I get in disgrace with my wife every day, now you are not by me to hang up my hat and remind me by a glance to shake the dust from my feet. Such a quick pulse as this will never do, my child."

For a week I was kept in a darkened room, and perfect quietude was commanded. The doctor came every day, and sometimes several times a day, with his smiling, sunny countenance, and anxious, affectionate heart.

Mrs. Linwood and Edith stole gently in and out, with steps soft as falling snowflakes, and Margaret Melville was not permitted to enter at all. Every morning fresh flowers were laid upon my pillow, which I knew were gathered by the hand of Ernest, and they whispered to me of such sweet things my languid senses _ached_ to hear them.

One day, while in this pa.s.sive, languishing, dreamy condition, having fallen into tranquil slumbers, I was left a few moments alone. I was awakened by a stronger touch than that of Edith's fairy hand.

"Why, how do you do, darling? How do you do?" cried a hearty, gay voice, that echoed like a bugle in the stillness of the room. "The doctor said you were getting well, and I determined I would not be kept out any longer. What in the world do they banish _me_ for? I am the best nurse in the universe, strong as a lion, and wakeful as an owl. What do they shut you up in this dark room for?--just to give you the blues!--It is all nonsense. I am going to put back these curtains, and let in some light,--you will become etiolated. I want to see how you look."

Dashing at the curtains, she tossed two of them back as high as she could throw them, letting in a flood of sunshine to my weak and dazzled eyes.

"Don't! don't!" I entreated, getting dreadfully nervous and agitated; "I cannot bear it,--indeed I cannot."

"Yes you can; you will be better in a moment,--it is only coming out of darkness into marvellous light,--a sudden change, that is all. You do look white,--white, delicate, and sweet as a water-lily. I have a great mind to invite Ernest up to see you, you look so interesting. He has been like a distracted man, a wandering Jew, an unlaid ghost, ever since you have been ill. And poor Richard Clyde comes every night to inquire after you, with such a woebegone countenance. And that great, ugly, magnificent creature of a teacher, he has been too,--you certainly are a consequential little lady."

Thus she rattled on, without dreaming of the martyrdom she was inflicting on my weakened nerves.

"I have no doubt you mean to be kind," said I, ready to cry from weakness and irritation; "but if you will only drop the curtains and leave me, I will be so very grateful."