Ernest Linwood Part 42

She stopped and leaned her head on her hand, and her hair fell shadingly over her face.

"What, Margaret? I should like exceedingly to know your inmost thoughts and feelings. You seem to think and feel so little;--and yet, in every woman's heart there must be a fountain,--or else what a desert waste,--what a dreary wilderness it must be."

She did not speak, but put both hands over her face and bent it downwards, while her shoulders moved up and down with a spasmodic motion. I thought she was shaking with suppressed laughter; and though I could not imagine what had excited her mirth, I had known her convulsed by a ridiculous thought of her own, in the midst of general seriousness.

But all at once unmistakable sobs broke forth, and I found she was crying heartily, genuinely,--crying without any self control, with all the abandonment of a child.

"Margaret!" I exclaimed, laying my hand gently on her quivering shoulder, "what is the matter? What can have excited you in this manner?

Don't, Madge,--you terrify me."

"I can't help it," she sobbed. "Now I have began, I can't stop. O dear, what a fool I am! There is nothing the matter with me. I don't know what makes me cry; but I can't help it,--I hate myself,--I can't bear myself, and yet I can't change myself. n.o.body that I care for will ever love me.

I am such a hoyden--such a romp--I disgust every one that comes near me; and yet I can't be gentle and sweet like you, if I die. I used to think because I made everybody laugh, they liked me. People said, 'Oh! there's Madge, she will keep us alive.' And I thought it was a fine thing to be called Wild Madge, and Meg the Dauntless; I begin to hate the names; I begin to blush when I think of myself."

And Margaret lifted her head, and the feelings of lately awakened womanhood crimsoned her cheeks, and streamed from her eyes. I was electrified. What prophet hand had smitten the rock? What power had drawn up the rosy fluid from the Artesian well of her heart?

"My dear Margaret," I cried, "I hail this moment as the dawn of a new life in your soul. Your childhood has lingered long, but the moment you feel that you have the heart of a woman, you will discard the follies of a child. Now you begin to live, when you are conscious of the golden moments you have wasted, the n.o.ble capacities you have never yet exerted. Oh Margaret, I feel more and more every day I live, that I was born for something more than the enjoyment of the pa.s.sing moment,--that life was given for a more exalted purpose than self-gratification, and that as we use or abuse this gift of G.o.d we become heirs of glory or of shame."

Margaret listened with a subdued countenance and a long drawn sigh. She strenuously wiped away the traces of her tears, and shook back the hair from her brow, with a resolute motion.

"You despise me--I know you do," she said, gloomily.

"No, indeed," I answered, "I never liked you half as well before; I doubted your sensibility. Now, I see you can feel, and feel acutely. I shall henceforth think of you with interest, and speak of you with tenderness."

"You are the dearest, sweetest creature in the world," she exclaimed, putting both arms around me with unwonted gentleness; "I shall always love you, and will try to remember all you have said to me to-night. We shall meet in the summer, and you shall see, oh yes, you shall see. Dear me--what a fright I have made of myself."

She had risen, and was glancing at herself in the Psyche, which, supported by two charming Cupids, reflected the figure full length.

"I never will cry again if I can help it," she exclaimed. "These horrid red circles round the eyes,--and my eyes, too, are as red as a rabbit's.

The heroines of novels are always said to look lovelier in tears; but you are the only person I ever saw who looked pretty after weeping."

"Did you ever see me weep, Madge?"

"I have noticed more than you think I have,--and believe me, Gabriella, Ernest will have to answer for every tear he draws from those angel eyes of yours."

"Margaret, you know not what you say. Ernest loves me ten thousand times better than I deserve. He lavishes on me a wealth of love that humbles me with a consciousness of my own demerits. His only fault is loving me too well. Never never breathe before Mrs. Linwood or Edith,--before a human being, the sentiment you uttered now. Never repeat the idle gossip you may have heard. If you do speak of us, say that I have known woman's happiest, most blissful lot. And that I would rather be the wife of Ernest one year, than live a life of endless duration with any other."

"It must be a pleasant thing to be loved," said Margaret, and her black eyes flashed through the red shade of tears.

"And to love," I repeated. "It is more blessed to give, than to receive."

A sympathetic chord was touched,--there was music in it. Who ever saw a person weep genuine tears, without feeling the throbbings of humanity,--the drawings of the chain that binds together all the sons and daughters of Adam? If there are such beings, I pity them.

Let them keep as far from me as the two ends of the rainbow are from each other. The breath of the Deity has frozen within them.

CHAPTER XL.

The morning of Margaret's departure, when Mr. Regulus was standing with gloves and hat in hand waiting her readiness, it happened that I was alone in the parlor with him a few moments.

"You will have a pleasant journey," said I. "You will find Margaret an entertaining companion."

"O yes!" he answered, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, "but I fear she will excite too much remark by her wild antics. I do not like to be noticed by strangers."

"She will accommodate herself to your wishes, I know she will. You have great influence over her."

"Me! oh no!" he cried, with equal surprise and simplicity.

"Yes, indeed you have. Talk to her rationally, as if you had confidence in her good-sense, Mr. Regulus, and you will really find some golden wheat buried in the chaff. Talk to her feelingly, as if you appealed to her sensibility, and you may discover springs where you believe no waters flow."

"It is like telling me to search for spring flowers, when the ground is all covered with snow,--to look at the moon shining, when the night is as dark as ebony. But I am thinking of you, Gabriella, more than of her.

I rejoice to find you the same artless child of nature that sat at my feet years ago in the green-wood shade. But beautiful as is your palace home, I long to see you again in our lovely valley among the birds and the flowers. I long to see you on the green lawn of Grandison Place."

"I do feel more at home at Grandison Place," I answered. "I would give more for the velvet lawn, the dear old elm, the oaken avenue, than for all the magnificence of this princely mansion."

"But you are happy here, my child?"

"I have realized the brightest dreams of youth."

"G.o.d be praised!--and you have forgiven my past folly,--you think of me as preceptor, elder brother, friend."

"My dear master!" I exclaimed, and tears, such as glisten in the eyes of childhood, gathered in mine. I _was_ a child again, in my mother's presence, and the shade-trees of the gray cottage seemed rustling around me.

The entrance of Margaret interrupted the conversation. She never appeared to better advantage than in her closely fitting riding dress, which displayed the symmetry of her round and elastic figure. I looked at her with interest, for I had seen those saucy, brilliant eyes suffused with tears, and those red, merry lips quivering with womanly sensibility. I hoped good things of Margaret, and though I could not regret her departure, I thought leniently of her faults, and resolved to forget them.

"Just like Margaret," said I, gathering up the beautiful drapery, on which she had trodden as she left the room, and rent from the shaft that confined its folds. She stopped not to see the mischief she had done, for she was so accustomed to hear a crash and dash behind her, it is not probable she even noticed it.

"Thank G.o.d!" exclaimed Ernest, before the echo of their departing footsteps had died on the ear. "Thank G.o.d! we are once more alone."

Mr. Harland had visited us but seldom since the words of pa.s.sion which might have been followed by a scene of strife, but for woman's restraining presence, had fallen from the lips of Ernest. One evening, he called and asked a private interview with Ernest, and they immediately pa.s.sed into the library. I saw that his countenance was disturbed, and vague apprehensions filled my mind. I could hear their voices in earnest, excited tones; and though I knew there was no revelation to be made which Ernest had not already heard from me, I felt a conviction amounting to certainty, that this mysterious interview had some connection with my unhappy father, and boded evil to me. Mr.

Harland did not probably remain more than an hour, but every moment seemed an hour, drawn out by suspense and apprehension. He reentered the parlor with Ernest, but left immediately; while Ernest walked silently back and forth, as he always did when agitated,--his brows contracted with stern, intense thought. He was excessively pale, and though his eyes did not emit the lightning glance of pa.s.sion, they flashed and burned like heated metal.

I dared not ask him the cause of his emotion, I could only watch him with quick-drawn breath, and lips sealed with dread. Suddenly he put his hand in his bosom, and s.n.a.t.c.hing thence the fatal casket I had left in my father's crime-stained hands, he hurled it to the floor, and trampled it under his feet.

"Behold," he cried, with inexpressible bitterness and grief, "my mother's gift, her sacred bridal gift,--desecrated, polluted, lost,--worse than lost! I will not upbraid you. I would spare you the pang I myself endure,--but think of the agonies in which a spirit like mine must writhe, to know that _your_ name, that the name of my _wife_ is blazoned to the world, a.s.sociated with that of a vile forger, an abandoned villain, whose crimes are even now blackening the newspapers, and glutting the greedy appet.i.te of slander! O rash, misguided girl!

what demon tempted you to such fatal imprudence?"

I sat immovable, frozen, my eyes fixed upon the carpet, my hands as cold as ice, and my lips, as they touched each other, chill as icicles. In moments of sudden anguish I never lost consciousness, as many do, but while my physical powers were crushed, my mind seemed to acquire preternatural sensibility. I suffered as we do in dreams, intensely, exquisitely, when every nerve is unsheathed, and the spirit naked to the dagger's stroke. He stopped as he uttered this impa.s.sioned adjuration, and his countenance changed instantaneously as he gazed on mine.

"Cruel, cruel that I am!" he cried, sitting down by me, and wrapping his arms around me; "I did not know what I was saying. I meant to be gentle and forbearing, but strong pa.s.sion rushed over me like a whirlwind.

Forgive me, Gabriella, my darling, forgive me. Let the world say what it will, I know that you are pure and true. I care not for the money,--I care not for the jewels,--but an unspotted name. Oh! where now are the 'liveried angels' that will guard it from pollution?"

As he folded me in his arms, and pressed his cheek to mine, as if striving to infuse into it vital warmth, I felt the electric fluid flowing into my benumbed system. Whatever had occurred, he had not cast me off; and with him to sustain me, I was strong to meet the exigencies of the moment. I looked up in his face, and he read the expression of my soul,--I know he did, for he clasped me closer to him, and the fire of his eyes grew dim,--dim, through glistening tears. And then he told me all my beseeching glances sought. More than a week before, even before that, he had learned that a forgery had been committed in his name, involving a very large sum of money. Liberal rewards had been offered for the discovery of the villain, and that day he had been brought to the city. My diamonds, on whose setting Mrs. Linwood had had my name engraven, were found in his possession. He had not spoken to me of the forgery, not wishing to trouble me, he said, on a subject of such minor importance. It was the publicity given to my name, in a.s.sociation with his, that caused the bitterness of his anguish. And I,--I knew that my father had robbed my husband in the vilest, most insidious manner; that he had drawn upon himself the awful doom of a forger, a dungeon home, a living death.