Helen and Arthur Part 26

"I don't know. But one thing I can tell you; if you value your peace and happiness, let not your heart anchor its hopes on him. Look upon all that is past as mere gallantry on his side, and the natural drawing of youth to youth on yours. Come this way," drawing her into the sitting-room, where the dying embers still communicated warmth to the apartment, and shed a dim, lurid light on their faces. "Though my head aches as if red-hot wires were pa.s.sing through it, I must guard you at once against this folly. You know so little of the world, Mittie, you don't understand the manners of young men, especially when first released from college. There is a chivalry about them which converts every young lady into an angel, and they address them as such. Their attentions seldom admit a more serious construction. Besides--but no matter--I have said enough, I hope, to rouse the pride of your s.e.x, and to induce you to banish Clinton from your thoughts. Good-night."

Though he tried to speak carelessly, he was evidently much agitated.

"Good-night," he again repeated, but Mittie stood motionless as a statue, looking steadfastly on the glimmering embers. "Go up stairs," he cried, taking her cold hand, and leading her to the door, "you will be frozen if you stay here much longer."

"I am frozen already," she answered, shuddering, "good night."

The next morning, when the housemaid went into her room to kindle a fire, she was startled by the appearance of a m.u.f.fled figure seated at the window, with the head leaning against the cas.e.m.e.nt; the face was as white as the snow on the landscape. It was Mittie. She had not laid her head upon the pillow the whole live-long night.

CHAPTER XII.

"Beautiful tyrant--fiend angelical-- Dove-feathered raven!--wolf-devouring lamb-- Oh, serpent heart--hid in a flowering cave, Did e'er deceit dwell in so fair a mansion!"--_Shakspeare._

"Pray for the dead.

Why for the dead, who are at rest?

Pray for the living, in whose breast The struggle between right and wrong Is raging terrible and strong."--_Longfellow._

"Are you willing to remain with her alone, all night?" asked the young doctor.

Helen glanced towards the figure reclining on the bed, whose length appeared almost supernatural, and whose appearance was rendered more gloomy by the dun-colored counterpane that enveloped it--and though her countenance changed, she answered, "Yes."

"Have you no fears that the old superst.i.tions of your childhood will resume their influence over your imagination, in the stillness of the midnight hour?"

"I wish to subject myself to the trial. I am not quite sure of myself. I know there is no real danger, and it is time that I should battle single-handed with all imaginary foes."

"But supposing your parents should object?"

"You must tell them how very ill she is, and how much she wishes me to remain with her. I think they will rejoice in my determination--rejoice that their poor, weak Helen has any energy of purpose, any will or power to be useful."

"If you knew half your strength, half your power, Helen, I fear you would abuse it."

A bright flame flashed up from the dark, serene depths of his eyes, and played on Helen's downcast face. She had seen its kindling, and now felt its warmth glowing in her cheek, and in her inmost heart. The large, old clock behind the door, struck the hour loudly, with its metallic hands. Arthur started and looked at his watch.

"I did not think it was so late," he exclaimed, rising in haste. "I have a patient to visit, whom I promised to be with before this time. Do you know, Helen, we have been talking at least two hours by this fireside?

Miss Thusa slumbers long."

He went to the bedside, felt of the sleeper's pulse, listened attentively to her deep, irregular breathing, and then returned to Helen.

"The opiate she has taken will probably keep her in a quiet state during the night--if not, you will recollect the directions I have given--and administer the proper remedies. Does not your courage fail, now I am about to leave you? Have you no misgivings now?"

"I don't know. If I have, I will not express them. I am resolved on self-conquest, and your doubts of my courage only serve to strengthen my resolution."

Arthur smiled--"I see you have a will of your own, Helen, under that gentle, child-like exterior, to which mine is forced to bend. But I will not suffer you to be beyond the reach of a.s.sistance. I will send a woman to sleep in the kitchen, whom you can call, if you require her aid. As I told you before, I do not apprehend any immediate danger, though I do not think she will rise from that bed again."

Helen sighed, and tears gathered in her eyes. She accompanied Arthur to the door, that she might put the strong bar across it, which was Miss Thusa's subst.i.tute for a lock.

"Perhaps I may call on my return," said he, "but it is very doubtful.

Take care of yourself and keep warm. And if any unfavorable change takes place, send the woman for me. And now good-night--dear, good, brave Helen. May G.o.d bless, and angels watch over you."

He pressed her hand, wrapped his cloak around him, and left Helen to her solitary vigils. She lifted the ma.s.sy bar with trembling hands, and slid it into the iron hooks, fitted to receive it. Her hands trembled, but not from fear, but delight. Arthur had called her "dear and brave"--and long after she had reseated herself by the lonely hearth, the echo of his gentle, manly accents, seemed floating round the walls.

The illness of Miss Thusa was very sudden. She had risen in the morning in usual health, and pursued until noon her customary occupation--when, all at once, as she told the young doctor, "it seemed as if a knife went through her heart, and a wedge into her brain--and she was sure it was a death-stroke." For the first time, in the course of her long life, she was obliged to take her bed, and there she lay in helplessness and loneliness, unable to summon relief. The young doctor called in the afternoon as a friend, and found his services imperatively required as a physician. The only wish she expressed was to have Helen with her, and as soon as he had relieved the sufferings of his patient, Arthur brought Helen to the Hermitage. When she arrived, Miss Thusa was under the influence of an opiate, but opening her heavy eyes, a ray of light emanated from the dim, gray orbs, as Helen, pale and awe-struck, approached her bedside. She was appalled at seeing that powerful frame so suddenly prostrated--she was shocked at the change a few hours had wrought in those rough, but commanding features. The large eye-b.a.l.l.s looked sunken, and darkly shaded below, while a wan, gray tint, melting off into a bluish white on the temples, was spread over the face.

"You will stay with me to-night, my child," said she, in a voice strangely altered. "I've got something to tell you--and the time is come."

"Yes. I will stay with you as long as you wish, Miss Thusa," replied Helen, pa.s.sing her hand softly over the h.o.a.ry looks that shaded the brow of the sufferer. "I will nurse you so tenderly, that you will soon be well again."

"Good child--blessed child!" murmured she, closing her eyes beneath the slumberous weight of the anodyne, and sinking into a deep sleep.

And now Helen sat alone, watching the aged friend, whose strongly-marked and peculiar character had had so great an influence on her own. For awhile the echo of Arthur's parting words made so much music in her ear, it drowned the harsh, solemn ticking of the old clock, and stole like a sweet lullaby over her spirit. But gradually the ticking sounded louder and louder, and her loneliness pressed heavily upon her. There was a little, dark, walnut table, standing on three curiously wrought legs, in a corner of the room. On this a large Bible, covered with dark, linen cloth, was laid, and on the top of this Miss Thusa's spectacles, with the bows crossing each other, like the stiffened arms of a corpse. Helen could not bear to look upon those spectacles, which had always seemed to her an inseparable part of Miss Thusa, lying so still and melancholy there. She took them up reverently, and laid them on a shelf, then drawing the table near the fire, or rather carrying it, so as not to awaken the sleeper, she opened the sacred book. The first words which happened to meet her eye, were--

"Where is G.o.d, my Maker, who giveth me songs in the night?"

The pious heart of the young girl thrilled as she read this beautiful and appropriate text.

"Surely, oh G.o.d, Thou art here," was the unspoken language of that young, believing heart, "here in this lonely cottage, here by this bed of sickness, and here also in this trembling, fearing, yet trusting spirit. In every life-beat throbbing in my veins, Thy awful steps I hear. Yet Thou canst not come, Thou canst not go, for Thou art ever near, unseen, yet felt, an all pervading, glorious presence."

Had any one seen Helen, seated by that solitary hearth, with her hands clasped over those holy pages, her mild, devotional eyes raised to Heaven, the light quivering in a halo round her brow, they might have imagined her a young Saint, or a young Sister of Charity, ministering to the sufferings of that world whose pleasures she had abjured.

A low knock was heard at the door. It must be the young doctor, for who else would call at such an hour? Yet Helen hesitated and trembled, holding her breath to listen, thinking it possible it was but the pressure of the wind, or some rat tramping within the walls. But when the knock was repeated, with a little more emphasis, she took the lamp, entered the narrow pa.s.sage, closing the door softly after her, removed the ma.s.sy bar, certain of beholding the countenance which was the sunlight of her soul. What was her astonishment and terror, on seeing instead the never-to-be-forgotten face and form of Bryant Clinton. Had she seen one of those awful figures which Miss Thusa used to describe, she would scarcely have been more appalled than by the unexpected sight of this transcendently handsome young man.

"Is terror the only emotion I can inspire--after so long an absence, too?" he asked, seizing her hand in both his, and riveting upon her his wonderfully expressive, dark blue eyes. "Forgive me if I have alarmed you, but forbidden your father's house, and knowing your presence here, I have dared to come hither that I might see you one moment before I leave these regions, perhaps forever."

"Impossible, Mr. Clinton," cried Helen, recovering, in some measure, from her consternation, though her color came and went like the beacon's revolving flame. "I cannot see you at this unseasonable hour. There is a sick, a very sick person in the nest room with whom I am watching. I cannot ask you to come in. Besides," she added, with a dignity that enchanted the bold intruder, "if I cannot see you in my father's house, it is not proper that I see you at all." She drew back quickly, uttering a hasty "Good-night," and was about to close the door, when Clinton glided in, shutting the door after him.

"You must hear me, Helen," said he, in that sweet, low voice, peculiar to himself. "Had it not been for you I should never have returned. I told you once that I loved you, but if I loved you then I must adore you now. You are ten thousand times more lovely. Helen, you do not know how charming, how beautiful you are. You do not know the enthusiastic devotion, the deathless pa.s.sion you have inspired."

"I cannot conceive of such depths of falsehood," exclaimed Helen, her timid eyes kindling with indignation; "all this have you said to Mittie, and far more, and she, mistaken girl, believes you true."

"I deceived myself, alas!" cried he, in a tone of bitter sorrow. "I thought I loved her, for I had not yet seen and known her gentler, lovelier sister. Forgive me, Helen--love is not the growth of our will.

'Tis a flower that springs spontaneously in the human heart, of celestial fragrance, and destined to immortal bloom."

"If I thought you really loved me," said Helen, in a softened tone, shrinking from the fascination of his glance, and the sorcery of his voice, "I should feel great and exceeding sorrow--for it would be in vain. But the love that I have imagined is of a very different nature.

Slowly kindled, it burns with steady and unceasing glory, unchanging as the sun, and eternal as the soul."

Helen paused with a burning flush, fearful that she had revealed the one secret of her heart so lately revealed to herself, and Clinton resumed his pa.s.sionate declarations.

"If you will not go," said she, all her terror returning at the vehemence of his suit, "if you will not go," looking wildly at the door that separated her from the sick room, "I will leave you here. You dare not follow me. The destroying angel guards this threshold."

In her excitement she knew not what she uttered. The words came unbidden from her lips. She laid her hand on the latch, but Clinton caught hold of it ere she had time to lift it.

"You shall not leave me, by heaven, you shall not, till you have answered one question. Is it for the cold, calculating Arthur Hazleton you reject such love as mine?"

Instead of uttering an indignant denial to this sudden and vehement interrogation, Helen trembled and turned pale. Her natural timidity and sensitiveness returned with overpowering influence; and added to these, a keen sense of shame at being accused of an unsolicited attachment, a charge she could not with truth repel, humbled and oppressed her.