Mark Hurdlestone Part 18

This unexpected though oft-repeated insult was too much for Anthony to bear at such a moment, and in the presence of the woman he loved. The proud flash of his dark eye told how deeply his gentle nature was moved.

His indignation did not escape the watchful eye of Juliet; but he mastered his pa.s.sion, and answered his cousin in a calm low voice.

"G.o.dfrey, I understand you. You need say no more on that subject. You know how painfully alive I am to the obligations I owe to my uncle, and it is ungenerous to take such an opportunity of reminding me of them.

The debt, I hope, will one day be repaid."

He rose to take leave. A pleading look from Juliet made him abandon his intention. "Sit down," said Juliet, in a persuasive voice, "I am sure your cousin meant no offence. Delicacy of mind," she added, in a very low tone, meant only for his ear, "is not always an inherent quality; we should pity and forgive those who are dest.i.tute of it."

"I will do any thing to please you," returned Anthony; and G.o.dfrey, pale with disappointed malice, saw him resume his seat.

"I have provided a little treat of strawberries and cream," continued Juliet; "they are the first of the season, and were presented to me this morning by that strangely-interesting girl, Mary Mathews. How I regret that her father's injudicious method of bringing her up should so completely have spoiled a girl whom Nature formed to be an ornament to her humble station."

"Mary is a beautiful girl," said Anthony, "and has a mind of no ordinary cast. Her failings are the result of the peculiar circ.u.mstances in which she has been placed. With such a kind monitress as Miss Whitmore to counsel her, I feel a.s.sured that she might soon be persuaded to forsake her masculine employments, and feel a relish for more feminine pursuits."

He spoke with much earnestness, until perceiving that Juliet regarded him with a peculiarly searching glance, he colored, hesitated, became embarra.s.sed, and, finally, stopped speaking.

"When I first saw Mary Mathews, some months ago," said Juliet, "she was very pretty, and as blithe as a bird; I used to envy the exuberance of her animal spirits, whenever I pa.s.sed her little garden, and heard her singing. For the last few weeks, a melancholy change has taken place in the poor girl's appearance, which gives me pain to witness. Her cheek has lost its bloom; her step its elasticity; her dress is neglected; and the garden in which she worked and sang so merrily, and in which she took so much delight, is overrun with weeds. Her whole appearance indicates the most poignant grief. When I questioned her to-day upon the subject, she answered me with a burst of tears--tears, which seem so unnatural for one of her disposition to shed. Perhaps, Mr. Anthony," she continued, with an air of increasing interest, "you can tell me something of the history of this young girl--as she is one of your uncle's tenants--which may lead me to discover the cause of her grief?"

Before Anthony could reply to this somewhat embarra.s.sing question, he was called upon by his uncle, who was playing chess with the old Captain, to decide some important problem in the game; and G.o.dfrey, who had been a painfully observant listener to their conversation, glided into his vacant seat.

"I wish, Miss Whitmore, that I could satisfactorily answer all your generous inquiries with regard to Mary Mathews. But I know and hear so little of the gossip of the village, and with the poor girl's private history I am totally unacquainted--nay, the girl herself is to me a perfect stranger. No person is better able to give you the information you require than my cousin Anthony; he knows Mary well. In spite of my father's prohibitions, she was always a chosen playfellow of his. He professes a great admiration for this beautiful peasant, and takes a deep interest in all that concerns her."

Why did Juliet's cheek at that moment grow so very pale? Why did she sigh so deeply, and suddenly drop a conversation which she had commenced with such an apparent concern for the person who had formed the subject of it? Love may have its joys, but oh, how painfully are they contrasted with its doubts and fears! She had suffered the serpent of jealousy to coil around her heart, and for the first time felt its envenomed sting.

When Anthony returned to his seat he found his fair companion unusually cold and reserved. A few minutes after, she complained of sudden indisposition, and left the room, and she did not return that evening.

That night, Juliet wept herself to sleep. "Is it not evident," she said to herself, "that this poor Mary is in love with Anthony Hurdlestone, and can I be base enough to add another pang to a heart already deeply wounded, by endeavoring to gain his affections? No. I will from this hour banish him from my thoughts, and never make him the subject of these waking dreams again."

But alas! for good resolutions. She found the task more difficult than she had imagined. She could not obliterate the image stamped by the power of love upon her heart. Like the lion, she struggled in the net, without the aid of the friendly mouse to set her free. She wished that she had never seen him--had never heard the rich tones of his mellow voice, or suffered the glance of his dark serious eyes to penetrate to her soul. Ah! Juliet, well mayest thou toss to and fro in thy troubled slumbers; thy lover is more miserable than thou, for he _cannot sleep_.

Indignant at the insult he had received in so unprovoked a manner from his ungenerous cousin, and at war with himself, Anthony Hurdlestone paced his chamber during the greater part of the night--striking his breast against the fetters that bound him, and striving in vain to be free. The very idea, that he was the son of the miser--that he must blush for his father whenever his name was mentioned, was not the least of his annoyances.

Was it possible that a girl of Juliet Whitmore's poetic temperament could love the son of such a man? and as he pressed his hands against his aching brow, and asked himself the question, he wished that he had been the son of the poorest peasant upon the rich man's vast estates.

Anthony did not appear at the breakfast-table, and when he did leave his chamber and joined the family party at dinner, he met G.o.dfrey, who had just returned from Captain Whitmore's, his handsome countenance glowing with health and pleasure.

"Why, G.o.dfrey, my boy!" cried the Colonel, regarding him with parental pride, "What have you been doing with yourself all the morning?"

"Gardening with the jolly old tar, Captain Whitmore; quizzing the old witch, his sister; and making love to his charming daughter. Upon my word, sir, she is a delightful creature, and sings and plays divinely!

Her personal charms I might have withstood, but her voice has taken me by surprise. You know that I was always a worshipper of sweet sounds; and this little girl kept her divine gift so entirely to herself, that it was by mere chance that I found out that she could sing. She was a little annoyed too by the discovery. I came in upon her unawares, and surprised her in the very act. She gave herself no affected airs, but when I requested it, not only concluded the song she was singing, but sang many others, in which I was able to accompany her. The old Captain has insisted upon my bringing my flute over, that I may accompany his Juliet upon the piano. He could not have done me a greater kindness, and I have no doubt that we shall get on delightfully together."

"This is hardly right, G.o.dfrey," said his father, "you promised Anthony to start fair in attempting to win the good opinion of Miss Whitmore, and now you are trying to throw him altogether into the back-ground."

"Ah, my dear sir, that was all very well in theory, but I found myself unable to reduce it to practice. I tell you, Anthony, that I am over head and ears in love with Miss Whitmore, and if you wish to die a natural death, you must not attempt to rival me with the lady."

"And poor Mary--what will become of her?"

G.o.dfrey flashed an angry glance at his cousin.

"How can you name that _peasant_ in the same breath with Miss Whitmore?"

"A few days ago, G.o.dfrey, you preferred the simple graces of the country girl to the refined lady."

"My taste is improving, you see," said G.o.dfrey, filling his gla.s.s to the brim. "And here--in the sparkling juice of the grape, let all remembrance of my boyish love be drowned."

Anthony sighed, and sank into a fit of abstraction, while Colonel Hurdlestone joined his son in a b.u.mper to the health of the lady.

In spite of G.o.dfrey's avowal, Anthony could not bring himself to regard Juliet Whitmore with indifference; nor did he consider it any breach of honor endeavoring to make himself agreeable in her eyes. His attentions, though less marked than his cousin's, were of a more delicate and tender nature, appealing less to female vanity, and more directly to her heart and understanding; and there were moments when the young lover fancied that he was not an object of indifference. The more he saw of the enthusiastic girl, with all her romantic propensities, the more strongly he became attached to her. Her sins of authorship were undictated by ambition or the mere love of fame; but were the joyous outpourings of an artless mind delighted in having discovered a method of conveying her thoughts to paper, and retaining in a tangible form those delightful visions that so often engrossed her fancy.

She laid no claim to the t.i.tle of a _Blue_--she had not the most remote idea of being considered a literary lady. She sang as the birds do in the bushes, for the mere pleasure of singing, and she was perfectly unconscious that others listened and admired her songs.

Independent of her love of music and poetry, she had many valuable mental and moral qualities. Not among the least of these was a deep sympathy in the wants and sufferings of the poor, which she always endeavored to alleviate to the utmost of her power. The selfish fear of infection never deterred her from visiting the abodes of her poor neighbors--administering to their comfort when sick, and not unfrequently watching beside the pillow of the dying. In the performance of these acts of charity, she was greatly encouraged and a.s.sisted by her worthy father.

When aunt Dorothy, in her cold egotism, raved about her niece endangering her life, and the lives of those around her, by going to infected houses, the Captain's general answer was--"Let the child alone, Dorothy; a good angel watches over her--G.o.d will take care of his own."

"So you said of her mother, Captain Whitmore, yet she lost her life by obstinately persisting in what she was pleased to call _her duty_."

"If the good ship sunk while endeavoring to save the drowning crew of another," said the poor Captain, wiping the dew from his spectacles, "she went down in a good cause, and a blessing has descended from above upon her child."

One day, when Anthony had been remonstrating with Juliet for incurring so much danger while visiting the poor during a period of epidemic sickness, she replied, with her usual frankness,

"This from you, Mr. Anthony, who have devoted yourself to be an instructor of the poor, a friend of the friendless, a minister of Christ!--how can I better employ my time than in striving to alleviate the sorrows that I cannot cure? To tell you the truth, I cannot yield more to pleasure without spoiling my heart. It is not that I am averse to innocent amus.e.m.e.nts, for no person enjoys them more. But were I constantly to gratify my own selfish inclinations, I should soon lose my peace of mind, that dew of the soul, which is so soon absorbed in the heated atmosphere of the world."

"If such devotion is what the worldly term enthusiasm, may its blessed inspiration ever continue to influence your actions!"

"Enthusiasm!" repeated the girl. "Oh that I could convey to you in words what I feel to be the true definition of that much abused term.

Enthusiasm is the eternal struggling of our immortal against our mortal nature, which expands the wings of the soul towards its native heaven.

Enthusiasm! Can anything great or good be achieved without it? Can a man become a poet, painter, orator, patriot, warrior, or lover, without enthusiasm? Can he become a Christian without it? In man's struggles to obtain fame, enthusiasm is a virtue. In a holy cause it is termed madness. Oh, thou divine Author of the human soul, evermore grant me the inspiration of this immortal spirit!"

They were standing together in the balcony. The beams of the summer moon rested upon the upturned brow of the young enthusiast, and filled her eyes with a holy fire, and the words of love that had trembled upon Anthony's lips were dismissed from his thoughts as light and vain. She looked too pure to address to her, at such a moment, the wild outpourings of human pa.s.sion.

G.o.dfrey's flute sounded beneath the balcony. He played one of Juliet's favorite songs. She turned to her lover and said, with a lively air, "Is not the musician an enthusiast--is not the language in which he breathes his soul the poetry of sound?"

"Then what is love?" and Anthony tried to detain the small, white hand she had placed upon his arm.

"I dare not attempt to a.n.a.lyse it;" and Juliet blushed deeply as she spoke. "Beautiful when worshipped at a distance, it becomes too much the necessity of our nature when brought too near. Oh, if it would never bend its wings to earth, and ever speak in the language of music and poetry, this world would be too dark for so heavenly a visitant, and we should long for death to unclose the portals of the skies."

"Still, dearest Juliet, much quiet happiness may be realized on earth."

"But think of its duration--how short--what sorrows are crowded into the shortest life! To love, and to lose the beloved--how dreadful! My mother--my angel mother--at her death, my heart became a funeral urn, in which all sad and holy memories were enshrined. Oh, 'tis a fearful thing to love and lose! Better far to keep the heart fancy-free, than to find it the grave of hope."

"And will you never consent to love, Juliet?"

"Can you teach me how to resist its power?" said Juliet, with simplicity. "We love against our own will; we call reason to our aid, and reason laughs at us. We strive to forget; but memory, like hope, though it cheats us, will not in turn be cheated; one holds the keys of the future, the other unlocks the treasures of the past. When we cease to hope, memory may cease to recall what were once the offsprings of hope. Both accompany us through life, and will, I believe, survive the grave."

"And will you allow me, Juliet, to entertain the blessed hope--?"

At this moment the lovers were interrupted by the eternal old pest, as G.o.dfrey very unceremoniously called Miss Dorothy.

"Really, Miss Whitmore, I wonder at your standing out here, in the damp night air, without your shawl and bonnet, and the dew falling so fast. I wish you would learn a little more prudence; it would save me a great deal of trouble."

"Alas," whispered Juliet, as Anthony led her back into the drawing-room, "how quickly the vulgarity of common-place banishes the beauty of the ideal!"