Part 9 (1/2)
Emilia said nothing.
”Remember,” continued Kate, ”he is Hope's betrothed. Promise, promise, promise!”
Emilia looked into Kate's face and saw it flushed with a generous eagerness, that called forth an answering look in her. She tried to speak, and the words died into silence. There was a pause, while each watched the other.
When one soul is grappling with another for life, such silence may last an instant too long; and Kate soon felt her grasp slipping. Momentarily the spell relaxed. Other thoughts swelled up, and Emilia's eyes began to wander; delicious memories stole in, of walks through blossoming paths with Malbone,--of lingering steps, half-stifled words and sentences left unfinished;--then, alas! of pa.s.sionate caresses,--other blossoming paths that only showed the way to sin, but had never quite led her there, she fancied. There was so much to tell, more than could ever be explained or justified. Moment by moment, farther and farther strayed the wandering thoughts, and when the poor child looked in Kate's face again, the mist between them seemed to have grown wide and dense, as if neither eyes nor words nor hands could ever meet again. When she spoke it was to say something evasive and unimportant, and her voice was as one from the grave.
In truth, Philip had given Emilia his heart to play with at Neuchatel, that he might beguile her from an attachment they had all regretted. The device succeeded. The toy once in her hand, the pa.s.sionate girl had kept it, had clung to him with all her might; he could not shake her off. Nor was this the worst, for to his dismay he found himself responding to her love with a self-abandonment of ardor for which all former loves had been but a cool preparation. He had not intended this; it seemed hardly his fault: his intentions had been good, or at least not bad. This piquant and wonderful fruit of nature, this girlish soul, he had merely touched it and it was his. Its mere fragrance was intoxicating. Good G.o.d! what should he do with it?
No clear answer coming, he had drifted on with that terrible facility for which years of self-indulged emotion had prepared him. Each step, while it was intended to be the last, only made some other last step needful.
He had begun wrong, for he had concealed his engagement, fancying that he could secure a stronger influence over this young girl without the knowledge. He had come to her simply as a friend of her Transatlantic kindred; and she, who was always rather indifferent to them, asked no questions, nor made the discovery till too late. Then, indeed, she had burst upon him with an impetuous despair that had alarmed him.
He feared, not that she would do herself any violence, for she had a childish dread of death, but that she would show some desperate animosity toward Hope, whenever they should meet. After a long struggle, he had touched, not her sense of justice, for she had none, but her love for him; he had aroused her tenderness and her pride.
Without his actual a.s.surance, she yet believed that he would release himself in some way from his betrothal, and love only her.
Malbone had fortunately great control over Emilia when near her, and could thus keep the sight of this stormy pa.s.sion from the pure and unconscious Hope. But a new distress opened before him, from the time when he again touched Hope's hand. The close intercourse of the voyage had given him for the time almost a surfeit of the hot-house atmosphere of Emilia's love. The first contact of Hope's cool, smooth fingers, the soft light of her clear eyes, the breezy grace of her motions, the rose-odors that clung around her, brought back all his early pa.s.sion.
Apart from this voluptuousness of the heart into which he had fallen, Malbone's was a simple and unspoiled nature; he had no vices, and had always won popularity too easily to be obliged to stoop for it; so all that was n.o.blest in him paid allegiance to Hope. From the moment they again met, his wayward heart reverted to her. He had been in a dream, he said to himself; he would conquer it and be only hers; he would go away with her into the forests and green fields she loved, or he would share in the life of usefulness for which she yearned. But then, what was he to do with this little waif from the heart's tropics,--once tampered with, in an hour of mad dalliance, and now adhering in-separably to his life? Supposing him ready to separate from her, could she be detached from him?
Kate's anxieties, when she at last hinted them to Malbone, only sent him further into revery. ”How is it,” he asked himself, ”that when I only sought to love and be loved, I have thus entangled myself in the fate of others? How is one's heart to be governed? Is there any such governing?
Mlle. Clairon complained that, so soon as she became seriously attached to any one, she was sure to meet somebody else whom she liked better.
Have human hearts,” he said, ”or at least, has my heart, no more stability than this?”
It did not help the matter when Emilia went to stay awhile with Mrs.
Meredith. The event came about in this way. Hope and Kate had been to a dinner-party, and were as usual reciting their experiences to Aunt Jane.
”Was it pleasant?” said that sympathetic lady.
”It was one of those dreadfully dark dining-rooms,” said Hope, seating herself at the open window.
”Why do they make them look so like tombs?” said Kate.
”Because,” said her aunt, ”most Americans pa.s.s from them to the tomb, after eating such indigestible things. There is a wish for a gentle transition.”
”Aunt Jane,” said Hope, ”Mrs. Meredith asks to have a little visit from Emilia. Do you think she had better go?”
”Mrs. Meredith?” asked Aunt Jane. ”Is that woman alive yet?”
”Why, auntie!” said Kate. ”We were talking about her only a week ago.”
”Perhaps so,” conceded Aunt Jane, reluctantly. ”But it seems to me she has great length of days!”
”How very improperly you are talking, dear!” said Kate. ”She is not more than forty, and you are--”
”Fifty-four,” interrupted the other.
”Then she has not seen nearly so many days as you.”