Part 41 (1/2)
Far as the eye can reach they spread, and, as the light and wanton wind stoops to caress them, shake their tiny bells with a coquettish grace, and fling forth perfume to him with a lavish will.
The solemn trees, that ”seem to hold mystical converse with each other,” look down upon the tranquil scene that, season after season, changes, fades away, and dies, only to return again, fairer and fresher than of yore. The fir-trees tower upwards, and gleam green-black against the sky. Upon some topmost boughs the birds are chanting a paean of their own; while through this ”wilderness of sweets”--far down between its deep banks (that are rich with trailing ivy and drooping bracken)--runs a stream, a slow, delicious, lazy stream, that glides now over its moss-grown stones, and anon flashes through some narrow ravine dark and profound. As it runs it babbles fond love-songs to the pixies that, perchance, are peeping out at it, through their yellow tresses, from shady curves and sun-kissed corners.
It is one of May's divinest efforts,--a day to make one glad and feel that it is well to be alive. Yet Brans...o...b.., walking through this fairy glen, though conscious of its beauty, is conscious, too, that in his heart he knows a want not to be satisfied until Fate shall again bring him face to face with the girl with whom he had parted so unamicably the night before.
Had she really meant him not to call to-day? Will she receive him coldly? Is it even possible to find her in such an absurd place as this, where positively everything seems mixed up together in such a hopeless fas.h.i.+on that one can't see farther than one's nose? Perhaps, after all, she is not here, has returned to the house, and is now----
Suddenly, across the bluebells, there comes to him a fresh sweet voice, that thrills him to his very heart. It is hers; and there, in the distance, he can see her, just where the sunlight falls athwart the swaying ferns.
She is sitting down, and is leaning forward, having taken her knees well into her embrace. Her broad hat is tilted backward, so that the sunny straggling hair upon her forehead can be plainly seen. Her gown is snow-white, with just a touch of black at the throat and wrists; a pretty frill of soft babyish lace caresses her throat.
Clear and happy, as though it were a free bird's her voice rises on the wind and reaches Brans...o...b.., and moves him as no other voice ever had--or will ever again have--power to move him.
”There has fallen a splendid tear From the pa.s.sion-flower at the gate; She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate.”
The kind wind brings the tender pa.s.sionate love-song to him, and repeats it in his ear as it hurries onward: ”My dove, my dear.” How exactly the words suit her! he says them over and over again to himself, almost losing the rest of the music which she is still breathing forth to the evening air.
”My life! my fate!” Is she his life,--his fate? The idea makes him tremble. Has he set his whole heart upon a woman who perhaps can never give him hers in return? The depth, the intensity of the pa.s.sion with which he repeats the words of her song astonishes and perplexes him vaguely. Is she indeed his fate?
He is quite close to her now; and she, turning round to him her lovely flower-like face, starts perceptibly, and, springing to her feet, confronts him with a little frown, and a sudden deepening of color that spreads from chin to brow.
At this moment he knows the whole truth. Never has she appeared so desirable in his eyes. Life with her means happiness more than falls to the lot of most; life without her, an interminable blank.
”Love lights upon the hearts, and straight we feel More worlds of wealth gleam in an upturned eye Than in the rich heart or the miser sea.”
”I thought I told you not to come,” says Miss Broughton, still frowning.
”I am sure you did not,” contradicts he, eagerly; ”you said, rather unkindly, I must confess,--but still you said it,--'Catch me if you can.' That was a command. I have obeyed it. And I have caught you.”
”You knew I was not speaking literally,” says Miss Broughton, with some wrath. ”The idea of your supposing I really meant you to catch me! You couldn't have thought it.”
”Well, what was I to think? You certainly said it. So I came. I believed”--humbly--”it was the best thing to do.”
”Yes; and you found me sitting--as--I was, and singing at the top of my voice. How I dislike people”--says Miss Broughton, with fine disgust--”who steal upon other people unawares!”
”I didn't steal; I regularly trampled”--protests Brans...o...b.., justly indignant--”right over the moss and ferns and the other things, as hard as ever I could. If bluebells won't crackle like dead leaves it isn't my fault, is it? _I_ hadn't the ordering of them!”
”Oh, yes, it is, every bit your fault,” persists she, wilfully, biting, with enchanting grace largely tinctured with viciousness, the blade of gra.s.s she is holding.
Silence, of the most eloquent, that lasts for a full minute, even until the unoffending gra.s.s is utterly consumed.
”Perhaps you would rather I went away,” says Mr. Brans...o...b.., stiffly, seeing she will not speak. He is staring at her, and is apparently hopelessly affronted.
”Well, perhaps I would,” returns she, coolly, without condescending to look at him.
”Good-by,”--icily.
”Good-by,”--in precisely the same tone, and without changing her position half an inch.
Brans...o...b.. turns away with a precipitancy that plainly betokens hot haste to be gone. He walks quickly in the home direction, and gets as far as the curve in the glen without once looking back. So far the hot haste lasts, and is highly successful; then it grows cooler; the first deadly heat dies away, and, as it goes, his steps grow slower and still slower. A severe struggle with pride ensues, in which pride goes to the wall, and then he comes to a standstill.