Part 66 (1/2)
”No, no, no. If ever woman had the heart of an angel of mercy, you have one, my Perdita. It was not that you missed one atom of your wonderful care for me, but lately you have been reserved. You have denied me your hand so often to help me back to myself, or your bosom when my head ached; and the sweet words of endearment rarely come from you, except when once or twice you have thought I was sleeping.”
”You are getting so well and strong that you do not require such excessive tenderness. It was only while you were helpless as a child that I felt for you as if you were one.”
”You are but a child yourself, my poor, fragile darling; and yet, child as you are, I _do_ require your motherly care, your motherly words of love. I have had them once, and they were so heavenly sweet that I cannot do without them.”
”I will be your mother, then, until you can do without me. I shall take care of my child until he is able to take care of himself.”
”Little mother, why do you weep?”
”Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ we have talked long enough; go to sleep.”
”In yours arms, then Perdita.”
She gathers him to her heart. Recklessly she strains him close while yet she may, heedless of the lonely days when heart and soul will hunger gnawingly for this blessed moment.
And so time fares on with this Brand which has been plucked from the burning.
Little by little he takes back to him life and strength; little by little he spells out this strange, sweet, new life, and a.n.a.lyzes it, and basks in the lambent suns.h.i.+ne. Not little by little grows his love for the Perdita of his fever dreams; she has taken the tide at its lowest ebb, and it has swept her into his deep, strong heart, which nevermore can shut her out.
He watches her beaming eyes with wistful constancy; he clings to her garments; he kisses her light hands, which touch him in gentle ministrations. The hard man is conquered, and by a woman.
But when he grows fearful that, after all, she may be wearying of this toil and care for him; when, with anxious eyes, he looks into the future, and pictures life without this gentle comforter, he almost wishes that health would turn her back on him forever, so that he might ever have Perdita; and he worries himself into continual fevers, which prove a great drawback to his convalescence.
She, also, has her secret load of anxiety. A crisis is approaching which she may not longer stave off. She must make herself known anon, and finish her duty with regard to him, and go away; and oh! heaven knows how she is to turn her back upon this great pa.s.sion of her life, and him!
In her perfection of humility, she never hopes for reward for these great services of hers; she counts them but a feeble recompense for the evil she--his Marplot and ruin--has wrought him, which no recompense can atone for. She has not had the vanity to probe into his heart and weigh his grat.i.tude toward her, or to count upon it for a moment. His daily evidences of love are to her but the wayward fancy of an invalid, which time and strength will sweep away, as surely as the ripple would blot her reflection from yonder smooth lagoon.
And at last the burden grows so heavy on the heart of each, that he, the least patient, breaks silence, and recklessly put his hand to the wheel which may revolve and crush him.
”You have always put me off when I was at all inquisitive about you,” he says to her, one day; ”but since I am getting well so rapidly, I think it time that I should a.s.sume a little of the responsibility of my own affairs. I have an appallingly heavy debt of grat.i.tude to pay a kind lady, whose only name to me is Perdita, and I wish to be more particularly acquainted with my deliveress.”
”If you would only wait until you were strong enough to travel,” answers Margaret, becoming very pale, ”it would be for the best.”
”Why, where are we to travel, my Perdita?”
”You must prepare your mind for a journey, sir--a journey which will be for your good and happiness.”
”With you?”
”Without me.”
The desolate tones come quietly enough, but the invalid gives a great start, and clutches at his thin hands, and turns away his face.
Lying so still and so long that she almost thinks him sleeping, she bends timidly over him, and meets his dark eyes full of mournful tears.
”I feared it would come to this,” he says, turning almost pa.s.sionately to her; ”and yet I have foolishly and selfishly clung to the hope that you would never seek to leave me. Have I been meddling much with your family duties by this long monopoly of you?”
”I have no family duties to attend to.”
”No family ties to break, should I wish, if it were possible, for you to stay with me always?”