Part 13 (1/2)
”Walter!” repeated Madeline, ”the equal to Eugene Aram!”
”Ay, and more than equal,” said Ellinor, with spirit, and a warm and angry tone. ”And indeed, Madeline,” she continued, after a pause, ”I lose something of that respect, which, pa.s.sing a sister's love, I have always borne towards you, when I see the unthinking and lavish idolatry you manifest to one, who, but for a silver tongue and florid words, would rather want attractions than be the wonder you esteem him. Fie, Madeline! I blush for you when you speak, it is unmaidenly so to love any one!”
Madeline rose from the window, but the angry word died on her lips when she saw that Ellinor, who had worked her mind beyond her self-control, had thrown herself back on the pillow, and now sobbed aloud.
The natural temper of the elder sister had always been much more calm and even than that of the younger, who united with her vivacity something of the pa.s.sionate caprice and fitfulness of her s.e.x. And Madeline's affection for her had been tinged by that character of forbearance and soothing, which a superior nature often manifests to one more imperfect, and which in this instance did not desert her. She gently closed the window, and, gliding to the bed, threw her arms round her sister's neck, and kissed away her tears with a caressing fondness, that, if Ellinor resisted for one moment, she returned with equal tenderness the next.
”Indeed, dearest,” said Madeline, gently, ”I cannot guess how I hurt you, and still less, how Eugene has offended you?”
”He has offended me in nothing,” replied Ellinor, still weeping, ”if he has not stolen away all your affection from me. But I was a foolish girl, forgive me, as you always do; and at this time I need your kindness, for I am very--very unhappy.”
”Unhappy, dearest Nell, and why?”
Ellinor wept on without answering.
Madeline persisted in pressing for a reply; and at length her sister sobbed out:
”I know that--that--Walter only has eyes for you, and a heart for you, who neglect, who despise his love; and I--I--but no matter, he is going to leave us, and of me--poor me, he will think no more!”
Ellinor's attachment to their cousin, Madeline had long half suspected, and she had often rallied her sister upon it; indeed it might have been this suspicion which made her at the first steel her breast against Walter's evident preference to herself. But Ellinor had never till now seriously confessed how much her heart was affected; and Madeline, in the natural engrossment of her own ardent and devoted love, had not of late spared much observation to the tokens of her sister's. She was therefore dismayed, if not surprised, as she now perceived the cause of the peevishness Ellinor had just manifested, and by the nature of the love she felt herself, she judged, and perhaps somewhat overrated, the anguish that Ellinor endured.
She strove to comfort her by all the arguments which the fertile ingenuity of kindness could invent; she prophesied Walter's speedy return, with his boyish disappointment forgotten, and with eyes no longer blinded to the attractions of one sister, by a bootless fancy for another. And though Ellinor interrupted her from time to time with a.s.sertions, now of Walter's eternal constancy to his present idol; now, with yet more vehement declarations of the certainty of his finding new objects for his affections in new scenes; she yet admitted, by little and little, the persuasive power of Madeline to creep into her heart, and brighten away its griefs with hope, till at last, with the tears yet wet on her cheek, she fell asleep in her sister's arms.
And Madeline, though she would not stir from her post lest the movement should awaken her sister, was yet prevented from closing her eyes in a similar repose; ever and anon she breathlessly and gently raised herself to steal a glimpse of that solitary light afar; and ever, as she looked, the ray greeted her eyes with an unswerving and melancholy stillness, till the dawn crept greyly over the heavens, and that speck of light, holier to her than the stars, faded also with them beneath the broader l.u.s.tre of the day.
The next week was pa.s.sed in preparations for Walter's departure. At that time, and in that distant part of the country, it was greatly the fas.h.i.+on among the younger travellers to perform their excursions on horseback, and it was this method of conveyance that Walter preferred.
The best steed in the squire's stables was therefore appropriated to his service, and a strong black horse with a Roman nose and a long tail, was consigned to the mastery of Corporal Bunting. The Squire was delighted that his nephew had secured such an attendant. For the soldier, though odd and selfish, was a man of some sense and experience, and Lester thought such qualities might not be without their use to a young master, new to the common frauds and daily usages of the world he was about to enter.
As for Bunting himself, he covered his secret exultation at the prospect of change, and board-wages, with the cool semblance of a man sacrificing his wishes to his affections. He made it his peculiar study to impress upon the Squire's mind the extent of the sacrifice he was about to make.
The bit cot had been just white-washed, the pet cat just lain in; then too, who would dig, and gather seeds, in the garden, defend the plants, (plants! the Corporal could scarce count a dozen, and nine out of them were cabbages!) from the impending frosts? It was exactly, too, the time of year when the rheumatism paid flying visits to the bones and loins of the worthy Corporal; and to think of his ”galavanting about the country,” when he ought to be guarding against that sly foe the lumbago, in the fortress of his chimney corner!
To all these murmurs and insinuations the good Lester seriously inclined, not with the less sympathy, in that they invariably ended in the Corporal's slapping his manly thigh, and swearing that he loved Master Walter like gunpowder, and that were it twenty times as much, he would cheerfully do it for the sake of his handsome young honour. Ever at this peroration, the eyes of the Squire began to twinkle, and new thanks were given to the veteran for his disinterested affection, and new promises pledged him in inadequate return.
The pious Dealtry felt a little jealousy at the trust imparted to his friend. He halted, on his return from his farm, by the spruce stile which led to the demesne of the Corporal, and eyed the warrior somewhat sourly, as he now, in the cool of the evening, sate without his door, arranging his fis.h.i.+ng-tackle and flies, in various little papers, which he carefully labelled by the help of a stunted pen which had seen at least as much service as himself.
”Well, neighbour Bunting,” said the little landlord, leaning over the stile, but not pa.s.sing its boundary, ”and when do you go?--you will have wet weather of it (looking up to the skies)--you must take care of the rumatiz. At your age it's no trifle, eh--hem.”
”My age! should like to know--what mean by that! my age indeed!--augh!--bother!” grunted Bunting, looking up from his occupation. Peter chuckled inly at the Corporal's displeasure, and continued, as in an apologetic tone,
”Oh, I ax your pardon, neighbour. I don't mean to say you are too old to travel. Why there was Hal Whittol, eighty-two come next Michaelmas, took a trip to Lunnun last year--
”For young and old, the stout--the poorly,--The eye of G.o.d be on them surely.”
”Bother!” said the Corporal, turning round on his seat.
”And what do you intend doing with the brindled cat? put'un up in the saddle-bags? You won't surely have the heart to leave'un.”
”As to that,” quoth the Corporal, sighing, ”the poor dumb animal makes me sad to think on't.” And putting down his fish-hooks, he stroked the sides of an enormous cat, who now, with tail on end, and back bowed up, and uttering her lenes susurros--anglicae, purr;--rubbed herself to and fro, athwart the Corporal's legs.
”What staring there for? won't ye step in, man? Can climb the stile I suppose?--augh!”
”No thank'ye, neighbour. I do very well here, that is, if you can hear me; your deafness is not so troublesome as it was last win--”