Part 17 (1/2)
Then Eve told the story of her heart. She described her lover as he appeared to her in the early days of courts.h.i.+p, young, handsome, good, n.o.ble in sentiment, and warm and tender in manner. Halcyon days--not a speck to be seen on love's horizon.
Then she delineated the fine gradations by which the illusion faded, too slowly and too late for her to withdraw the love she had conceived for his person at that time when person and mind seemed alike superior. She painted with the delicate touch of her s.e.x the portrait of a man and a scholar born to please all the world, and incapable of condensing his affections; a pious flirt, no longer stimulated to genuine ardor by doubts of success, but too kind-hearted to pain her beyond measure when a little fact.i.tious warmth from time to time would give her hours of happiness, keep her, on the whole, content, and, above all, retain her his. Then she s.h.i.+fted the mirror to herself, the fiery and faithful one, and showed David what centuries of torture a good little creature like this d.y.k.e, with its charming exterior, could make a quick, and ardent, and devoted nature suffer in a year or two.
Came out in her narrative, link by link, the gentle delicious complacency of the first period, the chill airs that soon ruffled it, the glowing hopes, the misgivings that dashed them; then the diminution of confidence, more complexing and exasperating than its utter loss; the alternations of joy and doubt, the fever and the ague of the wounded spirit; then the gusts of hatred followed by deeper love; later still, the periodical irritation at hopes long deferred, and still gleams of bliss between the paroxysms, so that now, as the vulgar say in their tremendous Saxon, she ”spent her time between heaven and h.e.l.l”; last of all, the sickness and recklessness of the wornout and wearied heart over which melancholy or fury impended.
It was at this crisis when, as she could now see on a calm retrospect, her mind was distempered, a new and terrible pa.s.sion stepped upon the scene--jealousy. A friend came and whispered her, ”Mr. d.y.k.e was courting another woman at the same time, and that other woman was rich.”
”David, at that word a flash of lightning seemed to go through me, and show me the man as he really was.”
”The mean scoundrel, to sell himself for money!!”
”No, David, he would not have sold himself, with his eyes open, any more than perhaps your Miss Fountain would; but what little heart he had he could give to any girl that was not a fright. He was a self-deceiver and a general lover, and such characters and their affections sink by nature to where their interest lies. Iron is not conscious, yet it creeps toward the loadstone. Well, while she was with me I held up and managed to question her as coldly as I speak to you now, but as soon as she left me I went off in violent hysterics.”
”Poor Eve!”
”She had not been gone an hour when doesn't the Devil put it into _his_ head to send me a long, affectionate letter, and in the postscript he invited himself to supper the same afternoon. Then I got up and dried my eyes, and I seemed to turn into stone with resolution.
'Come!' I said, 'but don't think you shall ever go back to her. Your troubles and mine shall end to-night.'”
”Why, Eve, you turn pale with thinking of it. I fear you have had worse thoughts pa.s.s through your mind than any man is worth.”
”David, your blood was in my veins, and mine is in yours.
”If I didn't think so! The Lord deliver us from temptation! We don't know ourselves nor those we love.”
”He had driven me mad.”
”Mad, indeed. What! had you the heart to see the man bleed to death--the man you had loved--you, my little gentle Eve?”
”Oh no, no; no blood!” said Eve, with a shudder. ”Laudanum!”
”Good G.o.d!”
”Oh, I see your thought. No, I was not like the men in the newspapers, that kill the poor woman with a sure hand, and then give themselves a scratch. It was to be one spoonful for him, but two for me. I can't dwell on it” (and she hid her face in her hands); ”it is too terrible to remember how far I was misled. Who, think you, saved us both?”
David could not guess.
”A little angel--my good angel, that came home from sea that very afternoon. When I saw your curly head, and your sweet, sunburned face come in at the door, guess if I thought of putting death in the pot after that? Ah! the love of our own flesh and blood, that is the love--G.o.d and good angels can smile on it.”
”Yes; but go on,” said David, impatiently.
”It is ended, David. They say a woman's heart is a riddle, and perhaps you will think so when I tell you that when he had brought me down to this, and hadn't died for it, I turned as cold as ice to him that minute, once and forever. I looked back at the precipice, and I hated him. Ay, from that evening he was like the black dog to my eye. I used to slip anywhere to hide out of his way--just as you did out of mine but now.”
”Can't you forget that? Well, to be sure. Well?”
”So then (now you may learn what these skim-milk cheeses are made of), when he found he was my aversion, he fell in love with me again as hot as ever; tried all he could think of to win me back; wrote a letter every day; came to me every other day; and when he saw it was all over for good between us he cried and bellowed till my hate all went, and scorn came in its place. Next time we met he played quite another part--the calm, heart-broken Christian; gave me his blessing; went down on his knees, and prayed a beautiful prayer, that took me off my guard and made me almost respect him; then went away, and quietly married the girl with money; and six months after wrote to me he was miserable, dated from the vicarage her parents had got him.”
”Now, you know, if he wasn't a parson, d--n me if I'd turn in to-night till I'd rope's-ended that lubber!”
”As if I'd let you dirty your hands with such rubbis.h.!.+ I sent the note back to him with just one line, 'Such a fool as you are has no right to be a villain.' There, David, there is your poor sister's life. Oh, what I went through for that man! Often I said, is Heaven just, to let a poor, faithful, loving girl, who has done no harm, be played with on the hook, and tortured hot and cold, day after day, month after month, year after year, as I was? But now I see why it was permitted; it was for your sake, that you might profit by my sharp experience, and not fling your heart away on frozen mud, as I did;” and, happy in this feminine theory of Divine justice, Eve rested on her brother a look that would have adorned a seraph, then took him gently round the neck and laid her little cheek flat to his.
She felt as if she had just saved a beloved life.