The Essential Julian Hawthorne Collection. Julian Hawthorne
flesh of the neck and bosom. The dream of a perfume hovered about her, and touched the air as she moved. Her wide sleeve fell open, as she raised her arm, disclosing the white curves, which were remarkably full and firm for one of her age.
She gave a little laugh as she stood there that made the ear-rings quiver, and parted her lips enough to show that her small white teeth were set edge to edge.
"It can't do any harm," was passing through her mind. "If I'm to be his sister, he ought to like me. It's no use making him detest me. If he loves Sophie so much, what harm can it do for him to be pleased with my beauty? Besides, haven't I a right to my own good looks?"
She kissed her fingers to her reflection, and made a deep courtesy. As she did so, she caught sight of the little petal-less rose-stalk which had fallen out of her traveling-dress on to the floor. She picked it up, and, after turning it idly in her fingers for a moment, she yielded to a sudden fancy, and fastened it into the bosom of her dress; so that this symbol of a body from which the soul had departed formed the central and crowning ornament of the voluptuous and lovely woman.
"There!" ejaculated she, with a smile which did not part her lips, but seemed to draw her dark eyebrows a little closer together.
"Strange I'm so quiet!" she mused, as she walked slowly to the door. "What an ordeal I have to go through! I must sit down with Sophie, and papa, and--him: listen to all the particulars, ask all the proper and necessary questions, smile and laugh; and it would be well, I suppose, to rally the lovers archly on the ardor of their affection, and the suddenness of the consummation. Better still, I can laughingly allude to my own prior claim--suggest that I feel hurt at being distanced and left out in the cold by that demure little younger sister of mine! Oh, yes!" exclaimed Cornelia, clapping her hands together, "that will cap the climax; what fun!"
Here the tea-bell rang. Cornelia put her hand on the door-handle.
"Of course, nobody could help loving Sophie--such a dear, simple, good little thing! and why not he as well as any one else? and, of course, in that case, Sophie must think that she loved him back--thought it her duty, too, perhaps! Nobody was to blame."
"But he was mine first!" she whispered to her heart, again and again, and she found a disastrous solace in each repetition. She flung open the door, and ran down-stairs with a light step, a smiling face, and a fierce, tight heart.
CHAPTER XXII.
LOCKED UP.
Bressant's health was now sufficiently established to warrant his moving back to Abbie's. Not that he was particularly anxious to go, but he had no pretext for staying, and his engagement to Sophie was a reason in etiquette why he should not. Accordingly, about a week after Cornelia's arrival, such of his books and other property as had been sent to him from the boarding-house were packed in a box, which was hoisted in to the back of the wagon; he and Professor Valeyon mounted the seat, and, with Dolly between the shafts, they set out for the village.
"I suppose you remember a talk I had with you the first evening you came here?" said the old gentleman, as they turned the corner in the road. "Told you it would be work enough for a churchful of missionaries to make any thing out of you, in the way of a minister, and so on?"
"Very well; I remember the whole conversation," said Bressant, pushing up his beard into his mouth and biting it.
"Thanks to God--I can't take any credit to myself--you've been more changed than I ever expected to see you. You've found your heart and how to use it. That goes further toward fitting you for the ministry than all the divinity-books ever printed."
Bressant's hankering after the ministerial life was not so strong as it once had been; but he said nothing.
"You'll need means of support when you're married," resumed the professor. "A few months' hard study will qualify you to take charge of a parish. The next parish to this will be vacant before next spring. If I apply for it now, I may be able to give it you, with your wife, as a New-Year's gift."
"I thought of getting a place in New York. What could I do in a country parish?"
"Expensive, living in New York!" said the professor, with a glance of quiet scrutiny at his companion's profile. "Marriage won't be a good pecuniary investment for you, remember. Better begin safe. The village salary will be good enough."
Bressant communed with himself in silence a few moments, before replying:
"As my father's will stands, Mrs. Vanderplanck--I believe he owed some obligation or other to her--receives half the fortune, and I the other half. Are you certain that my marriage, and the disclosure it would bring about, will forfeit the whole of it?"
Professor Valeyon touched Dolly with the whip, and turned inward his white-bearded lips.
"All I can tell you about it," said he, "is this: when your mother married your father, all her property was settled upon her; so that it was only the event of her death, intestate, that could have given your father the right to will it away at all."
At this information, Bressant folded his arms, and, looking steadfastly before him, said not a word. A silence followed between the two, which lasted over half a mile. Dolly seemed to be in a meditative humor, likewise; she whisked her tail with an absorbed air, and once in a while shook her ears, or wagged her head, as though accepting or rejecting some hypothesis or proposition. Most likely, her problems found their solution in the manger that afternoon; but those of the professor and his companion received neither so early nor so satisfactory a settlement.
When they had entered upon the willow-stretch, where the trees had already scattered upon the ground their first tribute of narrow golden leaves, the younger man came to the end of his meditations, straightened himself in his seat, and spoke:
"Let it be as you said about the country parish; if you can get it for me, I'll be ready for it."
Professor Valeyon's face, which had been somewhat overcast, cleared beautifully; he appealed to Dolly's sympathies with a flick of the whip, to which she responded with a knowing shake of the head, and a refreshing increase of speed.
"That's well, my dear boy," said he. "I respect you."
"I'm not the only one concerned," continued Bressant, who still sat in the same position, with folded arms; "it involves about as much for Mrs. Vanderplanck as for me. I shall have to consider that point, and attend to it first of all."
"To tell you the truth," returned Professor Valeyon, with an emphatic deliberation of manner, "I don't think you can give her any information that she's not possessed of already. She knows as much as you do, that's certain. You'll do well to begin business nearer home than at Mrs. Vanderplanck's."
Bressant lifted one hand to his beard, which he twisted about unmercifully. "It's only since Cornelia came back that you have thought that," he said, at length, with sudden keenness.
The old gentleman nodded, and met steadily the rapid glance which the other gave him.
"At all events," the latter resumed presently, "she don't know that I know, and she don't know what I intend. It's not a pleasant business, altogether--understand? You know how I've been brought up. It isn't so easy for me to fall into the right sentiments as it might be for other men. And--I feel it to be a private matter; I ought to go about it alone, and in my own way. Now"--here he turned around, and changed his tone, watching the professor's countenance as he spoke, "are you willing to leave it entirely in my hands?--promise not to question me, nor to speak to me, nor to anybody else, until it's all settled?"
"More than willing, my dear boy! more than satisfied; you shall have a clear field, that's certain. I sha'n't do any thing--sha'n't say a word, meanwhile; shall wait with perfect confidence till you're ready to report, whenever and however you please."
"I should like to make you a present on my wedding-day, in return for the parish, you know. Will that be