The Essential Julian Hawthorne Collection. Julian Hawthorne
the last few months. Love, disappointment, a passionate nature, a sense of wrong--not least, her New-York experience--had developed, warped, and transformed her. Bressant's homage had been the first, of any value to her, which she had ever received. It had come unasked and unexpected, and had been all the more attractive, because there was something not quite regular about it. Being lost, she had felt a fierce necessity for repossessing it, under whatever form, under whatever name. To-day, it was but the turn of the conversation that had suggested the expedient of calling herself his sister.
The very beauty and purity of the fraternal relation cloaks the miserable rottenness of the imitation. So innocent does it seem, it might almost deceive the parties to the deception themselves. "I may love him, for I'm his sister!" said Cornelia; but could she in reality have become his sister, she would, beyond all else, have shrunk from it. "Nothing I do is in itself an impropriety," she could say: but her secret sense and motive were enough to make the most innocent act criminal. She closed her ears to the inner voice, and her eyes, looking at her conduct only through the crimson glass of her desire, pronounced it good.
She walked swiftly, immersed in thought, along the October road, beneath the splendid canopy, and over the gorgeous strewn carpet, of the dying trees. She was going to call on Abbie, it having occurred to her that perhaps the kind of information she wanted concerning Bressant might be forthcoming there. Presently, the rapid rise in the road at the end of the level stretch checked the current of her ideas, and threw them into confusion. Out of the confusion rose unexpectedly one.
Cornelia stopped in her walk, with one foot advanced, her head thrown up, her finger on her chin. She looked like a glorious young sibyl, reading a divine prophecy upon the clouds. After a moment, she waved her autumn banner over her head, with a gesture of triumph, and, turning on her heel, began to walk back toward home.
The grandest discoveries are so simple! Cornelia laughed to think how blind she had been--how stupid! What a sense of power and independence was hers now! To turn homeward had been instinctive. So strong was the sense of an end gained--a point settled--that, whatever may have been the actual errand on which she had started, she felt that her work, for that day, at least, was done.
She had been planning, and speculating, and worrying, to discover a safe and sure method of separating Bressant and her sister. Peering into the past for materials, and searching on one side or another for sources of information, she had overlooked all that was best and nearest at hand. What need for her to scrape together a reluctant tale of what had been? for was not the future her own? Why rely for assistance upon this or that suspicious and unsatisfactory witness? What more trustworthy one could she find than herself? Suppose Bressant never to have done any thing that could make him unworthy of Sophie, was that a bar against his doing something in the future?
Yes; she had power over him, and would use it. She herself would be the means and the cause for attaining the end at which she aimed. She would be the accomplice of his indiscretion, and thus obtain over him a double advantage. No matter how intrinsically trifling the indiscretion might be, it would be just such a one as would be sure to weigh heavily in the balance of Sophie's pure judgment. So plain would this be to Bressant himself, that Cornelia would be able to rule him (as she argued) merely with the threat of accusation. And, since his desertion of Sophie would appear to her causeless, the indignation she would feel thereat would save her from repining. Cornelia would have him all to herself!
Well! and what would she do with him when she had him? She did not stop to consider. Nor, going on thus from step to step, did she have a sense of the hideousness of the wrong she contemplated.
CHAPTER XXV.
ANOTHER INTERMISSION.
It was something of a surprise to Bressant, after his interview with Cornelia, that she still continued to avoid him. But, after what she had said to him, to set his mind at rest regarding the spirit and manner of their intercourse, she felt an intuition that it would be as well he should believe that she herself was not over-anxious to be on any terms with him whatever.
Still, he often saw her, and always carried away a charming impression of what he saw. Once, she had mounted a chair in the library, and was in the act of reaching down a book from a high shelf, when he entered unexpectedly. She turned, caught his eye, and dimpled into a mischievous smile. All day he could not drive the picture out of his head--the bounteous, graceful form, the heavy, dark, lustreless hair, the fascinating face, and the smile. He had but just left Sophie, yet the fine chords she had struck in him were drowned in Cornelia's sensuous melody.
Again, one day, coming into the house, he chanced to enter the parlor, and there sat Cornelia, in an easy-chair, her feet stretched out upon a stool, fast asleep. He came close up to her, and stood looking. What artist could ever have hoped to reproduce the warmth, glow, and richness of color and outline? He watched her, feeling it to be a stolen pleasure, yet a nameless something, surging up within him, compelled him to remain. In another moment--who can calculate a man's strength and weakness?--he might have stooped to kiss her, with no brother's kiss! But, in that moment, she awoke, and perhaps surprised his half-formed purpose in his eyes.
She was too clear-headed to regret having awaked, for she saw that he regretted it. And, because he did not venture, she being awake, to take the kiss, she knew he was no brother, and knew not what it was to be one. So she put on a look of annoyance, and told him petulantly to go about his business. Off he went, and passed his hour with Sophie, who was as lovely, as fresh, and as purely transparent as ever. But some turbid element had been stirred in Bressant's depths, which spoiled his enjoyment for that day, making him moody and silent.
Such little incidents--there were many of them--were far too simple and natural to be the work of deliberation and forethought. But Cornelia was disposed to use them, when they did occur, to her best possible advantage, and therefore they acquired potency to affect Bressant. She wished that to be, which he had not stamina enough to oppose: thus a subtle bond was established between them, lending a significance to the most ordinary actions, such as could never have been recognized between indifferent persons.
This was all progress for Cornelia, and she well knew it, and yet she was not at ease nor satisfied. She began to find out that it was no such light matter to usurp the place of such a woman as Sophie, though the latter was laboring under the great disadvantage of being ignorant of the plot against her. In most cases, indeed, the attempt would have been wellnigh hopeless, but Cornelia had two exceptionally powerful allies--her own supreme beauty, and Bressant's untrained and ill-regulated animal nature, which he had not yet learned to understand and provide against. And there was another thing in her favor, too, although she knew it not--the demoralizing effect upon the young man's character--of his failure to fulfil his agreement with the professor. The evils that are in us link themselves together to drag us down, their essential quality being identical, whatever their particular application.
Nevertheless, time went on, and November had stalked shivering away before the frosty breath of December, and still Cornelia had accomplished nothing definite; nay, she scarcely felt sufficiently sure of her footing to attempt any thing. And what was it that she was to attempt? On looking this question in the face, at close quarters--it wanted less than four weeks now of that wedding-day which Cornelia had promised herself should see no wedding!--when she found herself pressed so peremptorily as this for an answer, it might be imagined that she turned pale at what was before her. And, indeed, the prospect, viewed in its best light, was discouraging and desperate enough. For at what price to herself must success be bought, and at what sacrifice be enjoyed? She must either lose, or deserve to lose, all that a woman ought to hold most sacred and most dear--home, the esteem and love of friends, the protection of truth, and, above all, and worst of all, her own self-respect. All these in exchange for a baffled, angry, selfish man, at whose mercy she would be, with only one word to speak in self-defense and justification; and it was much to be feared that he would, considering the circumstances, reject and scoff at even that. The one word was--she loved him! and, if there be any redeeming virtue in it, let her, in Heaven's name, have the benefit thereof. She can rely on nothing else.
But Cornelia would not be disheartened. If she saw the