Ernest Linwood; or, The Inner Life of the Author. Caroline Lee Hentz
pulled off the fingers by my nervous twitches.
"I thought you were going to apply the spatula. I feared you thought me guilty of writing another poem, Mr. Regulus; what else could make you look so formidable?"
"Ah! Gabriella, let bygones be bygones. I was very harsh, very disagreeable then. I wonder you have ever forgiven me; I have never forgiven myself. I know not how it is, but it seems to me that a softening change has come over me. I feel more tenderly towards the young beings committed to my care, more indulgence for the weaknesses and errors of my kind. I did not mind, then, trampling on a flower, if it sprung up in my path; now I would stoop down and inhale its fragrance, and bless my Maker for shedding beauty and sweetness to gladden my way. The perception of the beautiful grows and strengthens in me. The love of nature, a new-born flower, blooms in my heart, and diffuses a sweet balminess unknown before. Even poetry, my child—do not laugh at me—has begun to unfold its mystic beauties to my imagination. I was reading the other evening that charming paraphrase of the nineteenth Psalm: 'The spacious firmament on high,' and I was exceedingly struck with its melodious rhythm; and when I looked up afterwards to the starry heavens, to the moon walking in her brightness, to the blue and boundless ether, they seemed to bend over me in love, to come nearer than they had ever done before. I could hear the whisper of that divine voice, which is heard in the rustling of the forest trees, the gurgling of the winding stream, and the rush of the mountain cataract; and every day," he added, with solemnity, "I love man more, because God has made him my brother."
He paused, and his countenance glowed with the fervor of his feelings. With an involuntary expression of reverence and tenderness, I held out my hand and exclaimed—
"My dear master—"
"You forgive me, then," taking my hand in both his, and burying it in his large palms; "you do not think me officious and overbearing?"
"O no, sir, I have nothing to forgive, but much to be grateful for; thank you, I must go, for I have a long walk to take—alone."
With an emphasis on the last word I bade him adieu, ran down the steps, and went on musing so deeply on my singular interview with Mr. Regulus, that I attempted to walk through a tree by the way-side. A merry laugh rang close to my ear, and Richard Clyde sprang over the fence right before me.
"It should have opened and imprisoned you, as a truant dryad," said he. "Of what are you thinking, Gabriella, that you forget the impenetrability of matter, the opacity of bark and the incapability of flesh and blood to cleave asunder the ligneous fibres which oppose it, as the sonorous Johnson would have observed on a similar occasion."
"I was thinking of you, Richard," I answered with resolute frankness.
"Of me!" he exclaimed, while his eyes sparkled with animated pleasure. "Oh, walk through all the trees of Grandison Place, if you will honor me with one passing thought."
"You know you have always been like a brother to me, Richard."
"I don't know exactly how a brother feels. You have taken my fraternal regard for granted, but I am sure I have never professed any."
"Pardon me, if I have believed actions more expressive than words. I shall never commit a similar error."
With deeply wounded and indignant feelings, I walked rapidly on, without deigning to look at one so heartless and capricious. Mr. Regulus was right. He was not a proper companion. I would never allow him to walk with me again.
"Are you not familiar enough with my light, mocking way, Gabriella?" he cried, keeping pace with my accelerated steps. "Do not you know me well enough to understand when I am serious and when jesting? I have never professed fraternal regard, because I know a brother cannot feel half the—the interest for you that I do. I thought you knew it—I dare not say more—I cannot say less."
"No, no, do not say any more," said I, shrinking with indefinable dread; "I do not want any professions. I meant not to call them forth. If I alluded to you as a brother, it was because I wished to speak to you with the frankness of a sister. It is better that you should not walk with me from school—it is not proper—people will make remarks."
"Well, let them make them—who cares?"
"I care, a great deal. I will not be the subject of village gossip."
"Who put this idea in your head, Gabriella? I know it did not originate there. You are too artless, too unsuspicious. Oh! I know," he added, with a heightened color and a raised tone, "you have been kept after school; you have had a lecture on propriety; you cannot deny it."
"I neither deny nor affirm any thing. It makes no difference who suggested it. My own judgment tells me it is right."
"The old fellow is jealous," said he with a laugh of derision, "but he cannot control my movements. The road is wide enough for us both, and the world is wider still."
"How can you say any thing so absurd and ridiculous?" I exclaimed; and vexed as I was, I could not help laughing at his preposterous suggestion.
"Because I know it is the truth. But I really thought you above the fear of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of breath, a puff of empty air."
"I trust I have sufficient independence to do what is right and sufficient prudence to avoid, if possible, the imputation of wrong," I replied, with grave earnestness.
"Oh! upright judge!—oh! excellent young sage!" exclaimed Richard, with mock reverence. "Wisdom becometh thee so well, I shall be tempted to quarrel hereafter with thy smiles. But seriously, Gabriella, I crave permission to walk courteously home with you this evening, for it is the last of my vacation. To-morrow I leave you, and it will be months before we meet again."
"I might have spared you and myself this foolish scene, then," said I, deeply mortified at its result. "I have incurred your ridicule, perhaps your contempt, in vain. We might have parted friends, at least."
"No, by heavens! Gabriella, not friends; we must be something more, or less than friends. I did not think to say this now, but I can hold it back no longer. And why should I? 'All my faults perchance thou knowest.' As was the boy, as is the youth, so most likely will be the man. No! if you love me, Gabriella—if I may look forward to the day when I shall be to you friend, brother, guardian, lover, all in one—I shall have such a motive for excellence, such a spring to ambition, that I will show the world the pattern of a man, such as they never saw before."
"I wish you had not said this," I answered, averting from his bright and earnest eye my confused and troubled glance. "We should be so much happier as friends. We are so young, too. It will be time enough years hence to talk of such things."
"Too young to love! We are in the very spring-time of our life—the season of blossoms and fragrance, music and love—oh, daughter of poetry! is it you who utter such a thought? Would you wait for the sultry summer, the dry autumn, to cultivate the morning flower of Paradise?"
"I did not dream you had so much hidden romance," said I, smiling at his metaphorical language, and endeavoring to turn the conversation in a new channel. "I thought you mocked at sentiment and poetic raptures."
"Love works miracles, Gabriella. You do not answer. You evade the subject on which all my life's future depends. Is there no chord in your heart that vibrates in harmony with mine? Are there no memories associated with the oak trees of the wood, the mossy stone at the fountain, the sacred rose of the grave, propitious to my early and ever-growing love?"
He spoke with a depth of feeling of which I had never thought him possessed. Sincerity and truth dignified every look and tone. Yes! there were undying memories, now wakened in all their strength, of the youthful champion of my injured rights, the sympathizing companion of my darkest hours; the friend, who stood by me when other friends were unknown. There was many a responsive chord that thrilled at his voice, and there was another note, a sweet triumphant note never struck before. The new-born consciousness of woman's power, the joy of being beloved, the regal sense