Page images
PDF
EPUB

WARD OR WIFE?

Romance

'O shallow and mean heart of man! dost thou conceive so little of love as not to know that it sacrifices all-love itself-for the happiness of the thing it loves?' -Zanoni.

[ocr errors][merged small]

Ан me! how often, when we have climbed our mountain, when we have splashed through the mire and morass, trudged along the flinty path, crawled over all those fearsome crags, when, weary and footsore, we have gained the summit, and the fair prospect lies in its glory before our joyous eyes,—how often has the drizzling mist swept up, and left us to our disappointment, embittered by that fleeting glimpse of beauty, embittered by our short-lived rapture!

Ah me! how often have we leaped up out of happy sleep, and blessed God it was morning, and felt, from the fulness of our hearts, a mighty love for all men, but to seek our pillows again at eventide in sadness!

Very near akin are joy and sorrow; it is but a step from the one to the other; and the greater the joy, the more do we repine when the black cloud gathers over it.

Minnie Goring opened her languid eyes, the day after the picnic, with a delicious sense of well-being; with a great thankfulness for the life that seemed, for the first time, so precious, so enjoyable a treasure. What matter that the strong young limbs felt stiff, that the soft white skin was fevered, that the tender brow was swollen, and throbbed under its bandages? Had not all this purchased for her-O, how cheaply!—the memory that will make the future but one dream of happiness? Was she not still under the

charm of the 'lune d'amour' ?

Breakfast-things jingling outside a knock at the door-enter Euphrosyne, her gray locks swathed up in gay bandanna, as of yore.

'You dear old thing, 'Phrosyne!' cries Minnie; so you've come to take care of me?'

[ocr errors]

'Ah, mon Dieu! quel malheur !' groans the ancient handmaiden, putting down her tray by the bedside, and bending over the chestnut hair; I almost found myself badly, when one told me that my little Ma'amselle Minnie was at the agony. Dieu merci ! she is not dead, la pauvrette !'

[ocr errors]

Not yet, 'Phrosyne,' she says with a bright smile, her eyes

THIRD SERIES, VOL. V. F.S. VOL. XXV.

S

following the fussy preparations that remind her so vividly of the good time in the Rue St. Dominique.

Eh, fi donc, la vieille! The beautiful subject of conversation!' continues the garrulous bandanna. 'One would say to oneself that Monsieur the Curé was mounting the stairs already with the holy sacraments. La mort, pardi! When this morning all those ladies. are gnawing themselves the fists that that villanous branch has not spoilt you the face! When last night there was not a minute that I was not obseded by a mass of beautiful young men, who were demanding of me, the tears in the eyes, "Goes she better, dear Euphrosyne ?" "Sleeps she, good Euphrosyne ?" "Suffers she

much, madame ?" "

Minnie nearly spills her chocolate for laughing at the dolorous picture of the anxious youths and 'Phrosyne's bulletins.

[ocr errors]

'When I tell you,' resumes the old servant, her wrinkled waxen features twinkling with fun, that at three o'clock of the morning, as I was passing along the corridor, one pounces on me, one drags me off into the salon, one asks me the news with a face pale-ah, tenez, pale as this sheet-'

Minnie's cheeks, to make up for that, straightway present a tolerable imitation of the peony.

'I say to him, all goes well; there is nothing of serious; the wound will leave no mark; the fever has diminished itself; she sleeps. He slips me a napoleon in the hand, and says me, in English, Gobblessyou, old girl; you a breeck. TankGod!'

She knows who it was, with the foolish colour mantling under her downy skin; she knows well enough, with his kisses still burning on her lips.

'Ah, holy Virgin!' chatters on 'Phrosyne; 'how he loves you, that one!'

'Which one?' very unconcernedly, from the depths of the pillow.

'She asks me which one!' throwing up her hands to an imaginary audience. But, without doubt, that beautiful Mistare Denn ! Eh-he-e?'

A moment's pause.

'You can take away now, Euphrosyne;' and she turns her face to the wall.

It was not, then, Jim who kept anxious watch through the long hours she lay unconscious; it was not his cheek that paled with suspense; it was not his gratitude that went up to heaven when fear of danger was past. It was Regy, down in that salon, waiting for news in the cold gray of the morning. Not the man she loves -not the man who has perfected the handiwork of Nature by lighting up its beauty with the glory of that love. It was Regy-that jolly fellow Dane'-the man she likes immensely; the best fun

possible for a rattling galop, and decorous scuffle to follow behind the azaleas in the conservatory.

A grievous disappointment for some lengthy minutes. Presently she begins to think she may possibly be magnifying the proverbial molehill. After all, wasn't Jim most likely a prey to deepest misery all night, over at No. 15? and was it probable that Regy's successive s.-and-b.s tasted any the worse, or that his Partagas lost aught of their flavour, through that nocturnal vigil, to which, moreover, goodness knew, he was pretty well inured? And lastly, wouldn't Jim be round at the hotel immediately to ask after her, and hadn't she better begin dressing?

I fear me she found the clasping of those brawny arms so pleasant, that she had a mind to give them another chance, and try whether the being in full possession of her faculties would deprive such situation of any of its charm. At all events, she rang the bell, and asked to see Mrs. Ferrers.

And how is my poor little patient this morning?' inquires the Colonel's wife in dulcet tones, imprinting a maternal salute on Minnie's hot cheek.

'O, I'm quite well, thanks, now,' asseverates the bed, with decision. Indeed, there is nothing at all the matter with me, except this stupid bump.'

Mrs. Ferrers takes off the bandages tenderly, and inspects the discoloured, broken, swollen skin with deep compassion.

'Sha'n't I look a fright when I go down?' laughs Minnie. 'All yellow and blue-generally brilliant, in fact, like a wild Indian.' 'Go down!' repeats the other, aghast.

'Yes; why not? That's what I wanted to see you about. I may go down, mayn't I?' pleadingly.

'Certainly not!' decisively. What an idea! Feverish, weak, shaken as you are, we should have you fainting away again for a few more hours.'

.' But I sha'n't be able to see Jim,' expressing her thoughts aloud.

'It's perfectly impossible, my dear,' says Mrs. Ferrers. 'Besides which, Captain Tregarvan must be well on his way to Paris by this time.'

To Paris!' repeats Minnie in her turn.

'He went off directly he heard you were in no danger. There is no accounting for men, my love; the best of them are dreadfully silly. Fancy his rushing off like that, tired as he was after that picnic, even on important business. And talking of the picnic, I must say it was most enjoyable.'

And as the worthy lady rattles on about the day which no time can ever efface from Minnie's memory, the poor pretty head is throbbing with swift thoughts that whirl through it at the announce

ment of Jim's departure. He has left Malaise, left her the very morrow after those impassioned moments in the woods! Can it be, she thinks with a fiery rush of blood to her pale cheeks, that she has, in her new-found love for him, mistaken the natural anxiety of a guardian's affection for the caress of a lover? Can she have imagined the sound of the words that greeted her ears, the look in the eyes that met hers when she woke from her swoon? Did she awake at all, or was not rather the whole a dream? Mistaken, perhaps deceived, perhaps; but even as on desert plains the false beautiful mirage doubles the thirst of the wretched travellers, by giving them a reflected view of the cool streams far beyond, so here the mirage of love has done its work, and Minnie longs, with a mighty longing that fevers her blood and keeps her in that little bed for many weary days, for a draught from the ambrosial river that seemed so near in the twilight one summer's eve.

Yet somehow the days do pass, for all that they drag out their torpid length so slowly; and Minnie finds herself constrained to abandon her new-formed idea of an effective and premature decease very much sooner than she could have thought possible.

'All is not o'er, if loving is not o'er.'

There is a love which prefers death to a life without its heart's desire; there is a love which prefers even the indifferent presence of its beloved to the oblivion of the grave. The one will have all or none; the other would fain feed as royally, but, failing that, will not despise the crumbs.

Minnie Goring cannot, even if she would, call back the precious gift so freely, so wholly, so vainly given. Never another shall rouse this intensity of love, this strong sad yearning, in the years to come. Her passion is the deeper from its very hopelessness. There is plenty of time for thought in a sick-room, and there she has thought much she has recalled to mind every phase of her relations with the man who now is her very all; she has tried to combat her doubts, her fears, and she despairs. She has staked life-the really living she deems impossible without great love-and she has lost. But she will not lose him entirely; he will be her friend, her dearest friend, always; and she-she will bury her love in the silent depths of her heart till the great Day, when all secrets shall be known, and all passions stilled for ever.

can.

So the days pass away, and she lives through them as best she

And Regy Dane, having secured her gratitude by his kindly endurance of all her thousand moods, by his unwearied exertions to please her in the slightest thing, by his well-judged inaction at this crisis of his suit, becomes more necessary to her with every morning of her loneliness. He never once suspects her feelings towards Jim; but her manner tells him there is something in the air that

portends anything but plain-sailing for him, and he has tact enough to see that courtship and matrimony are topics likely to be distasteful to her just now, and to act accordingly; which wily conduct gains him much ground proportionately.

At last, one glaring afternoon, Dane, stretched full length on the hot sand, is watching Minnie at her paint-box and easel in the shade of some rocks, lazily doing a weed, and wondering how soon he shall make up his mind to take his chance, and ask her the question.

'Wilt thou, Minnie,' he thinks, 'have this man to thy wedded husband?' and aloud, I wonder if you will-'

'How can you doubt it?' answers Minnie, with malice aforethought.

-Give me that sketch ?' finishing his sentence artfully, despite the great leap at his heart when he pictures to himself that sweet proud face lit up with love for him.

Take it, and welcome,' she says, throwing down her brush; 'I'm sick of it.'

And, as he takes it eagerly from her hand, a black shadow falls across the paper.

'Hullo, here you are!' cries the intruder. 'How de do, Min? All right again? That's a good child. That's a good child. How do, Dane ?' Minnie turns crimson at the touch of his fingers, and then dead white.

Is that you, Jim ?' as if doubting it were his voice, with so jolly, so paternal a ring in it.

Got back at last, you see.'

[ocr errors]

Yes, Min; safe and sound. And seeing the hot blood in her cheek, Spoilt a spoony tête-à-tête, I fancy,' he thinks, with one of the old pangs of bitter jealousy. But he has not come back to sit at this woman's feet, and suffer such feelings to undo the stern work that has cost him so much. His sad eyes and set lips attest plain enough how great has been that cost.

'Have a smoke?' says Dane, proferring a small portmanteau of sealskin and gold, with the view of discovering whether Jim means spoiling sport or not.

[ocr errors]

'Don't mind if I do,' helping himself. They do say three's no company, but it's too many degrees towards boiling-point to-day -to be considerate.'

'Don't apologise, pray,' laughs Minnie, a little awkwardly. 'I'm sure we feel quite relieved you've come. We are disgracefully in want of something to talk about; and we have both remarked it's not chilly this afternoon several times.'

'Speak for yourself, Miss Goring, please,' from Regy, half in jest, half in earnest. I have not been silent for want of something to talk about.'

« PreviousContinue »