Bressant Part 22

"Do you think men's ideas of love, and such things, are as high as women's?" asked she presently.

"Why shouldn't they be?" answered Sophie, coming back from her reverie with a sigh. "I'm sure Bressant's are: if they weren't--"

She sank again into thought, and another long silence followed. This time Cornelia's hands were still, but she watched Sophie closely.

"Well--suppose they weren't--suppose he were to turn out not quite so high-minded, and all that, as you think him: you would stop loving him, wouldn't you?"

"Why do you suggest it!" cried Sophie, almost with a sob. She bent down, resting her face upon her arms, and against the rock. "That question has come to me once before. How can I know? If he were to degenerate now--now, after I have told him that I love him--it must be because he no longer loved me; and I should have no right to love him, then."

Cornelia looked down, for there was a certain light in her eyes which had no right to be there. When she thought it was subdued, she raised them again.

"Shouldn't you hate him always afterward? Shouldn't you want to kill him?" demanded she, in a low voice.

"I should want to kill only the memory of his unworthiness," replied Sophie, her voice rising and clearing, while she regarded her sister with a full, bright glance. "As to hating him--I cannot hate any one I have loved, Neelie." She raised herself up as she spoke, and sat erect.

"Well, you're a strange girl!" said Cornelia, who was a little confused.

"I don't see how you can ever be either happy or unhappy. Nothing human seems to have any hold upon you."

"I'm very human," returned Sophie, shaking her head. "There are some things, I think, would soon drive me out of the world, if G.o.d wore to send them to me."

The idea of death, when brought home to Cornelia, never failed to affect her. If she had been planning the destruction of an enemy, she would have wept bitterly at the sight of that enemy's dead body; nay, even at a vivid account of his death. Sophie's words brought tears to her eyes at once, and a quaver into her voice.

"Don't--please don't talk that way, dear; it isn't so easy to die as you think, I'm sure. The idea of dying because anybody was wicked! It's only because you've been ill, and have got into the habit of expecting to die, that you have such ideas--isn't it? don't you think so? You'll stop feeling so as soon as you're well again--won't you?"

"Perhaps," said Sophie, with, it may be, a particle of satire in her smile.

They now got up from the rock and began to descend toward the Parsonage.

Sophie stepped with a quick but careful precision, never slipping or missing her footing. Cornelia made short rushes, and daring jumps, often coining near to fall. Her mind was a Babel of new thoughts; or rather one idea spoke with many tongues, and made much disturbance.

The greatest crimes are often perpetrated by those who, in their own phrase, follow the lead of the moment, and let things take their course.

Things never take their own course, in a certain sense; what we do, and say, and think, creates circ.u.mstances and shapes results. There seems always to be a choice of paths. We profess--and believe--that we are neutral; that we surrender ourselves to the chance of the current. But let an evil hope--a dangerous wish--once enter our minds: something we venture only half to hint to ourselves in the non-committal whispers of a craven, unacknowledged longing-working secretly within us, it will act upon our course as a rudder, which, hidden beneath the water, steers the vessel inevitably toward a certain goal. Perhaps, when the current has become too swift, and the rudder, clamped in one fatal position, cannot be turned, we may realize, and recoil; but now, indeed, we follow the lead of the moment; now, beyond a doubt, we let things take their course: we are hurried on irresistibly; that which we dared not openly to name, or fairly to face, now looms awfully above us--an irrevocable, accomplished fact.

Beyond doubt it would have been safer to have steadily and fearlessly kept the end in view from the outset: for the full horror of it would have been visible while yet there was time to change our minds. Few people have the nerve to jump from a precipice, or stand in way of a railway-engine, without first shutting their eyes, and perhaps their ears also.

In Cornelia's mind there was no intention of ruining her sister's happiness by interfering between her and Bressant; but then she did not think it likely that to lose him would occasion Sophie any thing more than a temporary and comparatively trifling degree of suffering. If she could allow her love for him to depend upon the immaculateness of his moral character, she did not love him as much as Cornelia, to whose affection any considerations of that kind were immaterial. What, after all, was Sophie's love but an idealization, which had, to be sure, taken Bressant as its object, but which placed no vital dependence upon him?

But Cornelia's love was to her a matter of life and death: she was quite convinced that to live without Bressant would be an impossibility.

The next question was, whether Bressant was really as good as Sophie believed him to be. Cornelia did not think he was. Perhaps a secret sense of his att.i.tude toward her suggested her suspicions; perhaps they were the result of her New-York experience, which had taught her just enough about men to make her imagine there was more or less of dark and indefinite villainy in the composition of all of them; perhaps it was her wish that fathered her moral misgivings about him--for it must be confessed that Cornelia was very far from shrinking at the idea of seeing her suspicions verified.

Indeed, was it not, on all accounts, desirable that, whatever objectionable points and pa.s.sages the young man's life-record contained, should be at once forthcoming? Cornelia could not restrain a feeling of satisfaction at the growing conviction that it would be doing Sophie a kind and friendly service to inform her, in time, what a reprobate she was about to marry--if he only could be proved a reprobate! This question of proof was the only one difficulty in Cornelia's way; all the rest was as clear and easy as is generally the case in such matters.

It would not do to lie about it: Cornelia had a natural if not a moral disinclination to falsehood, and was, moreover, acute enough to see how strong, in this case, would be the chances of detection. It was not likely that Sophie would accept upon hearsay any imputations or accusations against her lover: she would speak to Bressant at once; the lie would be revealed, and the result would be not only a failure to alienate Sophie from him, but a certainty of alienating him from Cornelia.

No; her reliance must be placed upon facts. Whatever she could hear to the young man's disadvantage that was true, beyond the possibility of his denial, that she must at once make known to Sophie: it was no less than her duty. Or, better still, why would it not be enough simply to inform Bressant of her dark discovery, and compel him, by the threat of revelation, to give up Sophie of his own accord! Cornelia, in congratulating herself upon this shrewd idea, did not perceive how entirely it transformed the whole aspect and spirit of her intention.

So much being arranged, the next thing was to put herself in the way of learning the objectionable truths which she had persuaded herself existed. This was rather an awkward point. How should she go to work? to whom apply? who would be most likely to know, or, knowing, to impart what Cornelia desired to hear? Aunt Margaret? But it was not certain that she knew any thing about him more than the little Cornelia had herself told her: if not useless, it would certainly be rash to make inquiries of her, especially since it would have to be done by letter.

Aunt Margaret wouldn't do.

Her papa? No, no! that was quite out of the question. He might not approve--he was old-fas.h.i.+oned--he wouldn't understand the necessity--he might ask her disagreeable questions--and besides--no, he must be given up.

But besides Aunt Margaret, and Professor Valeyon, who was there?

Cornelia was quite at a loss. To think of being obliged to give up the whole explosion, merely for want of a match to touch off the powder, that was unendurable! She would not give it up; she would let herself be guided by circ.u.mstances; something would be sure to turn up that would serve her purpose; she must be on the alert, that was all, and let things take their course. One thing troubled her--the day of the wedding was not much over two months distant! Every thing must be done before then. It was to be hoped that things would take their course with a reasonable degree of rapidity.

As regarded the favorable result to herself of Bressant's separation from Sophie, Cornelia seems never to have entertained a doubt. That he would fall into a state of despair, and of bitterness against all women, herself included, she was unable, consistently with her confidence in herself, to believe. Far more natural was it, that, finding Sophie no longer could care for him, he would seek to repose and refresh his heart elsewhere: and where so soon as with Cornelia? Indeed it was a mystery to her how he had ever come to care for Sophie at all; and the reason of the mystery was, that she had felt a movement of pa.s.sion in him toward herself. There was certainly not much similarity between the sisters, and it was not strange that Cornelia should be inclined to doubt the validity of her rival's claim to supremacy in Bressant's heart.

Her rival! The current of events had already carried Cornelia a considerable distance beyond her position on the evening of her return from New York, when she had excused her beautiful appearance, to herself, by suggesting that it would not do for the husband of her sister to detest her! That was sophistry, and it was sophistry that served her now; but the subjects upon which she exercised it were becoming hourly more and more ticklish. The woman of two weeks back would have started and turned pale before the woman of to-day.

It would be very funny--if it were not so deep a tragedy--the havoc bungling human fingers make in essaying the work of Providence. No one but G.o.d can know how delicate are the petals of his flowers, nor on what depend their bloom and fragrance. Hearts are sacred things; we should beware of meddling, not alone with others' but with our own.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A BIT OF INSPIRATION.

Bressant was in the habit of spending three hours every afternoon at the Parsonage. Part of this time was pa.s.sed in the professor's study, pursuing theological lore; for, whatever the young man's ultimate expectations with regard to his career and fortune may have been, it was no part of his plan to allow his future father-in-law to suspect any tiling else than what he had already given him to understand.

After lessons were over he joined Sophie on the balcony, walked with her in the garden, or gave her his arm up the hill. Cornelia was seldom to be seen, at least within speaking distance. At the same time she did not keep entirely out of the way. Often, when wandering with her sister through the garden-paths, Bressant would catch a glimpse of her buoyant figure and rich-toned face upon the balcony; or, if himself established there, would presently behold her, in a garden hat and shortened skirt, raking the fallen leaves off the paths and flower-beds, and perhaps trundling them stoutly away in a wheelbarrow afterward. It thus happened that, although seldom exchanging a word with her, he was continually receiving fresh reminders of her, in one way or another; and he was, moreover, haunted by an idea that Cornelia was not unconscious that he was observing her.

Two or three days subsequent to Cornelia's conversation with Sophie on the hill-top, Bressant, on his afternoon way to the Parsonage, met the former coming in the opposite direction. It was nearly at the end of the long level stretch, which was now resplendent with many-colored maples, which were interspersed at short intervals between the willows. He had been walking; swiftly with his eyes on the ground, when, chancing to raise them, lie saw Cornelia walking on toward him.

How beautifully she trod, erect, her round chin held in, stepping daintily yet firmly; it seemed as if the earth were an elastic sphere beneath her feet, she moving tirelessly onward. She had plucked a branch of gorgeous leaves from one of the maples, which she brandished about ever and anon, to keep the flies away. A straw hat, narrow-brimmed, slanted downward over hair and forehead. Her oval cheeks were more than usually luminous from exercise; her eyes were bright tawny brown, the lids shaped in curves, like the edges of a leaf. The vigorous roundness of her full and perfect figure was hinted here and there through the light drapery of her dress, as she walked forward. The October breeze seemed the sweeter for blowing past her.

"You must be rather late--I don't often meet you!" said she, with a smile which put Bressant traitorously at his ease.

"Early, more than late," responded he, stopping as he saw that she stopped.

"Are you?--well, then--I don't often see you--would you mind walking with me just a little way?" and she touched him lightly on the shoulder with her maple-branch, as with the wand of an enchantress.

He, in obedience rather to the touch than the words, turned about and walked beside her.

"I've a right to a sister's privileges, you know," continued she, slipping her hand beneath his arm, and letting it rest upon it.

How very delightful, as well as simple, to solve the problem of their intercourse on this basis! Bressant did not know how it might feel to have a sister, but he could, at the moment, imagine nothing more delightful than to be Cornelia's brother--unless it were to be Sophie's husband. But to be both!

"Do you know," pursued she, with apparent hesitation, looking up in his face, and then immediately looking down again, "I've had a notion, since coming back from New York, that you don't like me so well as you did?"

This might be either audacity or delicacy, as one chose to take it.

Bressant, feeling himself put rather on the defensive, answered hastily and without premeditation:

"I like you more!"

"Oh! I'm so glad to hear you say so!" exclaimed she warmly, and as she spoke he felt her hand a little more perceptibly on his arm. "It takes such a load off my heart! seeing you and Sophie love one another so much, I couldn't help loving you, too, in my way; and it made me so unhappy to think I was disagreeable to you."

Bressant was quite unprepared for all this. Whatever had been his speculations as to the future footing upon which he and Cornelia should stand, it had been nothing like that she was now furnis.h.i.+ng. It did not seem at all in the vein which she had opened on the day of her return.

He was puzzled: had he been more used to ladies' society, he would have mistrusted her sincerity.