CHAPTER LXVII
It was Sabbath morning, but it was not a morning of rest; though it was Huntley’s first day at home, and though it did his heart good to see his mother, the young man’s heart was already astray and pre-occupied with his own thoughts; and Cosmo, full of subdued but unrecoverable excitement, which his mother’s jealous eye only too plainly perceived, covered the face of the Mistress with clouds. Yet a spectator might have supposed that breakfast-table a very centre of family love and harmony. The snow-white cloth, the basket of brown oat-cakes and white flour scones, of Marget’s most delicate manufacture, the great jug full of rich red June roses, which made a glory in the midst, and the mother at the head of her table, with those two sons in the bloom of their young manhood, on either side of her, and the dress of her widowhood throwing a certain, tender, pathetic suggestion into her joy and their love. It was a picture had it been a picture, which no one could have seen without a touching consciousness of one of the most touching sides of human life. A family which at its happiest must always recall and commemorate a perpetual lack and vacancy, and where all the affections were the deeper and tenderer for that sorrow which overshadowed them; the sons of their mother, and she was a widow! But, alas, for human pictures and ideals! The mother was restless and dissatisfied, feeling strange interests crowding in to the very hour which should be peculiarly her own; the young men were stirred with the personal and undisclosed troubles of their early life. They sat together at their early meal, speaking of common matters, eating daily bread, united yet separate, the peace of the morning only vailing over a surface of commotion, and Sabbath in every thing around save in their hearts.
“It’s a strange minister—you’ll miss the old man, Huntley,” said the Mistress; “but you’ll write down your thanksgiving like a good bairn, and put an offering in the plate; put your name, say, ‘Huntley Livingstone returns thanks to God for his safe home-coming.’ There would have been nae need for that if Dr. Logan had been to the fore; he aye minded baith thanks and supplications; and I’ll never forget what petitions he made in his prayer the last Sabbath you were at hame. You’re early stirring, Cosmo—it’s no’ time yet for the kirk.”
“I am going to Melmar, mother,” said Cosmo, in a low voice.
The Mistress made no answer; a flush came over her face, and her brow contracted, but she only said, as if to herself:—
“It’s the Sabbath day.”
“I went there this morning, to warn them of this man’s arrival,” said Cosmo, with excitement, “saying what you thought. I did not see any of them; but Marie has one of her illnesses. They have no one to support them in any emergency. I must see that he does not break in upon them to-day.”
The Mistress still made no answer. After a little struggle with herself, she nodded hastily.
“If ye’re a’ done, I’ll rise from the table. I have things to do before kirk-time,” she said at length, pushing back her chair and turning away. She had nothing to say against Cosmo’s resolution, but she was deeply offended by it—deeply, unreasonably, and she knew it—but could not restrain the bitter emotion. To be absent from the kirk at all, save by some overpowering necessity, was an offense to all her strong Scottish prejudices—but it was an especial breach of family decorum, and all the acknowledged sentiment and punctilio of love, to be absent to-day.
“Keep us a’ patient!” cried Marget, in an indignant undertone, when Mrs. Livingstone was out of hearing; for Marget, on one pretense or other, kept going and coming into the dining-parlor the whole morning, to rejoice her eyes with the sight of Huntley. “Some women come into this world for nae good reason but to make trouble. To speak to the Mistress about an emergency! Whaever supported her in her troubles but the Almighty himsel’ and her ain stout heart? I dinna wonder it’s hard to bear! Some gang through the fire for their ain hand, and no’ a mortal nigh them—some maun have a haill houseful to bear them up. Weel, weel, I’m no’ saying any thing against it—it’s kind o’ you, Mr. Cosmo—but you should think, laddie, before you speak.”
“She is not like my mother,” said Cosmo, somewhat sullenly.
“Like your mother!” cried Marget, with the utmost contempt. “She would smile a hantle mair, and ca’ ye mair dears in a day than my Mistress in a twelvemonth; but would she have fought and struggled through her life for a thankless man and thankless bairns—I trow no! Like your mother! She was bonnie when she was young, and she’s maybe, bonnie now, for onything I ken; but she never was wordy to tie the shoe upon the foot of the Mistress of Norlaw!”
“Be silent!” cried Cosmo, angrily; and before Marget’s indignation at this reproof could find itself words, the young man had hurried out from the room and from the house, boiling with resentment and a sense of injury. He saw exactly the other side of the question—his mother’s jealous temper, and hard-heartedness and dislike to the gentle and tender Madame Roche—but he could not see how hard it was, after all, for the honest, faithful heart, which grudged no pain nor hardship for its own, to find their love beguiled away again and again—or even to suppose it was beguiled—by one who had never done any thing to deserve such affection.
And Cosmo hurried on through the narrow paths to Melmar, his heart a-flame with a young man’s resentment, and impatience, and love. He scarcely could tell what it was which excited him so entirely. Not, certainly, the vagabond Pierrot, or any fears for Marie; not even the displeasure of his mother. He would not acknowledge to himself the eager, jealous fears which hurried him through those flowery bye-ways where the blossoms of the hawthorn had fallen in showers like summer snow, and the wild roses were rich in the hedgerows. Huntley!—why did he fear Huntley? What was the impulse of unfraternal impatience which made him turn with indignant offense from every thought of his brother? Had he put it into words, he would have despised himself; but he only rushed on in silence through the silent Sabbath fields and bye-ways to the house of Madame Roche.
It is early, early yet, and there is still no church bell ringing through the silence of the skies to rouse the farms and cottages. The whole bright summer world was as silent as a dream—the corn growing, the flowers opening, the sun shining, without a whisper to tell that dutiful Nature carried on her pious work through all the day of rest. The Tyne ran softly beneath his banks, the Kelpie rushed foaming white down its little ravine, and all the cool burns from among the trees dropped down into Tyne with a sound like silver bells. Something white shone upon the path on the very spot where Desirée once lay, proud and desolate, in the chill of the winter night, brooding over false friendship and pretended love. Desirée now is sitting on the same stone, musing once more in her maiden meditation. The universal human trouble broods even on these thoughts—not heavily—only like the shadow that flits along the trees of Tyne—a something ruffling the white woman’s forehead, which is more serious than the girl’s was, and disquieting the depths of those eyes which Cosmo Livingstone had called stars. Stars do not mist themselves with tender dew about the perversities of human kind as these eyes do; yet let nobody suppose that these sweet drops, lingering bright within the young eyelids, should be called tears.
Tears! words have so many meanings in this world! it is all the same syllable that describes the child’s passion, the honey-dew of youth, and that heavy rain of grief which is able sometimes to blot out both the earth and the skies.
So, after a fashion, there are tears in Desirée’s eyes, and a great many intermingled thoughts floating in her mind—thoughts troubled by a little indignation, some fear, and a good deal of that fanciful exaggeration which is in all youthful trials. She thinks she is very sad just now as she sits half in the shade and half in the sunshine, leaning her head upon her hand, while the playful wind occasionally sprinkles over her those snowy drops of spray from the Kelpie which shine on her hair; but the truth is that nothing just now could make Desirée sad, save sudden trouble, change, or danger falling upon one person—that one person is he who devours the way with eager, flying steps, and who, still more disturbed than she is, still knows no trouble in the presence of Desirée; and that is Cosmo Livingstone.
No; there is no love-tale to tell but that which has been told already; all those preliminaries are over; the Kelpie saw them pledge their faith to each other, while there still were but a sprinkling of spring leaves on those trees of June. Desirée; the name that caught the boy’s fancy when he was a boy, and she unknown to him—the heroine of his dreams ever since then, the distressed princess to whom his chivalry had brought fortune—how could the young romance end otherwise? but why, while all was so natural and suitable, did the young betrothed meet here?
“I must tell your mother! I must speak to her to-day! I owe it both to myself and Huntley,” cried Cosmo. “I can not go away again with this jealous terror of my brother in my heart; I dare not, Desirée! I must speak to her to-day.”
“Terror? and jealous? Ah, then, you do not trust me,” said Desirée, with a smile. Her heart beat quicker, but she was not anxious; she held up her hand to the wind till it was all gemmed with the spray of the waterfall, and then shook it over the head of Cosmo, as he half sat, half knelt by her side. He, however, was too much excited to be amused; he seized upon the wet hand and held it fast in his own.
“I did not think it possible,” said Cosmo. “Huntley, whom I supposed I could have died for, my kind brother! but it makes me frantic when I think what your mother has said—what she intends. Heaven! if he himself should think of you!”
“Go, you are rude,” said Desirée; “if I am so good as you say, he must think of me; but am I nothing then,” she cried, suddenly springing up, and stamping her little firm foot, half in sport, half in anger; “how do you dare speak of me so? Do you think mamma can give me away like a ring, or a jewel? Do you think it will be different to me whether he thinks or does not think of Desirée? You make me angry, Monsieur Cosmo; if that is all you come to tell me, go away!”
“What can I tell you else?” cried Cosmo. “I must and will be satisfied. I can not go on with this hanging over me. Do you remember what you told me, Desirée, that Madame Roche meant to offer you—you! to my brother? and you expect me to have patience! No, I am going to her now.”
“Then it is all over,” cried Desirée, “all these sunny days—all these dreams! She will say no, no. She will say it must not be—she will forbid me meeting you; but if you do not care, why should I?” exclaimed the little Frenchwoman, rapidly. “Nay, you must do what you will—you must be satisfied. Why should you care for what I say? and as for me I shall be alone.”
So Desirée dropped again upon her stone seat, and put her face down into her hands, and shed a few tears; and Cosmo, half beside himself, drew away the hands from her face, and remonstrated, pleaded, urged his claim.
“Why should not you acknowledge me?” said the young lover. “Desirée, long before I ventured to speak it you knew where my heart was—and now I have your own word and promise. Your mother will not deny you. Come with me, and say to Madame Roche—”
“What?” said Madame Roche’s daughter, glancing up at him as he paused.
But Cosmo was in earnest now:—
“What is in your heart!” he said breathlessly. “You turn away from me, and I can not look into it. What is in your heart, whether it is joy, or destruction, I care not,” cried the young man suddenly, “I must know my fate.”
Desirée raised her head and looked at him with some surprise and a quick flush of anger:—
“What have I done that you dare doubt me?” she cried, clapping her hands together with natural petulance. “You are impatient—you are angry—you are jealous—but does all that change me?”
“Then come with me to Madame Roche,” said the pertinacious lover.
Desirée had the greatest mind in the world to make a quarrel and leave him. She was not much averse now and then to a quarrel with Cosmo, for she was a most faulty and imperfect little heroine, as has been already confessed in these pages; but in good time another caprice seized her, and she changed her mind.
“Marie is ill,” she said softly, in a tone which melted Cosmo; “let us not go now to trouble poor mamma.”
“Marie! I came this morning to warn her, or rather to warn Madame Roche,” said Cosmo, recalled to the ostensible cause of his visit. “A Frenchman, called Pierrot, came home with Huntley—”
But before he could finish his sentence, Desirée started up with a scream at the name, and seizing his arm, in her French impatience overwhelmed him with terrified questions:—
“Pierrot? quick! speak! where is he? does he seek Marie? is he here? quick, quick, quick, tell me where he is! he must never come to poor Marie! he must not find us—tell me, Cosmo! do you hear?”
“He spent last night at Norlaw—he seeks his wife,” said Cosmo, when she was out of breath; at which word Desirée sprang up the path with excited haste:—
“I go to tell mamma,” she said, beckoning Cosmo to follow, and in a few minutes more disappeared breathless within the open door of Melmar, leaving him still behind.
CHAPTER LXVIII
Madame Roche sat by herself in the drawing-room of Melmar—the same beautiful old lady who used to sit working behind the flowers and white curtains of the little second floor window in St. Ouen. The room itself was changed from the fine disorderly room in which Mrs. Huntley had indulged her invalid tastes, and Patricia read her poetry-books. There was no longer a loose crumb-cloth to trip unwary feet, nor rumpled chintz covers to conceal the glory of the damask; and there was a wilderness of gilding, mirrors, cornices, chairs, and picture-frames, which changed the sober aspect of Melmar, and threw a somewhat fanciful and foreign character upon the grave Scotch apartment, looking out through its three windows upon the solemn evergreens and homely grass-plot, which had undergone no change. One of the windows was open, and that was garlanded round, like a cottage window, with a luxuriance of honey suckle and roses, which the “former family” would have supposed totally unsuited to the “best room in the house.” It was before this open window, with the sweet morning breeze waving the white curtains over her, and the roses leaning in in little crowds, that Madame Roche sat. She was reading—at least she had a book in her hand, among the leaves of which the sweet air rustled playfully; it was a pious, pretty book of meditations, which suited both the time and the reader, and she sat sometimes looking into it, sometime suffering her eyes and mind to stray, with a sweet pensive gravity on her fair old face, and tender, subdued thoughts in her heart. Madame Roche was not profound in any thing; perhaps there was not very much depth in those pious thoughts, or even in the sadness which just overshadowed them. Perhaps she had even a far-off consciousness that Cosmo Livingstone saw a very touching little picture, when he saw the mother by the window reading the Sabbath book in that Sabbath calm, and saying prayers in her heart for poor Marie. But do not blame Madame Roche—she still did say the prayers, and out of an honest heart.
When Desirée flew into the room, flushed and out of breath, and threw herself upon her mother so suddenly, that Madame Roche’s composure was quite overthrown:—
“Mamma, mamma!” cried Desirée, in what was almost a scream, though it was under her breath, “listen—Pierrot is here; he has found us out.”
“What, child? Pierrot? It is impossible!” cried Madame Roche.
“Things that are impossible are always true!” exclaimed the breathless Desirée; “he is here—Cosmo has seen him; he has come to seek Marie.”
“Cosmo? is he here?” said Madame Roche, rising. The old lady had become quite agitated, and her voice trembled. The book had fallen out of the hands which she clasped tightly together, in her fright and astonishment. “But he is mistaken, Desirée; he does not know Pierrot.”
When Cosmo, however, came forward to tell his own story, Madame Roche became still more disturbed and troubled:—
“To come now!” she exclaimed to herself with another expressive French pressure of her hands—“to come now! Had he come in St. Ouen, when we were poor, I could have borne it; but now, perceive you what will happen, Desirée? He will place himself here, and squander our goods and make us despised. He will call my poor Marie by his mean name—she, a Roche de St. Martin! and she will be glad to have it so. Alas, my poor deluded child!”
“Still though he is so near, he has not found you yet; and if he does find you, the house is yours, you can refuse him admission; let me remain, in case you should want me,” said Cosmo eagerly; “I have been your representative ere now.”
Madame Roche was walking softly about the room, preserving through all her trouble, even now when she had been five years in this great house, the old habit of restraining her voice and step, which had been necessary when Marie lay in the little back chamber at St. Ouen, within constant hearing of her mother. She stopped for an instant to smile upon her young advocate and supporter, as a queen might smile upon a partisan whose zeal was more than his wisdom; and then went on hurriedly addressing her daughter.
“For Marie, poor soul, would be crazed with joy. Ah, my Desirée! who can tell me what to do? For my own pleasure, my own comfort, a selfish mother, must I sacrifice my child?”
“Mamma,” cried Desirée, with breathless vehemence, “I love Marie—I would give my life for her; but if Pierrot comes to Melmar, I will go. It is true—I remember him—I will not live with Pierrot in one house.”
Madame Roche clasped her hands once more, and cast up her eyes with a gesture of despair. “What can I do—what am I to do? I am a woman alone—I have no one to advise me,” she cried, pacing softly about the room, with her clasped hands and eyes full of trouble. Cosmo’s heart was quite moved with her distress.
“Let me remain with you to-day,” said Cosmo, “and if he comes, permit me to see him. You can trust me. If you authorize me to deny him admission, he certainly shall not enter here.”
“Ah, my friend!” cried Madame Roche. “Ah, my child! what can I say to you? Marie loves him.”
“And he has made her miserable,” cried Desirée, with passion. “But, because she loves him, you will let him come here to make us all wretched. I knew it would be so. She loves him—it is enough! He will make her frantic—he will break her heart—he will insult you, me, every one! But Marie loves him! and so, though he is misery, he must come. I knew it would be so; but I will not stay to see it all—I can not! I will never stand by and watch while he kills Marie. Mamma! mamma! will you be so cruel? But I can not speak—I am angry—wretched! I will go to Marie and nurse her, and be calm; but if Pierrot comes, Desirée will stay no longer. For you know it is true!”
And so speaking Desirée went, lingering and turning back to deliver herself always of a new exclamation, to the door, out of which she disappeared at last, still protesting her determination with violence and passion. Madame Roche stood still, looking after her. There was great distress in the mother’s face, but it did not take that lofty form of pain which her child’s half-defiance might have produced. She was not wounded by what Desirée said. She turned round sighing to where Cosmo stood, not perfectly satisfied, it must be confessed, with the bearing of his betrothed.
“Poor child! she feels it!” said Madame Roche, “and, indeed, it is true, and she is right; but what must I do, my friend? Marie loves him. To see him once more might restore Marie.”
“Mademoiselle Desirée says he will break her heart,” said Cosmo, feeling himself bound to defend the lady of his love, even though he did not quite approve of her.
“Do not say mademoiselle. She is of this country; she is not a stranger,” said Madame Roche with her bright, usual smile; “and he will break her heart if he is not changed; do I not know it? But then—ah, my friend, you are young and impatient, and so is Desirée. Would you not rather have your wish and your love, though it killed you to have it, than to live year after year in a blank peacefulness? It is thus with Marie; she lives, but her life does not make her glad. She loves him—she longs for him; and shall I know how her heart pines, and be able to give her joy, yet keep silence, as though I knew nothing? It might be most wise; but I am not wise—I am but her mother—what must I do?”
“You will not give her a momentary pleasure, at the risk of more serious suffering,” said Cosmo, with great gravity.
But the tears came to Madame Roche’s eyes. She sank into a chair, and covered her face with her hand. “It would be joy!—can I deny her joy? for she loves him,” faltered Marie’s mother. As he looked at her with impatient, yet tender eyes, the young man forgave Desirée for her impatience. How was it possible to deal calmly with the impracticable sentiment and “feelings” of Madame Roche?
“I came to speak to you of myself,” said Cosmo. “I can not speak of myself in the midst of this trouble; but I beg you to think better of it. If he is all that you say, do not admit him here.”
“Of yourself?” said Madame Roche, removing her hand from her face, and stretching out to him that tender white hand which was still as soft and fair as if it had been young instead of old. “My child, I am not so selfish as to forget you who have been so good to us. Tell me what it is about yourself?”
And as she smiled and bent towards him, Cosmo’s heart beat high, half with hope half with shame, for he felt guilty when he remembered that neither himself nor Desirée had confessed their secret betrothal to Desirée’s mother. In spite of himself, he could not help feeling a shadow of blame thrown upon Desirée, and the thought wounded him. He was full of the unreasonable, romantic love of youth. He could not bear, by the merest instinctive secret action of his mind, to acknowledge a defect in her.
“You say, ‘Marie loves him’—that is reason enough for a great sacrifice from you,” cried Cosmo, growing out of breath with anxiety and agitation; “and Desirée—and I,—what will you say to us? Oh, madame, you are kind, you are very kind. Be more than my friend, and give Desirée to me!”
“Desirée!"—Madame Roche rose up, supporting herself by her chair—“Desirée! but she knows she is destined otherwise—you know—Desirée!” cried Madame Roche, clasping her pretty hands in despair. “She is dedicated—she is under a vow—she has to do justice! My friend Cosmo—my son—my young deliverer!—do not—do not ask this! It breaks my heart to say no to you; but I can never, never give you Desirée!”
“Why?” said Cosmo, almost sternly. “You talk of love—will you deny its claim? Desirée does not say no. I ask you again, give her to me! My love will never wound her nor break her heart. I do not want the half of your estate, and neither does my brother! Give me Desirée—I can work for her, and she would be content to share my fortune. She is content—I have her own word for it. I demand it of you for true love’s sake, madame—you, who speak of love! Give her to me!”
“Alas!” cried Madame Roche, wringing her hands—“alas! my child! I speak of love because Marie is his wife; but a young girl is different! She must obey her destiny! You are young—you will forget it. A year hence, you will smile when you think of your passion. No—my friend Cosmo, hear me! No, no, you must not have Desirée—I will give you any thing else in this world that you wish, if I can procure it, but Desirée is destined otherwise. No, no, I can not change—you can not have Desirée!”
And on this point the tender and soft Madame Roche was inexorable—no intreaty, no remonstrance, no argument could move her! She stood her ground with a gentle iteration which drove Cosmo wild. No, no, no; any thing but Desirée. She was grieved for him—ready to take him into her arms and weep over him—but perfectly impenetrable in her tender and tearful obstinacy. And when, at last, Cosmo rushed from the house, half mad with love, disappointment, and mortification, forgetting all about Pierrot and everybody else save the Desirée who was never to be his, Madame Roche sat down, wiping her eyes and full of grief, but without the faintest idea of relinquishing the plans by which her daughter was to compensate Huntley Livingstone for the loss of Melmar.