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Bressant, a novel by Julian Hawthorne |
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Chapter 24. A Bit Of Inspiration |
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_ 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 passed 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 furnishing. 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. "You could never be disagreeable to me!" was his answer: and he looked down at her oval cheek, with his first attempt at fraternal admiration. It turned out badly. She looked unexpectedly up: his glance fell through her tawny eyes, and sank down, burning deliciously, into her heart. She turned pale with the pain and the pleasure: but it was such pain and pleasure that she sought, and wanted more of. "Well, then! it's all clear between us again--is it?" resumed she, drawing a long breath, which sounded more like the irrepressible out-come of a tumultuous heart, than a sigh of relieved suspense upon the point in question. "No more misunderstandings, or any thing? and you won't get out of the way ally more, as if I were poison--will you?" "I never did!" protested he, laughing awkwardly. In the last few minutes he had developed a sentiment hitherto unknown to him--pique! He had been imagining Cornelia in love with him, and angry at his preference for Sophie; whereas, it would now seem that the only reason she cared for him at all, was because he was Sophie's lover: a most correct spirit in her, no doubt; but, instead of being gratified, as was his duty, he felt provoked. "Oh! yes, you behaved shockingly!" rejoined Cornelia, laughing with him. "Mind! I don't care how devoted you are to Sophie--the more the better; but, when you do notice me, I want you to do it kindly--won't you?" "I'll be sure to, now that I know you care any thing about it." "And what made you think I didn't care about it, if you please, sir?" "Why," stammered he, quite at a loss what to say, and so coming out with the truth, "I thought you were offended at my being engaged to Sophie!" "But what should there be in that to offend me?" demanded Cornelia, with the mouth and eyes of Innocence. "I don't know:--well--I knew you first!" he blurted forth, beginning to wish he had been satisfied to hold his tongue. Cornelia took her breath once or twice, and then bit it off on her under lip, as if about to say something, and afterward hesitating about it. "I don't quite understand you," she managed to get out at last; "do you--forgive me if I'm wrong--but perhaps you're thinking of that time--when--just before I went away?" Saying this, she drooped her eyes in a confusion, which, because more than half of it was genuine, made her look very fascinating. Nothing is more seductive than a little truth. As Bressant looked at her, and thought of what lie had done at that last interview, soft thrills crept sweetly through his blood, and he felt a most extraordinary tenderness for her. "I've often thought of it," answered he, in a tone which did not belie his words. "Well--so have I, to tell the truth!" rejoined Cornelia, looking up for a moment with glowing candor. "But we won't either of us think of it any more, will we? It seems very long ago, now; and it'll never be again, and we ought to forget it ever was at all. But, oh! most of all, you must forget it if it will ever be a reason for your disliking me, or wishing not to see me! I know how disagreeable it must be to you to think of it now." Did Cornelia know what she was about? had she netted beforehand all the meshes of this web she was throwing over him? the admirable mixture of frankness and subtlety, nature and art--must it not have been planned and calculated beforehand, to bewilder and mislead?--It may well be doubted. No preconceived and elaborated programme can come up to the inspiration of the moment, which is genius. Such felicitous wording of subject-matter so objectionable: such an unassailable presentation of so indefensible a principle--could hardly have been the fruit of premeditation. Cornelia was allowing things to take their course. "It isn't disagreeable! it's--" Bressant broke off, unable or unprepared to say what it was. "Why must we forget it?" he added, with a half-assured look of significance. "You said we were brother and sister, you know!" She laughed in his face, at the same time drawing her hand from his arm, and stepping away from him. How tantalizingly lovely she looked! "It won't do to carry the privileges of relationship too far, my dear sir! at least, not until after you're married. There! go back to your Sophie--I didn't mean to keep you so long--really! No, no!" as he made an offer to approach her; "go! and be quick, I advise you. Good-by!" Bressant, as he walked on to the Parsonage, was possessed by an undefined conviction that he was learning a great deal not set down in the books. The page of the passions, once thrown open, seems to comprise every thing. The world has but one voice for the man of one idea. Evidently, this man did not comprehend the nature of his position between these two women. Reason told him it was impossible he could love both at once; but there her information stopped. His senses assured him that, with Cornelia, he experienced a vivid rush of emotion, such as Sophie, strongly as he loved her, never awakened in him; but his senses could give him no explanation of the fact. His instinct whispered that he would not have dared, in his most ardent moments, to feel toward Sophie as he invariably felt toward her sister; but no instinct warned him of the danger which this implied. A sturdy principle, if it had not thrown light upon the question, would, at least, have pointed out to him the true course to adopt; but, unfortunately, principles, and the impulses which they are formed to control, are neither of simultaneous nor proportionate growth. Bressant, while partaking so liberally of emotional food, had quite neglected to provide himself with the necessary and useful correctives to such indulgences. Thus it happened that when he arrived, a little past his usual hour, at the Parsonage-door, his mental digestion was in a very disturbed condition. In palliation of Cornelia's conduct, there is little or nothing to be adduced. Strong forces had been laboring within her during 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. _ |
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