"Daisy," he said, "I shall get angry."
I stood by him obstinately mute. I looked up at him with a dreary, sorrowful gaze; he frowned and bit his lip. I summoned all my courage to bear his coming wrath; to my dismay he chucked my chin, and said with careless good humour--
"As if I should not be fond of you all the same, you jealous little thing!"
And with the smile which he no longer repressed he turned away whistling "Love"s young dream." Vexed and mortified to the quick, I burst into tears; Cornelius turned round and showed me an astonished face.
"Nonsense!" he exclaimed, laughing incredulously, "you never can be crying, Daisy!"
The laugh, the gay, careless tone exasperated me. I turned to the door to fly somewhere out of his sight; he caught me back and lifted me up. In vain I resisted; with scarcely an effort he mastered me and laughed again at my unavailing efforts to escape. Breathless with my recent resistance, irritated by my subjection, I lay in his arms mute and sullen. He bent his amused face over mine.
"You are an odd little girl," he said, with the most provoking good- humour, looking with his merry brown eyes into mine, that were still heavy with tears, and speaking gaily, as if my jealousy, anger, and weeping were but a jest; "I suppose you object to my marrying--well, that"s a pity--but it is all your fault! You know I wanted to wait for you, only you would not hear of it, so I naturally got desperate and looked out elsewhere."
With this, and as if to humble and mortify me to the last, he stooped to embrace me. In vain, burning and indignant, I averted my face; he only laughed and kissed me two or three times more. To be thus gently ridiculed, laughed at, and kissed, was more than I could bear. I submitted, but with a bursting heart, that betrayed itself by ill- repressed sobs and tears. Cornelius saw this was more than childish pettishness: "Daisy!" he exclaimed, with concern, and he put me down at once.
There was a little couch close by; I threw myself upon it, and hid in the pillow my shame and my grief. He said and did all he could to pacify me; but when I looked up a little soothed, it stung me to read in his eyes the smile his lips repressed. The folly of a child of my age in presuming to be jealous of his beautiful Miriam, was evidently irresistibly amusing. My tears and my sobs ceased at once. I locked in the poignant feelings which could win no sympathy even from him who caused them. I listened with downcast eyes to his consolations, and apathetically submitted to his caresses. But Cornelius, satisfied that it was all right, chid me gently for having made him lose "ten precious minutes,"
gave me a last kiss, and returned to his easel. At once I rose and said--
"May I go downstairs?"
"Of course," he replied; but he looked surprised at the unusual request.
I remained below all day. When after tea I brought out my books as usual, Cornelius very coolly said--
"My dear, Kate will hear you this evening."
He took his hat and left us. As the door closed upon him, Miss O"Reilly shook her head and poked the fire pensively. I saw she knew all. Once or twice she sighed rather deeply, but subduing this she observed with forced cheerfulness--
"Well. Daisy, let us go through those lessons."
We did go through them, but with strange inattentiveness on either side.
"Nonsense, child!" impatiently exclaimed Kate; "why do you keep stopping and listening so, it is only Cornelius singing next door; what about it?"
What about it? nothing, of course; and yet you too, Kate, stopped often in your questioning to catch the tones of your brother"s gay and harmonious voice; you, too, guessed that the time when he could feel happy to stay at home and sing to you was for ever gone by; you, too, when the lessons were over, sadly looked at his vacant place, and felt how far now was he whose song and whose laughter resounded from the next house. Oh, Love! invader of the heart, pitiless destroyer of its sweetest ties, for two hearts whom thou makest blest in delightful union, how many dost thou wound and divide asunder!
We had thought to spend the evening alone, but a strange chance, not without sad significance, brought us an unexpected visitor; the Reverend Morton Smalley called, for once unaccompanied by Mr. Trim. He was more gentle and charming than ever. He expressed himself very sorry not to see Cornelius, whom he evidently thought absent on some laborious errand, for looking at Kate in his benignant way over his spotless neckcloth and through his bright gold spectacles, he earnestly begged "she would not allow her brother to work so very hard."
She shook her head and smiled a little sadly.
"I fear Art absorbs him completely," gravely said Mr. Smalley.
"Oh dear no!" sighed Kate.
"We were never intended to lead a purely intellectual life," continued our guest, bending slightly forward, and raising his fore-finger with mild conviction, "and I fear your brother, Ma"am, is too much given to what I may venture to term the abstract portion of life: life has very lovely and tender realities."
Kate poked the fire impatiently.
"And then he works too hard," pensively continued Mr. Smalley, returning to his old idea that Cornelius was engaged on some arduous task: "why not give himself one evening"s relaxation?"
I sat apart on a low stool, unheeded and silent; I know not what impulse made me look up in the face of our guest and say earnestly--
"Cornelius is gone to see Miss Miriam."
Mr. Smalley started like a man who has received an electric shock. He looked at me, at Kate; her face gave sorrowful confirmation of all he could suspect and dread. He said not a word, but turned very pale.
"Mr. Smalley," said Kate, "have a gla.s.s of wine."
He did not answer, he had not heard her; like one in a troubled dream, he pa.s.sed his handkerchief across his moist brow and trembling lips. He made an effort to look more composed, as Kate handed him the gla.s.s of wine which she had poured out. He took it from her, smiled a faint ghastly smile, and said--
"I wish our friend every happiness."
But he could not drink his own pledge. He raised the gla.s.s to his lips, laid it down as if it were poison, rose, pressed the hand of Miss O"Reilly, and left us abruptly.
"Daisy," severely said Kate, "go up to your room." I obeyed, to spend another wretched night, not sleepless, but feverish dreams and sudden wakenings.
I did not go near Cornelius on the following day. Of this he took no notice, and again went out in the evening. I saw him depart with a sharp jealous pang. Ere long we heard him laughing next door.
"Just listen to him!" said Kate, smiling, "is he not enjoying himself!
G.o.d bless him! that boy always had a gay laugh. Ah! many"s the time, when, though I scarcely knew how to provide for the morrow, that laugh has made my heart light and hopeful--G.o.d bless him!"
On the next evening Miriam called. She entered the room quietly, sat down on the sofa, took a book from the table, looked listlessly over it, and spoke calmly as if nothing had occurred. Both she and Kate were more civil than cordial. Cornelius sat by Miss Russell. There was still a place vacant by him; it had always been mine; I took it and gently laid my head on his shoulder. As I did so, I met the glance of Miriam. She had not seen me until then: she started, turned pale, and, as if she resented that I, the weak sickly child, should still live, whilst her fair young sister lay cold in the grave, she said--
"How unwell that child looks!--but perhaps it is only because she is so sallow."
Childhood is fatally quick in catching the spirit of contest. I reddened, looked at her, and suddenly pressed my lips to the cheek of Cornelius, conscious this was more than she dare do.
"Be quiet, child!" he said a little impatiently.
I gave him a look of keen reproach; he did not heed it; his eyes were again bent on Miriam; he was again absorbed in her. The child whom he had petted and caressed evening after evening, for two years, was now forgotten as if she had never existed.
"Daisy," said Kate, "come and help me to wind this skein."
She saw my misery, and did this to give me a pretence to leave them; but I would not yield. As soon as the skein was wound, I returned to my place by Cornelius; for two hours I persisted in staying there, vainly striving to win a caress, a word, a look. Alas! he did not even know I was by him.
He was talking to Miriam of a new piece of music, and said--
"I shall tell Daisy to look it out for you to-morrow."
"Daisy is here," replied Miss Russell, "by you."
He turned round astonished, and exclaimed--
"Why, so she is!"
To be so near him and yet so far apart, was too great a torment. My heart swelled as if it would burst. Stung at his cruel indifference, I rose, and without looking back I went up to Kate, sat down on the lowly cushion at her feet, and thus silently relinquished the place which had been mine so long.
Miriam Russell was now acknowledged as the betrothed of Cornelius. She was twenty-six, and independent both in her means and in her actions. Her aunt declared "that she had made a very bad match, and that she was throwing herself away on a handsome, penniless Irishman, whose artful sister was at the bottom of it all."
This speech was repeated to Miss O"Reilly, and brought on a great coolness between her and her tenant. Kate resented especially the reflection on her brother. Without letting him know what suggested the remark, she observed to him in my presence--and it was the only comment on his engagement I ever heard her make--