Separated from each other, for years, by several hundred miles of uncultivated and untravelled forest, the brothers did not often meet; and the bonds of brotherhood waxed feebler and feebler, with the swift progress of successive years. Still, they corresponded, and in a tone and temper that seemed to answer for the existence of feelings, which neither, perhaps, would have been so forward as to a.s.sert warmly, if challenged to immediate answer. Suddenly, however, when young Ralph was somewhere about fifteen, his uncle expressed a wish to see him; and, whether through a latent and real affection, or a feeling of self-rebuke for previous neglect, he exacted from his brother a reluctant consent that the youth should dwell in his family, while receiving his education in a region then better prepared to bestow it with profit to the student. The two young cousins met in Georgia for the first time, and, after a brief summer journey together, in which they frequented the most favorite watering places, Ralph was separated from Edith, whom he had just begun to love with interest, and despatched to college.
The separation of the son from the father, however beneficial it might be to the former in certain respects of education, proved fatal to the latter. He had loved the boy even more than he knew; had learned to live mostly in the contemplation of the youth"s growth and development; and his absence preyed upon his heart, adding to his sense of defeat in fortune, and the loneliness and waste of his life. The solitude in which he dwelt, after the boy"s departure, he no longer desired to disturb; and he pined as hopelessly in his absence, as if he no longer had a motive or a hope to prompt exertion. He had antic.i.p.ated this, in some degree, when he yielded to his brother"s arguments and entreaties; but, conscious of the uses and advantages of education to his son, he felt the selfishness to be a wrong to the boy, which would deny him the benefits of that larger civilization, which the uncle promised, on any pretexts. A calm review of his own arguments against the transfer, showed them to be suggested by his own wants. With a manly resolution, therefore, rather to sacrifice his own heart, than deny to his child the advantages which were held out by his brother, he consented to his departure. The reproach of selfishness, which William Colleton had not spared, brought about his resolve; and with a labored cheerfulness he made his preparations, and accompanied the youth to Georgia, where his uncle had agreed to meet him. They parted, with affectionate tears and embraces, never to meet again. A few months only had elapsed when the father sickened. But he never communicated to his son, or brother, the secret of his sufferings and grief. Worse, he never sought relief in change or medicine; but, brooding in the solitude, gnawing his own heart in silence, he gradually pined away, and, in a brief year, he was gathered to his fathers. He died, like many similarly-tempered natures, of no known disorder!
The boy received the tidings with a burst of grief, which seemed to threaten his existence. But the sorrows of youth are usually short-lived, particularly in the case of eager, energetic natures. The exchange of solitude for the crowd; the emulation of college life; the sports and communion of youthful a.s.sociates--served, after a while, to soothe the sorrows of Ralph Colleton. Indeed, he found it necessary that he should bend himself earnestly to his studies, that he might forget his griefs. And, in a measure he succeeded; at least, he subdued their more fond expression, and only grew sedate, instead of pa.s.sionate. The bruises of his heart had brought the energies of his mind to their more active uses.
From fifteen to twenty is no very long leap in the history of youth. We will make it now, and place the young Ralph--now something older in mind as in body--returned from college, finely formed, intellectual, handsome, vivacious, manly, spirited, and susceptible--as such a person should be--once again in close intimacy with his beautiful cousin. The season which had done so much for him, had been no less liberal with her; and we now survey her, the expanding flower, all bloom and fragrance, a tribute of the spring, flourishing in the bosom of the more forward summer.
Ralph came from college to his uncle"s domicil, now his only home. The circ.u.mstances of his father"s fate and fortune, continually acting upon his mind and sensibilities from boyhood, had made his character a marked and singular one--proud, jealous, and sensitive, to an extreme which was painful not merely to himself, but at times to others. But he was n.o.ble, lofty, sincere, without a touch of meanness in his composition, above circ.u.mlocution, with a simplicity of character strikingly great, but without anything like puerility or weakness.
The children--for such, in reference to their experience, we may venture to call them--had learned to recognise in the progress of a very brief period but a single existence. Ralph looked only for Edith, and cared nothing for other sunlight; while Edith, with scarcely less reserve than her bolder companion, had speech and thought for few besides Ralph.
Circ.u.mstances contributed not a little to what would appear the natural growth of this mutual dependence. They were perpetually left together, and with few of those tacit and readily understood restraints, unavoidably accompanying the presence of others older than themselves.
Residing, save at few brief intervals, at the plantation of Colonel Colleton, they saw little and knew less of society; and the worthy colonel, not less ambitious than proud, having become a politician, had left them a thousand opportunities of intimacy which had now become so grateful to them both. Half of his time was taken up in public matters.
A leader of his party in the section of country in which he lived, he was always busy in the responsibilities imposed upon him by such a station; and, what with canva.s.sing at election-polls and muster-grounds, and dancing attendance as a silent voter at the halls of the state legislature, to the membership of which his const.i.tuents had returned him, he saw but little of his family, and they almost as little of him.
His influence grew unimportant with his wards, in proportion as it obtained vigor with his faction--was seldom referred to by them, and, perhaps, if it had been, such was the rapid growth of their affections, would have been but little regarded. He appeared to take it for granted, that, having provided them with all the necessaries called for by life, he had done quite enough for their benefit; and actually gave far less of his consideration to his own and only child than he did to his plantation, and the success of a party measure, involving possibly the office of doorkeeper to the house, or of tax-collector to the district.
The taste for domestic life, which at one period might have been held with him exclusive, had been entirely swallowed up and forgotten in his public relations; and entirely overlooking the fact, that, in the silent goings-on of time, the infantile will cease to be so, he never seemed to observe that the children whom he had brought together but a few years before might not with reason be considered children any longer.
Children, indeed! What years had they not lived--what volumes of experience in human affections and feelings had the influence and genial warmth of a Carolina sun not unfolded to their spirits--in the few sweet and uninterrupted seasons of their intercourse. How imperious were the dictates of that nature, to whose immethodical but honest teachings they had been almost entirely given up. They lived together, walked together, rode together--read in the same books, conned the same lessons, studied the same prospects, saw life through the common medium of mutual a.s.sociations; and lived happy only in the sweet unison of emotions gathered at a common fountain, and equally dear, and equally necessary to them both. And this is love--they loved!
They loved, but the discovery was yet to be made by them. Living in its purest luxuries--in the perpetual communion of the only one necessary object--having no desire and as little prospect of change--ignorant of and altogether untutored by the vicissitudes of life--enjoying the sweet a.s.sociation which had been the parent of that pa.s.sion, dependent now entirely upon its continuance--they had been content, and had never given themselves any concern to a.n.a.lyze its origin, or to find for it a name. A momentary doubt--the presages of a dim perspective--would have taught them better. Had there been a single moment of discontent in their lives at this period, they had not remained so long in such ignorance. The fear of its loss can alone teach us the true value of our treasure. But the discovery was at hand.
A pleasant spring afternoon in April found the two young people, Ralph and Edith--the former now twenty years of age, and the latter in the same neighborhood, half busied, half idle, in the long and s.p.a.cious piazza of the family mansion. They could not be said to have been employed, for Edith rarely made much progress with the embroidering needle and delicate fabric in her hands, while Ralph, something more absorbed in a romance of the day, evidently exercised little concentration of mind in scanning its contents. He skimmed, at first, rather than studied, the pages before him; conversing occasionally with the young maiden, who, sitting beside him, occasionally glanced at the volume in his hand, with something of an air of discontent that it should take even so much of his regard from herself. As he proceeded, however, in its perusal, the story grew upon him, and he became unconscious of her occasional efforts to control his attention. The needle of Edith seemed also disposed to avail itself of the aberrations of its mistress, and to rise in rebellion; and, having p.r.i.c.ked her finger more than once in the effort to proceed with her work while her eyes wandered to her companion, she at length threw down the gauzy fabric upon which she had been so partially employed, and hastily rising from her seat, pa.s.sed into the adjoining apartment.
Her departure was not attended to by her companion, who for a time continued his perusal of the book. No great while, however, elapsed, when, rising also from his seat with a hasty exclamation of surprise, he threw down the volume and followed her into the room where she sat pensively meditating over thoughts and feelings as vague and inscrutable to her mind, as they were clear and familiar to her heart. With a degree of warm impetuosity, even exaggerated beyond his usual manner, which bore at all times this characteristic, he approached her, and, seizing her hand pa.s.sionately in his, exclaimed hastily--
"Edith, my sweet Edith, how unhappy that book has made me!"
"How so, Ralph--why should it make you unhappy?"
"It has taught me much, Edith--very much, in the last half hour. It has spoken of privation and disappointment as the true elements of life, and has shown me so many pictures of society in such various situations, and with so much that I feel a.s.sured must be correct, that I am unable to resist its impressions. We have been happy--so happy, Edith, and for so many years, that I can not bear to think that either of us should be less so; and yet that volume has taught me, in the story of parallel fortunes with ours, that it may be so. It has given me a long lesson in the hollow economy of that world which men seek, and name society. It has told me that we, or I, at least, may be made and kept miserable for ever."
"How, Ralph, tell me, I pray you--how should that book have taught you this strange notion? Why? What book is it? That stupid story!" was the gasping exclamation of the astonished girl--astonished no less by the impetuous manner than the strong language of the youth; and, with the tenderest concern she laid her hand upon his arm, while her eyes, full of the liveliest interest, yet moistened with a tearful apprehension, were fixed earnestly upon his own.
"It is a stupid book, a very stupid book--a story of false sentiment, and of mock and artificial feelings, of which I know, and care to know, nothing. But it has told me so much that I feel is true, and that chimes in with my own experience. It has told me much besides, that I am glad to have been taught. Hear me then, dear Edith, and smile not carelessly at my words, for I have now learned to tremble when I speak, in fear lest I should offend you."
She would have spoken words of a.s.surance--she would have taught him to think better of her affections and their strength; but his impetuosity checked her in her speech.
"I know what you would say, and my heart thanks you for it, as if its very life depended upon the utterance. You would tell me to have no such fear; but the fear is a portion of myself now--it is my heart itself.
Hear me then, Edith--_my_ Edith, if you will so let me call you."
Her hand rested on his a.s.suringly, with a gentle pressure. He continued--
"Hitherto we have lived with each other, only with each other--we have loved each other, and I have almost only loved you. Neither of us, Edith (may I believe it of you?) has known much of any other affection. But how long is this to last? that book--where is it? but no matter--it has taught me that, now, when a few months will carry us both into the world, it is improper that our relationship should continue. It says we can not be the children any longer that we have been--that such intercourse--I can now perceive why--would be injurious to you. Do you understand me?"
The blush of a first consciousness came over the cheek of the maiden, as she withdrew her hand from his pa.s.sionate clasp.
"Ah! I see already," he exclaimed: "you too have learned the lesson. And is it thus--and we are to be happy no longer!"
"Ralph!"--she endeavored to speak, but could proceed no further, and her hand was again, silently and without objection, taken into the grasp of his. The youth, after a brief pause, resumed, in a tone, which though it had lost much of its impetuousness, was yet full of stern resolution.
"Hear me, Edith--but a word--a single word. I love you, believe me, dear Edith, I love you."
The effect of this declaration was scarcely such as the youth desired.
She had been so much accustomed to his warm admiration, indicated frequently in phrases such as these, that it had the effect of restoring to her much of her self-possession, of which the nature of the previous dialogue had a little deprived her; and, in the most natural manner in the world, she replied--perhaps too, we may add, with much of the artlessness of art--
"Why, to be sure you do, Cousin Ralph--it would be something strange indeed if you did not. I believe you love me, as I am sure you can never doubt how much you are beloved by me!"
"_Cousin_ Ralph--_Cousin_ Ralph!" exclaimed the youth with something of his former impetuosity, emphasizing ironically as he spoke the unfortunate family epithet--"Ah, Edith, you _will not_ understand me--nor indeed, an hour ago, should I altogether have understood myself.
Suddenly, dear Edith, however, as I read certain pa.s.sages of that book, the thought darted through my brain like lightning, and I saw into my own heart, as I had never been permitted to see into it before. I there saw how much I loved you--not as my cousin--not as my sister, as you sometimes would have me call you, but as I _will not_ call you again--but as--as--"
"As what?"
"As my _wife_, Edith--as my own, own wife!"
He clasped her hand in his, while his head sunk, and his lips were pressed upon the taper and trembling fingers which grew cold and powerless within his grasp.
What a volume was at that moment opened, for the first time, before the gaze and understanding of the half-affrighted and deep-throbbing heart of that gentle girl. The veil which had concealed its burning mysteries was torn away in an instant. The key to its secret places was in her hands, and she was bewildered with her own discoveries. Her cheeks alternated between the pale and crimson of doubt and hope. Her lips quivered convulsively, and an unbidden but not painful suffusion overspread the warm brilliance of her soft fair cheeks. She strove, ineffectually, to speak; her words came forth in broken murmurs; her voice had sunk into a sigh; she was dumb. The youth once more took her hand into his, as, speaking with a suppressed tone, and with a measured slowness which had something in it of extreme melancholy, he broke silence:--
"And have I no answer, Edith--and must I believe that for either of us there should be other loves than those of childhood--that new affections may usurp the place of old ones--that there may come a time, dear Edith, when I shall see an arm, not my own, about your waist; and the eyes that would look on no prospect if you were not a part of it, may be doomed to that fearfullest blight of beholding your lips smiling and pressed beneath the lips of another?"
"Never, oh never, Ralph! Speak no more, I beseech you, in such language.
You do me wrong in this--I have no such wish, no such thought or purpose. I do not--I could not--think of another, Ralph. I will be yours, and yours only--if you really wish it."
"If I wish! Ah! dear Edith, you are mine, and I am yours! The world shall not pa.s.s between us."
She murmured--
"Yours, Ralph, yours only!"
He caught her in his pa.s.sionate embrace, even as the words were murmured from her lips. Her head settled upon his shoulder; her light brown hair, loosened from the comb, fell over it in silky ma.s.ses. Her eyes closed, his arms still encircled her, and the whole world was forgotten in a moment;--when the door opened, and a third party entered the room in the person of Colonel Colleton.
Here was a catastrophe!
CHAPTER IV.
A RUPTURE--THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.
Colonel Colleton stood confounded at the spectacle before him. Filled with public affairs, or rather, with his own affairs in the public eye, he had grown totally heedless of ordinary events, household interests, and of the rapid growth and development of those pa.s.sions in youth which ripen quite as fervently and soon in the shade as in the sun. These children--how should they have grown to such a stature! His daughter, at this moment, seemed taller than he had ever seen her before! and Ralph!--as the uncle"s eyes were riveted upon the youth, he certainly grew more than ever erect and imposing of look and stature. The first glance which he gave to the scene, did not please the young man. There was something about the expression of the uncle"s face, which seemed to the nephew to be as supercilious, as it certainly was angry. Proud, jealous of his sensibilities, the soul of the youth rose in arms, at the look which annoyed him. That Edith"s father should ever disapprove of his pa.s.sion for his cousin, never once entered the young man"s brain. He had not, indeed, once thought upon the matter. He held it to be a thing of course that the father would welcome a union which promised to strengthen the family bond, and maintain the family name and blood in perpetuity. When, therefore, he beheld, in his uncle"s face, such an expression of scorn mixed with indignation, he resented it with the fervor of his whole soul. He was bewildered, it is true, but he was also chafed, and it needed that he should turn his eyes to the sweet cause of his offence, before he could find himself relieved of the painful feelings which her father"s look and manner had occasioned him.
Poor Edith had a keener sense of the nature of the case. Her instincts more readily supplied the means of knowledge. Besides, there were certain family matters, which the look of her father suddenly recalled--which had never been suffered to reach the ears of her cousin;--which indicated to her, however imperfectly, the possible cause of that severe and scornful expression of eye, in the uncle, which had so confounded the nephew. She looked, with timid pleading to her father"s face, but dared not speak.
And still the latter stood at the entrance, silent, sternly scanning the young offenders, just beginning to be conscious of offence. A surprise of any kind is exceedingly paralyzing to young lovers, caught in a situation like that in which our luckless couple were found on this occasion. It is probable, that, but for this, Ralph Colleton would scarcely have borne so meekly the severe look which the father now bestowed upon his daughter.
Though not the person to trouble himself much at any time in relation to his child, Colonel Colleton had never once treated her unkindly. Though sometimes neglectful, he had never shown himself stern. The look which he now gave her was new to all her experience. The poor girl began to conceive much more seriously of her offence than ever;--it seemed to spread out unimaginably far, and to involve a thousand violations of divine and human law. She could only look pleadingly, without speech, to her father. His finger silently pointed her to withdraw.