At last Colburne gave Mrs. Carter a bouquet. It was a more significant act than the reader who loves flowers will perceive without an explanation. Fond as he was of pets and of most things which are, or stand as emblems of innocence, he cared very little for flowers except as features of a landscape. He was conscious of a gratification in walking along a field path which ran through dandelions, b.u.t.tercups, etc.; but he never would have thought of picking one of them for his own pleasure any more than of picking a maple tree. In short, he was deficient in that sense which makes so many people crave their presence, and could probably have lived in a flowerless land without any painful sentiment of barrenness. Therefore it was only a profound and affectionate study into Mrs. Carter"s ways and tastes which brought him to the point of buying and bringing to her a bouquet.
He was actually surprised at the flush of pleasure with which she received it: a pleasure evidently caused in great measure by the nature of the gift itself; and only in small part, he thought, by a consciousness of the motives of the giver. He watched her with great interest while she gaily filled a vase with water, put the bouquet in it, placed it on the mantel piece, stepped back to look at it, then set it on her work-table, took in the effect once more, drew a pleased sigh and resumed her seat. Her Diana-like, graceful form showed to advantage in the plain black dress, and her wavy blonde hair seemed to him specially beautiful in its contrast with her plain widow"s cap. Youth with its health and hope had brought back the rounded outlines which at one time had been a little wasted by maternity and sorrow. Her white and singularly clear skin had resumed its soft roseate tint and could show as distinctly as ever the motions of the quickly-stirred blood. Her blue eyes, if not as gay as they were four years ago were more eloquent of experience, thought, and feeling. Mr. Colburne must be pardoned for thinking that she was more beautiful than the bouquet, and for wondering how she could prize a loveliness so much inferior in grace and expression to her own.
"Do you know?" she said, and then checked herself. She was about to remind him that these were the first flowers which he ever gave her, and to laugh at him good-humoredly for having been so slow in divining one of her pa.s.sions. But the idea struck her that the gift might be, for the very reason of its novelty, too significant to be a proper subject for her comments.
"Do you know," she continued, after a scarcely perceptible hesitation, "that I am not so fond of flowers as I was once? They remind me of Louisiana, and I--don"t love Louisiana."
"But this is thanking you very poorly for your present," she added, after another and longer pause. "You know that I am obliged to you.
Don"t you?"
"I do," said Colburne. He had been many times repaid for his offering by seeing the pains which she took to preserve it and place it to the best advantage.
"It is very odd to me, though, that you never seemed to love them," she observed, reverting to her first thought.
"It is my misfortune. I have a pleasure the less. It is like not having an ear for music."
"How can you love poetry without loving flowers?"
"I knew a sculptor once who couldn"t find the slightest charm or the slightest exhibition of capacity in an opera. I had a soldier in my company who could see perfectly well by daylight, but was stone blind by moonlight. That is the way some of us are made. We are but partially developed or, rather, not developed equally in all directions. My aesthetic self seems to be lacking in b.u.t.ton-holes for bouquets. If I could carry a landscape about in my hand, I think I would; but not a bunch of flowers."
"But you love children; and they are flowers."
"Ah! but they are so human! They make a noise; they appreciate you comprehensibly; they go after a fellow."
So you like people who go after you? thought Mrs. Carter, smiling to herself at the confession. Somehow she was interested in and pleased with the minutest peculiarities of Mr. Colburne.
From that day forward her work table rarely lacked a bouquet, although her friend"s means, after paying his board bill, were not by any means ample. In fact there soon came to be two bouquets, representing rival admirers of the lady. Young Whitewood, who loved flowers, and had a greenhouse full of them, but had never hitherto dared present one to the pretty widow, took courage from Colburne"s example, and far exceeded him in the sumptuousness of his offerings. By the way, I must not neglect this shy gentleman"s claims to a place in my narrative. He was a prominent figure of evenings in the Ravenel parlor, and did a great deal of talking there on learned subjects with the Doctor, sitting the while on the edge of his chair, with his thin legs twisted around each other in such a way as to exhibit with painful distinctness their bony outlines. Each of these young men was considerably afraid of the other.
Colburne recognized the fact that a fortune of eighty thousand dollars would be a very suitable adjunct to Mrs. Carter"s personal and social graces, and that it would be perfectly proper in her to accept it if offered, as it seemed likely to be. Whitewood bowed modestly to Colburne"s superior conversational cleverness, and humbled himself in the dust before his honorable fame as a soldier. What was he, a man of peace, a patriot who had only talked and paid, in comparison with this other man who had shed his blood and risked his life for their common country and the cause of human progress? So when the Captain talked to Mrs. Carter, the tutor contented himself with Doctor Ravenel. He was painfully conscious of his own stiffness and coldness of style, and mourned over it, and envied the ease and warmth of these southerners. To this subject he frequently alluded, driven thereto by a sort of agony of conviction; for the objective Whitewood imperfectly expressed the subjective, who thought earnestly and felt ardently.
"I don"t understand," he said mournfully, "why people of the same blood should be so different--in fact, so opposed--in manner, as are the northerners and southerners."
"The difference springs from a radical difference of purpose in their lives," said the Doctor. "The pro-slavery South meant oligarchy, and imitated the manners of the European n.o.bility. The democratic North means equality--every man standing on his own legs, and not bestriding other men"s shoulders--every man pa.s.sing for just what he is, and no more. It means honesty, sincerity, frankness, in word as well as deed.
It means general hard work, too, in consequence of which there is less chance to cultivate the graces. The polish of the South is superficial and semi-barbarous, like that of the Poles and all other slaveholding oligarchies. I confess, however, that I should like to see a little more sympathy and expansion in the northern manners. A native, untravelled New Bostonian is rather too much in the style of an iceberg. He is enough to cause atmospheric condensation and changes of temperature. It is a story that when a new Yankee arrives in the warm air of Louisiana, there is always a shower. But that, you know, is an exaggeration."
Whitewood laughed in a disconcerted, conscience-stricken manner.
"Nevertheless, they do a vast deal of good," continued the Doctor. "They purify as well as disturb the atmosphere. To me, a southerner, it is a humiliating reflection, that, but for these Yankees and their cold moral purity, we should have established a society upon the basis of the most horrible slavery that the world has known since the days of pagan Rome."
Whitewood glanced at Mrs. Carter. She smiled acquiescence and sympathy; her conversion from secession and slavery was complete.
All this while Colburne boarded at the New Boston House, and saw the Doctor and Mrs. Carter and Ravvie every day. When they went down to the sea-sh.o.r.e for a week during the hot weather, he could not leave his business to accompany them, as he wished, but must stay in New Boston, feeling miserably lonesome of evenings, although he knew hundreds of people in the little city. It was an aggravation of his troubles to learn that Mr. Whitewood had followed the Ravenels to the watering-place. When the family returned, still accompanied by the eighty thousand dollar youth, Colburne looked very searchingly into the eyes of Mrs. Carter to discover if possible what she had been doing with herself. She noticed it, and blushed deeply, which puzzled and troubled him through hours of subsequent meditation. If they were engaged, they would certainly tell me, thought he; but nevertheless he was not entirely easy about the matter.
It happened the next evening that he lounged into one of the small parlors of the hotel, intending to pa.s.s out upon a little front balcony and look at the moonlit, elm-arched glories of the Common. A murmur of two voices--a male voice and a female--came in from the balcony and checked his advance. As he hesitated young Whitewood entered the room through the open window, hastily followed a moment afterward by Mrs.
Carter.
"Mr. Whitewood, please say nothing about this," she whispered. "Of course you will not. I never shall."
"Certainly, not," replied the young man. The tone in which he spoke was so low that Colburne could detect no expression in it, whether of despondency or triumph. Entering as they did from the moonlight into a room which had been left unlighted in order to keep out summer insects, neither of them perceived the involuntary listener. Whitewood went out by the door, and Mrs. Carter returned to the balcony. In order that the reader may be spared the trouble of turning over a few pages here, I will state frankly that the young man had proposed and been refused, and that Mrs. Carter had begged him not to let the affair get abroad because--well, because a sudden impulse came over her to do just that, whether it concerned her or not to keep the secret.
Colburne remained alone, in such an agony of anxiety as he had not believed himself capable of feeling. All the stoicism which he had learned by forced marches, starvations, and battles was insufficient, or was not of the proper kind, to sustain him comfortably under the torture inflicted by his supposed discovery. The Rachel whom he had waited for more than four years was again lost to him. But was she lost? asked the hope that never dies in us. It was not positively certain; words and situations may have different meanings; his rival did not seem much elated. He would ask Mrs. Carter what the scene meant, and learn his fate at once. She would not keep the secret from him when he should tell her the motives which induced him to question her. Whether she refused him or not, whether she was or was not engaged to another, he would of course be entirely frank with her, only regretting that he had not been so before. He was whole-souled enough, he had learned at least this much of self-abnegation, not to try to save his vanity in such a matter as loving for life. As the most loveable woman that he had ever known, it was due to her that she should be informed that his heart was at her command, no matter what she might do with it. The feeling of the moment was a grand one, but not beyond the native power of his character, although three years ago he had not been sufficiently developed to be capable of it.
He stepped to the window, pushed apart the long damask curtains and stood by her side.
"Oh! Is it you!" she exclaimed. "You quite startled me." Then, after a moment"s hesitation, "When did you come in?"
"I was in the room three minutes ago," he answered, and paused to draw a long breath. "Tell me, Mrs. Carter," he resumed, "what is it that Mr.
Whitewood is to keep secret?"
"Mr. Colburne!" she replied, full of astonishment that he should put such a question.
"I did not overhear intentionally," he went on. "I did not hear much, and I wish to know more than I heard."
Mr. Colburne was master of the situation, although he was not aware of it. Surprise was the least of Lillie"s emotions; she was quite overwhelmed by her lover"s presence, and by the question which he put to her; she could not have declared truly at the moment that her soul was altogether her own.
"Oh, Mr. Colburne! I cannot tell you," was all she could say, and that in a whisper.
She would have told him all, if he had insisted, but he did not. He had manliness enough, he was sufficiently able to affront danger and suffering, to say what was in his own heart, without knowing what had pa.s.sed between her and his rival. He stood silent a moment, pondering, not over his purpose, but as to what his words should be. Then flashed across him a suspicion of the truth, that Whitewood had made his venture and met with shipwreck. A wave of strong hope seemed to lift him over reefs of doubt, and shook him so, like a ship trembling on a billow, that for an instant longer he could not speak. Just then Rosann"s recognizable Irish voice was heard, calling, "Mrs. Carter! Mrs. Carter!
Might I spake t" ye?"
"What is it?" asked Lillie, stepping by Colburne into the parlor. Ravvie was cutting a double tooth, was feverish and fretful, and she had been anxious about him.
"Ma"am, I"d like t" have ye see the baby. I"m thinkin" he ought t" have somethin" done for "m. He"s mightily worried."
"Please excuse me, Mr. Colburne," said the mother, and ran up stairs.
Thus it happened that Lillie unintentionally evaded the somewhat remarkable and humiliating circ.u.mstance of receiving two declarations of love, two offers of marriage, in a single evening. She did not, however, know precisely what it was that she had escaped; and, moreover, she did not at first think much about it, except in a very fragmentary and unsatisfactory manner; for Ravvie soon went into convulsions and remained in a precarious condition the whole night, absorbing all her time and attention. Of course he had his gums lanced, and his chubby feet put in hot water, and medicine poured down his patient throat. In the morning he was so comfortable that his mother went to bed and slept till noon. When she awoke and found Ravvie quite recovered, and had kissed his cheeks, his dimpled neck, and the fat collops in his legs a hundred times or so, and called him her own precious, and her dearest darling, and her sweet little man at every kiss, she began to dress herself and to think of Mr. Colburne, and of his unexplained anxieties to say--what? She went tremulously to dinner, blushing scarlet after her sensitive manner as she entered the dining-room, but quite unnecessarily, inasmuch as he was not at table. She could not say whether she was most relieved or annoyed by his unexpected absence. It is worthy of record that before tea-time she had learned through some roundabout medium, (Rosann and the porter, I fear,) that Mr. Colburne had been summoned to New York by a telegram and was not expected back for a day or two. Her father was away on a mineralogical hunt, unearthing burrows and warrens of Smithites and Brownites. Thus she had plenty of opportunity for reflection, and she probably employed it as well as most young women would under similar circ.u.mstances, but, of course, to no purpose at all so far as concerned taking any action. In such matters a woman can do little more than sit still while others transact her history. She was under the spell: it was not she who would control her own fate: it was Mr. Colburne. She was ashamed and almost angry to find that she was so weak; she declared that it was disgraceful to fall in love with a man who had not yet told her plainly that he loved her; but all her shame, and anger, and declarations could not alter the stubborn fact. She would never own it to any one else, but she was obliged to confess it to herself, although the avowal made her cry with vexation. She had to remember, too, that it was not quite two years and a half since she was married, and not quite eighteen months since she had become a widow. She walked through a valley of humiliation, very meek in spirit, and yet, it must be confessed, not very unhappy. At times she defended herself, asking the honest and rational question, How could she help loving this man? He had been so faithful and delicate, he was so brave and n.o.ble, that she wondered that every woman who knew him did not adore him. And then, as she thought of his perfections, she went tremblingly back to the inquiry, Did he love her? He had not gone so far as to say it, or anything approaching to it; and yet he surely would not have asked her what had pa.s.sed between another man and herself unless he meant to lay bare to her his inmost heart; she knew that he was too generously delicate to demand such a confidence except with a most serious and tender purpose. She did not indeed suppose that he would have gone on then to say everything that he felt for her; for it did not seem to her that any one moment which she could fix upon would be great enough for such a revelation. But it would have come in time, if she had answered him suitably; it might come yet, if she had not offended him, and if he did not meet some one whom he should see to be more desirable. _Had_ she offended him by her manner, or by what she had said, or failed to say? Oh, how easy it is to suspect that those whom we love are vexed with us! If it should be so that she had given him cause of anger, how could she make peace with him without demeaning herself?
Well, let the worst come to the worst, there was her boy who would always be faithful and loving. She kissed him violently and repeatedly, but could not keep a tear or two from falling on him, although why they were shed the child could have explained as rationally as she.
Of all these struggles Colburne knew nothing and guessed nothing. He too had his yearnings and anxieties, although he did not express them by kissing anything or crying upon anything. He was sternly fearful lest he was losing all-important moments, and he attended to his business in New York as energetically as he would have stormed a battery. Had he offended Mrs. Carter? Had Whitewood succeeded, or failed, or not tried?
He could not answer any of these questions, but he was in a fury to get back to New Boston.
Lillie trembled when she heard his knock upon the door at eight o"clock that evening. She knew it was his by instinct; she had known it two or three times during the day when it was only a servant"s; but at last she was right in her divination. She was trying at the moment to write a letter to her father, with the door open into her bed-room, where Ravvie sat under the benign spectacles of Rosann. In answer to her "Come in,"
Colburne entered, looking pale with want of sleep, for he had worked nights and travelled days.
"I am so glad you have come back," she said in her frank way.
"And I am so glad to get back," he replied, dropping wearily into an easy chair. "When does your father return?"
"I don"t know. He told me to write to him at Springfield until I got word to stop."
Colburne was pleased; the Doctor would not be at home for a day or two; that would give him other opportunities in case this one should result in a failure. The little parlor looked more formidable than the balcony, and the glare of the gas was not so encouraging as the mellow moonlight.
He did not feel sure how he should be able to speak here, where she could see every working of his countenance. He did not know that from the moment he began to speak of the subject which filled his heart she would not be able to look him in the face until after she had promised to be his altogether and forever.
Women always will talk at such times. They seem to dread to be caught, and to know that silence is a dangerous trap for the feelings; and consequently they prattle about anything, no matter what, provided the prattle will prolong the time during which the hunter is in chase.
"You look quite worn out with your journey," she said. "I should think you had made a forced march to New York and back on foot."
"I have been under the necessity of working nights," he answered, without telling her that it was the desire to return as quickly as possible to her which had const.i.tuted the forcing power.