"My Own,--Come to me now, at any time--when you please. Am I not yours?
Natalie."
Despite herself, she had to pause, to steady her hand--and because her heart was beating so fast that she felt choked--before she could properly address the envelope. Then she carried the letter to Anneli, who she knew was waiting outside. That done, she shut herself in again, to give herself time to think, though in truth she could scarcely think at all. For all sorts of emotions were struggling for the mastery of her--joy and a proud resolve distinctly predominant. It was done, and she would abide by it. She was not given to fear.
But she tried hard to think. At last her lover was coming to her; he would ask her what she was prepared to do: what would she answer?
Then, again, the joy of the thought that she was about to see him drove every other consideration out of her mind. How soon might he be here?
Hurriedly she went to a jar of flowers on the table, chose some scarlet geraniums, and turned to a mirror. Her haste did not avail much, for her fingers were still trembling: but that was the color he had said, on one occasion, suited her best. She had not been wearing flowers in her hair of late.
From time to time, for a second or so, some thought of her father intervened. But then her father had only enjoined her to dismiss forever the hope of her marrying the man to whom she had given her heart and her life: that could not prevent her loving him, and seeing him, and telling him that her love was his. She wished the geraniums were less rose-red and more scarlet in hue. It was the scarlet he had approved of--that evening that he and she the little Polish lady had dined together.
She had not long to wait. With a quick, intense consciousness she heard the hansom drive up, and the rapid knock that followed; her heart throbbed through the seconds of silence; then she knew that he was ascending the stair; then it seemed to her as if the life would go out of her altogether. But when he flung the door open and came toward her; when he caught her two hands in his--one hand in each hand--and held them tight; when, in a silence that neither cared to break, he gazed into her rapidly moistening eyes--then the full tide of joy and courage returned to her heart, and she was proud that she had sent him that answer. For some seconds--to be remembered during a life time--they regarded each other in silence; then he released her hands, and began to put back the hair from her forehead as if he would see more clearly into the troubled deeps of her eyes; and then, somehow--perhaps to hide her crying--she buried her face in his breast, and his arms were around her, and she was sobbing out all the story of her waiting and her despair.
"What!" said he, cheerfully, to calm and rea.s.sure her, "the brave Natalie to be frightened like that!"
"I was alone," she murmured. "I had no one to speak to; and I could not understand. Oh, my love, my love, you do not know what you are to me!"
He kissed her; her cheeks were wet.
"Natalie," said he in a low voice, "don"t forget this: we may be separated--that is possible--I don"t know; but if we live fifty years apart from each other--if you never hear one word more from me or of me--be sure of this, that I am thinking of you always, and loving you, as I do at this moment when my arms are around you. Will you remember that? Will you believe that--always?"
"I could not think otherwise," she answered. "But now that you are with me--that I can hear you speak to me--" And at this point her voice failed her altogether; and he could only draw her closer to him, and soothe and caress her, and stroke the raven-black hair that had never before thrilled his fingers with its soft, strange touch.
"Perhaps," she said at last, in a broken and hesitating voice, "you will blame me for having said what I have said. I have had no girl-companions; scarcely any woman to tell me what I should do and say.
But--but I thought you were going to America--I thought I should never see you again--I was lonely and miserable; and when I saw you again, how could I help saying I was glad? How could I help saying that, and more?--for I never knew it till now. Oh, my love, do you know that you have become the whole world to me? When you are away from me, I would rather die than live!"
"Natalie--my life!"
"I must say that to you--once--that you may understand--if we should never see each other again. And now--"
She gently released herself from his embrace, and went and sat down by the table. He took a chair near her and held her hand. She would not look up, for her eyes were still wet with tears.
"And now," she said, making a great effort to regain her self-control, "you must tell me about yourself. A woman may have her feelings and fancies, and cry over them when she is afraid or alone; that is nothing; it is the way of the world. It is a man"s fate that is of importance."
"You must not talk like that, Natalie," said he gravely. "Our fate is one. Without you, I don"t value my life more than this bit of geranium-leaf; with you, life would be worth having."
"And you must not talk like that either," she said. "Your life is valuable to others. Ah, my dear friend, that is what I have been trying to console myself with of late. I said, "Well, if he goes away and does not see me again, will he not be freer? He has a great work to do; he may have to go away from England for many years; why should he be enc.u.mbered with a wife?"
"It was your father, I presume, who made those suggestions to you?" said Brand, regarding her.
"Yes; papa said something like that," she answered, quite innocently.
"That is what would naturally occur to him; his work has always the first place in his thoughts. And with you, too; is it not so?"
"No."
She looked up quickly.
"I will be quite frank with you, Natalie. You have the first place in my thoughts; I hope you ever will have, while I am a living man. But cannot I give the Society all the work that is in me equally well, whether I love you or whether I don"t, whether you become my wife or whether you do not? I have no doubt your father has been talking to you as he has been talking to me."
She placed her disengaged hand on the top of his, and said, gently,
"My father perhaps does not quite understand you; perhaps he is too anxious. I, for one, am not anxious--about _that_. Do you know how I trust you, my dearest of friends? Sometimes I have said to myself, "I will ask him for a pledge. I will say to him that he must promise, that he must swear to me, that whatever happens as between him and me, nothing, nothing, nothing in all the world will induce him to give up what he has undertaken;" but then again I have said to myself, "No, I can trust him for that.""
"I think you may, Natalie," said he, rather absently. "And yet what could have led me to join such a movement but your own n.o.ble spirit--the glamour of your voice--the thanks of your eyes? You put madness into my blood with your singing."
"Do you call it madness?" she said, with a faint flush in the pale olive face. "Is it not rather kindness--is it not justice to others--the desire to help--something that the angels in heaven must feel when they look down and see what a great misery there is in the world?"
"I think you are an angel yourself, Natalie," said he, quite simply, "and that you have come down and got among a lot of people who don"t treat you too well. However, we must come to the present moment. You spoke of America; now what do you know about that?"
The abrupt question startled her. She had been so overjoyed to see him--her whole soul was so buoyant and radiant with happiness--that she had quite forgotten or dismissed the vague fears that had been of late besetting her. But she proceeded to tell him, with a little hesitation here and there, and with a considerable smoothing down of phrases, what her father had said to her. She tried to make it appear quite reasonable. And all she prayed for was that, if he were sent to America, if they had to part for many years, or forever, she should be permitted to say good-bye to him.
"We are not parted yet," said Brand, briefly.
The fact was, he had just got a new key to the situation. So that threat about America could serve a double purpose? He was now more than ever convinced that Ferdinand Lind was merely playing off and on with him until this money question should be settled; and that he had been resolved all the time that his daughter should not marry. He was beginning to understand.
"Natalie," said he, slowly, "I told you I had something to say to you.
You know your father wrote to me in the North, asking me neither to see you nor write to you until some matter between him and me was settled.
Well, I respected his wish until I should know what the thing was. Now that I do know, it seems to me that you are as much concerned as any one; and that it is not reasonable, it is not possible, I should refrain from seeing you and consulting you."
"No one shall prevent your seeing me, when it is your wish," said the girl, in a low voice.
"This, then, is the point: you know enough about the Society to understand, and there is no particular secret. Your father wishes me to enter the higher grade of officers, under the Council; and the first condition is that one surrenders up every farthing of one"s property."
"Yes?"
He stared at her. Her "Yes?"--with its affectionate interest and its absolute absence of surprise--was almost the exact equivalent of Lord Evelyn"s "Well?"
"Perhaps you would advise me to consent?" he said, almost in the way of a challenge.
"Ah, no," she said, with a smile. "It is not for me to advise on such things. What you decide for yourself, that will be right."
"But you don"t understand, my darling. Supposing I were ambitious of getting higher office, which I am not; supposing I were myself willing to sell my property to swell the funds of the Society--and I don"t think I should be willing in any case--do you think I would part with what ought to belong to my wife--to you, Natalie? Do you think I would have you marry a beggar--one dependent on the indulgence of people unknown to him?"
And now there was a look of real alarm on the girl"s face.
"Ah!" she said, quickly. "Is not that what my father feared? You are thinking of me when you should think of others. Already I--I--interfere with your duty; I tempt you--"
"My darling, be calm, be reasonable. There is no duty in the matter; your father acknowledges that himself. It is a proposal I am free to accept or reject, as I please; and now I promise you that, as you won"t give me any advice, I shall decide without thinking of you at all. Will that satisfy you?"
She remained silent for a second or two, and then she said thoughtfully,
"Perhaps you could decide just as if there were no possibility of my ever being your wife?"
"To please you, I will a.s.sume that too."
Then she said, after a bit,