As he reached them he turned round and glanced carelessly toward the two girls. For one instant his face was turned fully toward them, the next he was whirling away out of sight.
"Oh, how handsome! oh, isn"t he beautiful?" exclaimed Maggie, clasping her hands enthusiastically; "such splendid eyes, and such a pale, handsome face, and such a glorious driver. My! how I would like to be in that sleigh with him. I would--wouldn"t you, Miss Randall?"
She turned to Georgia, and fairly leaped off the fence in amazement to see her standing rigid and motionless, with wildly distended eyes and white, startled face, gazing after the object of Maggie"s admiration.
"Why, Miss Randall! Miss Randall!" said Maggie, catching her arms, "what"s the matter? Do you know him?"
"Let us go back, Miss Leonard," said Georgia, pa.s.sing her hand over her eyes as if to dispel some wild vision.
Know him! Yes, as if they had parted but yesterday. Could Georgia forget Charley Wildair?
CHAPTER XIX.
DESOLATION.
"And the stately ships go on To the haven under the hill, But oh for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still."
TENNYSON.
All that night Georgia"s thoughts ran in a new direction--Charley Wildair. Yes, she had been face to face with the living, breathing friend of her childhood once more. The mystery that surrounded him rose up in her mind, and again she found herself wondering what he had done, what crime he had committed. Evening after evening she walked out in the same place, in the hope of seeing him again, when she was determined to speak to him at all hazards; but in vain; he came not, no one knew, or could tell her anything of him who had pa.s.sed that evening. As day after day wore on, she began to regard his appearance almost in the light of an apparition--something her disordered imagination had conjured up to mock her, and at last even the hope of seeing him again, faded away.
And so a month pa.s.sed on. Oh! that dreary, endless, monotonous month, with nothing but the dull routine of the school-room day after day.
There were times when Georgia would start wildly up, feeling as though she were going mad; and evening after evening, when the last lesson was said, she would throw her shawl over her shoulders and hurry out into the cold wintry weather, and walk and walk for miles with dizzy rapidity, to cool the fever in her blood. Night after night, when, unable to lie tossing on her bed, she would spring up, and, heedless of the freezing air, pace her room till morning. The wild fire in her eye, even in the presence of others, bespoke the consuming fever in her veins that seemed drying up the very source of life in her heart. Had she been leading some exciting, turbulent life, it would have been better for her; but this stagnant monotony seemed in a fair way of making her a maniac before long. There were times when her very soul would cry out with pa.s.sionate yearning for what she had lost--times when an uncontrollable impulse to fly, fly, far away from this place, to search over the world for him she had left, and, in spite of all that had pa.s.sed, to cling to him forever, would seize her, and she would struggle and wrestle with the fierce desire until, from very bodily weakness, she would sink down in a very stupor of despair.
It seemed to her as if a dark doom had been hanging over her from childhood and had fallen at last--a widow in fate though not in fact, an outcast from all the world, and almost with the brand of murder on her brow. But oh, if she had sinned, was not the expiation heavier than it deserved? A life of desolation, a death uncheered by a single friendly face, to live forgotten and die forlorn, _that_ was her doom. Poor Georgia! what wonder that, frenzied and despairing, the cry of her heart should be, "My punishment is heavier than I can bear."
The Leonards hardly knew what to make of Georgia. Mr. Leonard looked pityingly on the white face, so eloquent of wrong and misery, and expressed his opinion that she had come through more than people thought. Mrs. Leonard was rather puzzled about the young governess; when in her wild paroxysms she would hear startling legends of her walking through frost and snow for miles together, and would hear a quick, rapid footstep pacing up and down, up and down her chamber the livelong night, and would see the wild, lurid fire in her great black eyes, she would give it as her opinion that Miss Randall was not quite right in her mind; but when this mood would pa.s.s away, and reaction would follow, and when she would note the slow, weary step and pallid cheeks, and spiritless eyes, and lifeless movements, she would retract, and say she really did not know what to make of her.
Miss Felice snappishly said it was all affectation; the governess wanted to be odd, and mysterious, and interesting; and if she was her father she would put an end to her long walks, or know why. But these little remarks were prudently made when Georgia was not listening; for if the truth must be told, Miss Leonard stood more than slightly in awe of the dark, majestic, melancholy governess. Miss Maggie declared it was "funny," but she rather liked Georgia, though after the first week or two she voted her "awful tiresome, worse than Felice," and left her pretty much to herself. Her pupils liked her, but were rather afraid of her in her dark moods, and, like the rest of the household, stood considerably in awe of her, wrapped as she was in her dark mantle of unvarying gloom.
During this first month of her stay, Georgia had spoken to no one but the household. Visitors there were almost every day, but Georgia always fled at their approach, and both the Misses Leonard, conscious of her superior beauty, had no desire to be eclipsed by their queenly dependent, and were quite willing she should be invisible on these occasions. Since she had heard d.i.c.k Curtis was a friend of the family, she had dreaded the approach of every stranger, and always sent some excuse for not appearing at table at such times. Therefore, sometimes whole days would pa.s.s without her leaving her own room and the school-room.
As the children"s study only comprised five hours each day, Georgia had a great deal of spare time to herself. This she had hitherto spent either in her long, wild walks or in her dark reveries; but now, of late, a new inspiration had seized her.
One day, to amuse little Jennie, she had seized her pencil and drawn her portrait, and the drawing proved to be so life-like that the whole family were in transports. The Misses Leonard immediately made a simultaneous rush for the school-room, and overwhelmed Georgia with praises of her talent, and pleadings to sketch theirs, too. And Georgia, feeling a sort of happiness in pleasing them, readily promised. The drawings were commenced and finished, and Georgia had unconsciously idealized and rendered them so perfectly lovely, yet so true to the originals, that they, in their ecstatic admiration, insisted that they should be perpetuated in oil. Finding the occupation so absorbing and so congenial, Georgia willingly consented, and sittings were appointed every day until the portraits were finished. And finished they were at last, and set in gorgeous frames, and with eyes sparkling with delight, the Misses Leonard saw themselves, or rather their etherialized counterfeits, hanging in splendor on the drawing-room walls, and calling forth the most enthusiastic praises of the unknown artist"s skill from their guests, for Georgia had only painted them on condition that no one was to be told.
Then she voluntarily offered to paint Mr. and Mrs. Leonard and the three children, and at Jennie"s earnest desire, her little tortoise-sh.e.l.l kitten was seduced into sitting still long enough to be taken too. This last was a labor of love, for, strangely enough, it brought back softened thoughts of the happy days spent in romping through the cottage by the sea with Betsey Periwinkle.
And a faint, sad, dreary smile broke over Georgia"s face as she painted the little blinking animal, and thought of all the old a.s.sociations it called forth. It brought back Miss Jerusha, and little Emily Murray--dear little Emily Murray, whose memory always came to her like the soft sweet music of an Eolian harp amid the repose of a storm. She wondered vaguely if _they_ missed her much, and what they would think of her flight, and whether they would shudder in horror when they heard what she had done, or whether they would think lovingly of her still.
"Some day, when they hear I am dead, perhaps they will forgive me and love me again," she thought, with something of the simplicity of the _child_ Georgia, as a gentler feeling came to her heart than had visited it for many a day. Somehow, Emily"s memory always did soften her and bring back a gentler mood. In her wildest storms of anguish and remorse, in the darkest hour of her desolation, that sweet, calm, holy young face, with its serene brow and seraphic blue eyes, would arise and exorcise her gloom, and leave her calmer, softer feeling behind.
One day, on the occasion of Mrs. Leonard"s birthday, the children had a holiday, and Georgia was left to herself. Seating herself at the window, she began to draw faces from memory. The first was a long, angular one, with projecting bones and sharp features, sunken eyes, and thin, compressed lips, the hair drawn tightly back and gathered in an uncompromising hard knot behind. An intelligent, dignified-looking cat sat composedly at her feet, deeply absorbed in thought. Any one could recognize, in these portraits, Miss Jerusha and our old friend Betsey Periwinkle.
"Dear Miss Jerusha! dear, good friend!" murmured Georgia, softly, as she gazed at the picture. "I wonder will I ever see you again. I wonder if you have grieved for my loss, and if you ever, these wild, stormy nights, think of your lost Georgey. Dear Miss Jerusha, may Heaven reward you for your kindness to the poor orphan girl."
The next was a fairer face, a small head set on an arching neck; a low, smooth, childish brow; small, regular, dainty features; sweet, wondering, wistful eyes; a little dimpled chin, and softly smiling lips, just revealing the pearly teeth within. It might have been the face of an angel had it not been Emily Murray"s, spiritualized, as everything Georgia"s magic pencil touched was. Such a lovely, child-like, innocent face as it was, smiling up from the paper with such a look of heavenly calm and serenity, that no breath of worldly pa.s.sion had ever disturbed.
"Oh, dear little Emily! dear little Emily!" said Georgia, in a trembling voice. "My good angel! if I had only been like you. Calm, peaceful, happy little Emily! what will you think of me when you hear what I have done."
She hesitated a moment before she commenced the next, and then, as if a sudden inspiration had seized her, she rapidly began to sketch. Soon there appeared a n.o.ble, intellectual-looking head--a high, broad, princely brow--square eyebrows, meeting across the strongly marked nose--large, strong, earnest eyes--a fine resolute mouth, and square, resolute chin. Heavy waves of dark hair were shaken carelessly off the n.o.ble forehead, and it needed nothing now but the thick dark mustache, and the calm, handsome, kingly face of Richmond Wildair looked at her from the paper. In the seemingly fathomless eyes there shone a look of sorrowful reproach, and a sort of sad sternness pervaded the whole face.
The very lips seemed to part and say, "oh, Georgia, what have you done?"
and with a great cry of "oh, Richmond! Richmond! Richmond!" she flung down her pencil, then threw herself on her face on the couch, and for the first time in years, for the first time almost since she could remember, she wept, wept long, pa.s.sionately, and bitterly.
It was a strange thing to see this stone-like Georgia weep. In all her misery she had shed no tears; in her stormy childhood she had wept not, and the tears of childhood are an easily flowing spring; yet now she lay, and wept, and sobbed, wildly, pa.s.sionately, vehemently, wept for hours, until the very source of her tears seemed dried up, and would flow no longer.
And from that day Georgia grew calmer and more rational than she had ever been before. It was strange the consolation she derived from these "counterfeit presentments" of those she loved, and yet it was so. For hours she would sit gazing at them, and sometimes she would fancy Emily"s smiling lips seemed saying, "Hope on, Georgia! before morning dawns night is ever darkest."
The Leonards, grateful for being made such handsome people, were quite solicitous in their efforts to make the governess comfortable. Georgia had a heart easily won by kindness, and as time pa.s.sed on, she seemed, for the present at least, to grow reconciled to her lot. Perhaps the secret of this was that she had begun an achievement that had long been in her thoughts, and in which she was so completely absorbed as to be for a time quite insensible to outward things. This was a large painting of Hagar in the Wilderness, a wild, weird thing, on which she worked night and day in a fever of enthusiasm.
Had any one seen her, in the still, mystic watches of the night, bending over her easel, her dark hair flowing behind her, her wild eyes blazing, her whole face inspired--they might have taken her for the very genius of art descended on earth. She scarcely knew what was her design in painting this; probably, at the time, she had none, but a love of the work itself--a love that increased to a perfect fever, as it grew under her brush. None of the family knew aught of it, and they puzzled themselves in vain wondering what she could be doing to keep a light burning so late every night.
It was drawing toward the close of February that the severest snow storm that they had during the season fell. For nearly a week it raged with unceasing violence, and several gentlemen and ladies from the city were storm-bound at Mr. Leonard"s. During their stay, Georgia, as usual, absented herself from the table and drawing-room, and the young ladies were so busy with their guests that even Miss Maggie found no time to visit her. Georgia did not regret this circ.u.mstance, as it gave her more time to devote to her painting, and secured her from interruption.
One wild, snowy evening, when it was too dark to paint and too soon to light the lamp, Georgia pa.s.sed from her room and walked swiftly in the direction of the library in search of a book. She knew the library was seldom visited, especially in the evening, when other amus.e.m.e.nts ruled the hour, and so, not fearing detection, she went in, found the book she was in search of, and, seating herself within a deep bay-window, drew the crimson damask curtains close, and thus shut in on one side by red drapery and on the other by the clear gla.s.s, through which she could watch the drifting snow, she began to read.
It was a volume of poems by W. D. Randall, the young poet, whose fame was already resounding through the land. Such a sweet, dreamy, delicious volume as it was! Fascinated, absorbed, Georgia strained her eyes, and read and read on as long as one ray of light remained, unable to tear herself away from the enchanted pages, and feeling as if she were transported to some Arcadia, some fairy-land, by the magic power of the poet"s pen.
At last it grew too dark to read another word, and then she closed the book and fell into a reverie of--the author. She knew he was a visitor at the house, and for once her curiosity was strongly excited. She resolved to see him. She would make Maggie point him out the next time he came, and see for herself what manner of man this young genius was.
There had been a steel portrait of him in the book, but Miss Felice had carefully cut it out and preserved it for her own private use, as something not to be profaned by vulgar eyes, to the violent indignation of Miss Maggie.
While she still sat musing dreamily, she was startled by hearing the door flung open, and then a gleam of light flashed through the curtain.
Hoping it might be some servant to light the gas, she glanced out between the folds and saw Miss Felice herself, standing beside a tall, handsome, distinguished-looking young man. Retreat was now out of the question. Georgia would not have encountered the stranger for worlds, lest he should happen to recognize her; and, trusting they only came for a book and would soon go away again, she resolved to sit still.
"And so you will translate "Undine" for me, Mr. Randall," said Miss Felice, whose dress was perfection, and whose face was quite brilliant with smiles. "Oh, that will be charming. The children"s governess teaches German, but I never could get her to read Undine."
This, then, was the poet. At any other time she would have become completely absorbed in looking at him, but the mention of "Undine" sent a pang to her heart, and she sank back in her seat and bowed her face in her hands. The sweet, sorrowful story of the German poet seemed so like her own--she was the Undine, Freddy Richmond was the base, designing Bertalda, and Huldbrand--oh, no, no! Richmond was not like him.
"It is a lovely tale. You do well to learn German, Miss Leonard, if only for the sake of reading "Undine" in the original," said Mr. Randall.
"I have something else that is lovely here," said Miss Leonard, looking arch.
"Yes--yourself," said Mr. Randall.
"No, no; of course not--W. D. Randall"s poems."
"And you call that lovely! Well, I gave you credit for better taste, Miss Felice."
"Oh, they are charming, sweet, _so nice_!" cried Miss Felice, clasping her hands in a small transport.
A smile broke over the handsome face of the poet. How pleasant it must be for a poet to hear his poems called _nice_.
"Well, never mind them; let us find "Undine,"" said Mr. Randall.