"Where? Why does he not come back to me?" asked she, in a confused, abstracted way.
It was best to tell the truth, and have it over.
"He has gone to London, Lucia. He will think over it all there, and be sorry for it, and then all will be well again."
But Lucia did not hear the end of that sentence. Murmuring to herself, "To London! To London!" she hurried back into the room.
"Clara! Clara! have the children had their breakfast?"
"Yes, ma"am!" says Clara, appearing from the inner room.
"Then help me to pack up, quick! Your master is gone to London on business; and we are to follow him immediately."
And she began bustling about the room.
"My dearest Lucia, you are not fit to travel now!"
"I shall die if I stay here; die if I do nothing! I must find him!"
whispered she. "Don"t speak loud, or Clara will hear. I can find him, and n.o.body can but me! Why don"t you help me to pack, Valencia?"
"My dearest! but what will Scoutbush say when he comes home, and finds you gone?"
"What right has he to interfere? I am Elsley"s wife, am I not? and may follow my husband if I like:" and she went on desperately collecting, not her own things, but Elsley"s.
Valencia watched her with tear-br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes; collecting all his papers, counting over his clothes, murmuring to herself that he would want this and that in London. Her sanity seemed failing her, under the fixed idea that she had only to see him, and set all right with, a word.
"I will go and get you some breakfast," said she at last.
"I want none. I am too busy to eat. Why don"t you help me?"
Valencia had not the heart to help, believing, as she did, that Lucia"s journey would be as bootless as it would be dangerous to her health.
"I will bring you some breakfast, and you must try; then I will help to pack:" and utterly bewildered she went out; and the thought uppermost in her mind was,--"Oh, that I could find Frank Headley?"
Happy was it for Frank"s love, paradoxical as it may seem, that it had conquered just at that moment of terrible distress. Valencia"s acceptance of him had been hasty, founded rather on sentiment and admiration than on deep affection; and her feeling might have faltered, waned, died away in self-distrust of its own reality, if giddy amus.e.m.e.nt, if mere easy happiness, had followed it. But now the fire of affliction was branding in the thought of him upon her softened heart.
Living at the utmost strain of her character, Campbell gone, her brother useless, and Lucia and the children depending utterly on her, there was but one to whom she could look for comfort while she needed it most utterly; and happy for her and for her lover that she could go to him.
"Poor Lucia! thank G.o.d that I have some one who will never treat me so!
who will lift me up and shield me, instead of crushing me!--dear creature!--Oh that I may find him!" And her heart went out after Frank with a gush of tenderness which she had never felt before.
"Is this, then, love?" she asked herself; and she found time to slip into her own room for a moment and arrange her dishevelled hair, ere she entered the breakfast-room.
Frank was there, luckily alone, pacing nervously up and down. He hurried up to her, caught both her hands in his, and gazed into her wan and haggard face with the intensest tenderness and anxiety.
Valencia"s eyes looked into the depths of his, pa.s.sive and confiding, till they failed before the keenness of his gaze, and swam in glittering mist.
"Ah!" thought she; "sorrow is a light price to pay for the feeling of being so loved by such a man!"
"You are tired,--ill? What a night you must have had! Mellot has told me all."
"Oh, my poor sister!" and wildly she poured out to Frank her wrath against Elsley, her inability to comfort Lucia, and all the misery and confusion of the past night.
"This is a sad dawning for the day of my triumph!" thought Frank, who longed to pour out his heart to her on a thousand very different matters: but he was content; it was enough for him that she could tell him all, and confide in him; a truer sign of affection than any selfish love-making; and he asked, and answered, with such tenderness and thoughtfulness for poor Lucia, with such a deep comprehension of Elsley"s character, pitying while he blamed, that he won his reward at last.
"Oh! it would he intolerable, if I had not through it all the thought"
and blushing crimson, her head drooped on her bosom. She seemed ready to drop with exhaustion.
"Sit down, sit down, or you will fall!" said Frank, leading her to a chair; and as he led her, he whispered with fluttering heart, new to its own happiness, and longing to make a.s.surance sure--"What thought?"
She was silent still; but he felt her hand tremble in his.
"The thought of me?"
She looked up in his face; how beautiful! And in another moment, neither knew how, she was clasped to his bosom.
He covered her face, her hair with kisses: she did not move; from that moment she felt that he was her husband.
"Oh, guide me! counsel me! pray for me!" sobbed she. "I am all alone, and my poor sister, she is going mad, I think, and I have no one to trust but you; and you--you will leave me to go to those dreadful wars; and then, what will become of me? Oh, stay! only a few days!" and holding him convulsively, she answered his kisses with her own.
Frank stood as in a dream, while the room reeled round and vanished; and he was alone for a moment upon earth with her and his great love.
"Tell me," said he, at last, trying to awaken himself to action. "Tell me! Is she really going to seek him?"
"Yes, selfish and forgetful that I am! You must help me! she will go to London, nothing can stop her;--and it will kill her!"
"It may drive her mad to keep her here."
"It will! and that drives me mad also. What can I choose!"
"Follow where G.o.d leads. It is she, after all, who must reclaim him.
Leave her in G.o.d"s hands, and go with her to London."
"But my brother?"
"Mellot or I will see him. Let it be me. Mellot shall go with you to London."
"Oh that you were going!"
"Oh that I were! I will follow, though. Do you think that I can be long away from you?... But I must tell your brother. I had a very different matter on which to speak to him this morning," said he, with a sad smile: "but better as it is. He shall find me, I hope, reasonable and trustworthy in this matter; perhaps enough so to have my Valencia committed to me. Precious jewel! I must learn to be a man now, at least; now that I have you to care for."
"And yet you go and leave me?"
"Valencia! Because G.o.d has given us to each other, shall our thank-offering be to shrink cowardly from His work?"
He spoke more sternly than he intended, to awe into obedience rather himself than her; for he felt, poor fellow, his courage failing fast, while he held that treasure in his arms.
She shuddered in silence.