"M. de Ba.s.sompierre is there-is he not?" he inquired, pointing to the library.
"Yes."
"He noticed me at dinner? He understood me?"
"Yes, Graham."
"I am brought up for judgment, then, and so is she?"
"Mr. Home" (we now and always continued to term him Mr. Home at times) "is talking to his daughter."
"Ha! These are sharp moments, Lucy!"
He was quite stirred up; his young hand trembled; a vital (I was going to write mortal, but such words ill apply to one all living like him)-a vital suspense now held, now hurried, his breath: in all this trouble his smile never faded.
"Is he very angry, Lucy?"
"She is very faithful, Graham."
"What will be done unto me?"
"Graham, your star must be fortunate."
"Must it? Kind prophet! So cheered, I should be a faint heart indeed to quail. I think I find all women faithful, Lucy. I ought to love them, and I do. My mother is good; she is divine; and you are true as steel. Are you not?"
"Yes, Graham."
"Then give me thy hand, my little G.o.d-sister: it is a friendly little hand to me, and always has been. And now for the great venture. G.o.d be with the right. Lucy, say Amen!"
He turned, and waited till I said "Amen!"-which I did to please him: the old charm, in doing as he bid me, came back. I wished him success; and successful I knew he would be. He was born victor, as some are born vanquished.
"Follow me!" he said; and I followed him into Mr. Home"s presence.
"Sir," he asked, "what is my sentence?"
The father looked at him: the daughter kept her face hid.
"Well, Bretton," said Mr. Home, "you have given me the usual reward of hospitality. I entertained you; you have taken my best. I was always glad to see you; you were glad to see the one precious thing I had. You spoke me fair; and, meantime, I will not say you robbed me, but I am bereaved, and what I have lost, you, it seems, have won."
"Sir, I cannot repent."
"Repent! Not you! You triumph, no doubt: John Graham, you descended partly from a Highlander and a chief, and there is a trace of the Celt in all you look, speak, and think. You have his cunning and his charm. The red-(Well then, Polly, the fair) hair, the tongue of guile, and brain of wile, are all come down by inheritance."
"Sir, I feel honest enough," said Graham; and a genuine English blush covered his face with its warm witness of sincerity. "And yet," he added, "I won"t deny that in some respects you accuse me justly. In your presence I have always had a thought which I dared not show you. I did truly regard you as the possessor of the most valuable thing the world owns for me. I wished for it: I tried for it. Sir, I ask for it now."
"John, you ask much."
"Very much, sir. It must come from your generosity, as a gift; from your justice, as a reward. I can never earn it."
"Ay! Listen to the Highland tongue!" said Mr. Home. "Look up, Polly!
Answer this "braw wooer;" send him away!"
She looked up. She shyly glanced at her eager, handsome suitor. She gazed tenderly on her furrowed sire.
"Papa, I love you both," said she; "I can take care of you both. I need not send Graham away-he can live here; he will be no inconvenience," she alleged with that simplicity of phraseology which at times was wont to make both her father and Graham smile. They smiled now.
"He will be a prodigious inconvenience to me," still persisted Mr. Home. "I don"t want him, Polly, he is too tall; he is in my way. Tell him to march."
"You will get used to him, papa. He seemed exceedingly tall to me at first-like a tower when I looked up at him; but, on the whole, I would rather not have him otherwise."
"I object to him altogether, Polly; I can do without a son-in-law. I should never have requested the best man in the land to stand to me in that relation. Dismiss this gentleman."
"But he has known you so long, papa, and suits you so well."
"Suits me, forsooth! Yes; he has pretended to make my opinions and tastes his own. He has humoured me for good reasons. I think, Polly, you and I will bid him good-by."
"Till to-morrow only. Shake hands with Graham, papa."
"No: I think not: I am not friends with him. Don"t think to coax me between you."
"Indeed, indeed, you are friends. Graham, stretch out your right hand. Papa, put out yours. Now, let them touch. Papa, don"t be stiff; close your fingers; be pliant-there! But that is not a clasp-it is a grasp? Papa, you grasp like a vice. You crush Graham"s hand to the bone; you hurt him!"
He must have hurt him; for he wore a ma.s.sive ring, set round with brilliants, of which the sharp facets cut into Graham"s flesh and drew blood: but pain only made Dr. John laugh, as anxiety had made him smile.
"Come with me into my study," at last said Mr. Home to the doctor. They went. Their intercourse was not long, but I suppose it was conclusive. The suitor had to undergo an interrogatory and a scrutiny on many things. Whether Dr. Bretton was at times guileful in look and language or not, there was a sound foundation below. His answers, I understood afterwards, evinced both wisdom and integrity. He had managed his affairs well. He had struggled through entanglements; his fortunes were in the way of retrieval; he proved himself in a position to marry.
Once more the father and lover appeared in the library. M. de Ba.s.sompierre shut the door; he pointed to his daughter.
"Take her," he said. "Take her, John Bretton: and may G.o.d deal with you as you deal with her!"
Not long after, perhaps a fortnight, I saw three persons, Count de Ba.s.sompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton, sitting on one seat, under a low-spreading and umbrageous tree, in the grounds of the palace at Bois l"Etang. They had come thither to enjoy a summer evening: outside the magnificent gates their carriage waited to take them home; the green sweeps of turf spread round them quiet and dim; the palace rose at a distance, white as a crag on Pentelicus; the evening star shone above it; a forest of flowering shrubs embalmed the climate of this spot; the hour was still and sweet; the scene, but for this group, was solitary.
Paulina sat between the two gentlemen: while they conversed, her little hands were busy at some work; I thought at first she was binding a nosegay. No; with the tiny pair of scissors, glittering in her lap, she had severed spoils from each manly head beside her, and was now occupied in plaiting together the grey lock and the golden wave. The plait woven-no silk-thread being at hand to bind it-a tress of her own hair was made to serve that purpose; she tied it like a knot, prisoned it in a locket, and laid it on her heart.
"Now," said she, "there is an amulet made, which has virtue to keep you two always friends. You can never quarrel so long as I wear this."
An amulet was indeed made, a spell framed which rendered enmity impossible. She was become a bond to both, an influence over each, a mutual concord. From them she drew her happiness, and what she borrowed, she, with interest, gave back.
"Is there, indeed, such happiness on earth?" I asked, as I watched the father, the daughter, the future husband, now united-all blessed and blessing.
Yes; it is so. Without any colouring of romance, or any exaggeration of fancy, it is so. Some real lives do-for some certain days or years-actually antic.i.p.ate the happiness of Heaven; and, I believe, if such perfect happiness is once felt by good people (to the wicked it never comes), its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish, and tinging the deep cloud.
I will go farther. I do believe there are some human beings so born, so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that no excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no tempestuous blackness overcasts their journey. And often, these are not pampered, selfish beings, but Nature"s elect, harmonious and benign; men and women mild with charity, kind agents of G.o.d"s kind attributes.
Let me not delay the happy truth. Graham Bretton and Paulina de Ba.s.sompierre were married, and such an agent did Dr. Bretton prove. He did not with time degenerate; his faults decayed, his virtues ripened; he rose in intellectual refinement, he won in moral profit: all dregs filtered away, the clear wine settled bright and tranquil. Bright, too, was the destiny of his sweet wife. She kept her husband"s love, she aided in his progress-of his happiness she was the corner stone.
This pair was blessed indeed, for years brought them, with great prosperity, great goodness: they imparted with open hand, yet wisely. Doubtless they knew crosses, disappointments, difficulties; but these were well borne. More than once, too, they had to look on Him whose face flesh scarce can see and live: they had to pay their tribute to the King of Terrors. In the fulness of years, M. de Ba.s.sompierre was taken: in ripe old age departed Louisa Bretton. Once even there rose a cry in their halls, of Rachel weeping for her children; but others sprang healthy and blooming to replace the lost: Dr. Bretton saw himself live again in a son who inherited his looks and his disposition; he had stately daughters, too, like himself: these children he reared with a suave, yet a firm hand; they grew up according to inheritance and nurture.