"Yes, he loves me!" I repeated to myself as I remembered every token unheeded till then. "And do I love him?" oh! how swift came the irresistible reply: "with every power of my soul, with every impulse of my being, with the blood that flows in my veins, with the heart that beats in my bosom." The answer both startled and charmed me. I did not understand it rightly yet, and like one suddenly taken captive, I looked at my bonds and saw incredulously that the liberty of thought, heart and feeling had departed for ever; that an influence as subtle as it was penetrating had taken possession of my being. One moment I rebelled; but after a brief struggle for freedom, I owned myself conquered; with beating heart and burning brow lowly bent, I confessed my master.
Filial reverence, sisterly love, friendship, what had become of ye then?
Like weak briars and brambles swept away by a swift stream, ye perished at once on the path of passion. I wondered not that ye should be no more.
I only wondered ye had ever been: vain words by which I had long been deluded.
I looked back into my past. Since I had known him, I could not remember the time when the thought of Cornelius had not been to me as the daily bread of my heart. There had been familiarity in my deepest tenderness, and lingering passion in my very freedom. I had felt intuitively that I could not make my love for a man, young and not of my blood, too sacred and too pure, and that love ever craving for a more perfect, more entire union, had caught eagerly at these shadows of what it sought. I had said to myself, to him, to all, that my affection was that of a child for its father, of a sister for her brother, of a friend for her friend, because it had not occurred to me that a closer tie might one day bind us; and what I had said, I had believed most sincerely.
I was very young and very innocent. Of love I had read little, and seen less. So long as it came not to me in visible aspect; so long as I felt not within myself some great change, I dreamt not of it. There is a love that lies in the heart unconscious of itself, like a child asleep in its cradle--and this I had never suspected. There is a love which grows with onr years, until it becomes part of our being; which never agitates, because it has no previous indifference, no remembrance of the time in which it was not, against which to strive; which has purer and deeper signs than the beating heart, the blushing cheek, the averted look--and all this I knew not. Where there is no resistance, there can be no struggle; but because there is no struggle shall any one dare to say-- there is no victory? Reduce to logic the least logical of all passions, and argue with a feeling that smiles at argument, and disdains to reply.
Had I then loved Cornelius even as a child? loved him with that purer part of affection which needs not to wait for the growth of years? God alone knows. Love is a great mystery; it is easy to remember the time of its discovery, but wise, indeed, are they who can tell the hour and moment of its birth.
I had the wisdom not to ask myself so useless a question. The past vanished from my thoughts; it was all future now. I looked at the eastern sky; it was reddening fast, and grew more bright and burning as I looked.
With the superstition of the heart, I watched the dawn of that day, as that which opened my new existence, and for all of the past that it revealed, and I had never seen; for all of the future that it promised, and I had never hoped. I gave thanks to God.
I know not how long I had been thus, when a tap at my door disturbed me.
I rose, opened, and saw Kate. She made me turn my face to the light, then half smiled, and said:
"Cornelius wants to speak to you; he is quite in a way. Pray come down."
I followed her down stairs in silence. She opened the back parlour door, closed it, and left me. I stood still; all the blood in my frame seemed to have rushed to my beating heart. It was one thing to be alone with Cornelius, my friend, and another to find myself thus suddenly brought to the presence of Cornelius, my lover.
He sat by the open window; beyond it rose the green garden trees tinged with a rosy light, and above them spread the blushing sky. A fresh breeze came in bearing soft sounds of rustling leaves and twittering songs of wakening birds. He too had watched the dawning day; but there seemed to have been at least as much sorrow as love in his vigil. He looked pale, weary, and slowly turned around as I entered. He saw me standing at the door, rose, and came up to me without speaking. I looked at him like one in a dream. He took my passive hand in his, and gave me a troubled glance, then suddenly he passed his other arm around me, looking down at me with the saddest face.
"And is it thus indeed, Daisy," he said, in a low tone, "you are pale as death, but as silent; your hand lies in mine chill as ice, but not withdrawn; you yield, mute and meek as a poor little victim to the arms that clasp you! No tears! No words to rouse remorse or sting pride.
Nothing but entire sacrifice, and that silent submission."
He spoke of paleness; his own face was like marble, his eyes overflowed, his lips trembled, he stooped to press them on my brow. Involuntarily I shunned the embrace.
"Do not shrink," he observed, with evident pain, "I mean it as the last.
Yes! the last. I never intended putting you to such a trial. Never, Daisy," he continued, giving me a wistful look, "anger at your blindness, and the irresistible temptation of a sudden opportunity, did indeed make me forget, in one moment, the dearly-bought patience of a year; passion, roused to tyranny after her long subjection, and sick of restraint, did indeed vow she would and should be gratified, no matter what the cost might be; but I never meant it. You are young, generous, and devoted.
Months ago, if I had spoken, I know--and I knew it then--that I could have had you for the asking. But I could not bear to have you thus. When your grandfather placed so great a trust in my honour, and showed so little faith in my generosity, I laughed at his blindness, for I thought age had cooled his blood, and made him forget the language which is not speech. But alas! I found that I who had taught you many things, could not teach you this lesson. How could I? when what is held the easiest of all, the letting you see what you were to me, I could never accomplish.
Do, say, act as I would, the sacredness of your affection ever stood between us. I tried every art, and love has many, but when I spoke so plainly, it seemed as if a very child must have understood me. You looked or smiled with hopeless serenity. I vowed once that cost me what it might, I would not speak until I had made you love me as truly, as ardently as I loved you myself. I waited months, I might have waited years. Well, no matter, it is over now. Be free, forget the trouble of an hour in the peace of a life-time. Be happy, very happy, and yet, oh! how happy, it seems to me, your friend could have made you, if you would but have let him."
He released and left me. Touched with his sorrow, I could not restrain my tears.
"Weep not for me," he said, with a sad smile; "I shall do. It is true that when I came back from Italy, I secretly boasted that I had escaped both the follies of youth and the dangers of passion. But though Fate, which I braved abroad, has, like a traitor, lain in wait for me in my own home, know, Daisy, that like a man, I can look her in the face, stern and bitter as she wears it on this day, too long delayed, of our separation."
"Then you do mean to go?" I exclaimed, troubled to the very heart.
"Can you think I would stay?" he replied, vehemently. "Oh! Daisy, tempt me not to call you cold and heartless, to say those things which a lifetime vainly repents and never effaces. Is it because I have passed through a year of the hardest self-subjection ever imposed on mortal; through a year of looks restrained, words hushed, emotions repressed; a year of fever and torment endured, that not a cloud might come over the serenity of your peace--is it for this, Daisy, that you think my heart and my blood so cold as to wish me to stay; as not to see that between complete union or utter separation there can now be no medium?"
His look sought mine with a troubled glance; there was fever in his accent, and pain in the half smile with which he spoke.
"But why go so soon?" I asked, in a low tone.
"Why? Daisy, you ask why? Because endurance has reached her utmost limits, and cannot pass them; because the rest is an abyss over which not even a poor plank stretches; because the thing I have delayed months must be done now or never: because, hard as is your absence, your constant presence is something still harder to bear."
He spoke with an ill-subdued irritation I knew not how to soothe.
"Cornelius!" I said in my gentlest accents, "if you would but stay and be calm."
"Stay and be calm!" he replied impetuously, and pacing the room with hasty steps, that ever came back to me; "why, I have been the calmest of calm men! When, one after another, they attempted to woo and win under my very eyes the only girl for whom I cared, she whom I looked on as my future wife; as the secret betrothed of my heart: when, to add taunt to taunt, as if I were not flesh and blood like them; as if I had not known you more years than they had known you weeks; loved you, when they cared not if you existed, they allowed me with insolent unconsciousness to behold it all, did I not subdue the secret wrath which trembled in every fibre of my being? What more would you have me do? Wait to see in the possession and enjoyment of one more fortunate than the rest, that which should have been my property and my joy; whilst I looked on, a robbed father, a friend forsaken, a lover betrayed, and behold my child, companion, friend and mistress the prize of a stranger!"
"Do you think then," he added, stopping short, and speaking with calmer and deeper indignation, "do you think then that I have severed you from the lover of your youth, guarded you from my own friends, watched over you as a miser over his gold, suspected every man who looked at you, sickened at the thought, 'Is it now I am to be robbed?' breathed and lived again at the reply, 'Not yet'--to stay and wait until some other comes and reaps the fruit of all my vain watchfulness."
His eyes flashed, and his lips trembled with jealous resentment. Borne away by the force of his own feelings, he had spoken with a vehement rapidity, that left him no room for pause, as they left me no room for interruption. At length he ceased. I looked at him; he had spoken of his patience with feverish anger, of his calmness with bitter indignation; the passionate emotions had left their traces on his brow slightly contracted, on his pale and agitated face, in his look that still burned with ill-repressed fire; but there was sweetness in his reproaches, and a secret pleasantness in his wrath.
"Another," I said quietly, "and suppose there is no other. Suppose no one cares for me."
"No one!" he echoed, drawing nearer, and taking my hand in his, with a sudden change of mood and accent, "No one, Daisy! Oh! you know there will always be one. One who sat with you by a running stream for the whole of a summer's noon, and at whom your face seemed to look from the clear waters until it sank deep and for ever in his heart. One who waking or sleeping, has loved you since that day, and for whom it is you, Daisy, who care not."
I said I did care for him.
"But how, how?" he asked, with an impatient sigh, "you mean old affection, habit, friendship, and I, you know well enough, mean none of those things. I love you because do what I will, you attract me irresistibly. If I had met you in the street by chance, I should have said, 'this girl and none other I will have;' I would have followed you, ascertained your dwelling, name and parentage, ay, and made you love me too, Daisy, cold as you are now."
"I am not cold, Cornelius."
"Alas, no," he replied, a little passionately, "and there too is the mischief. Oh! Daisy, be merciful! Give nothing if you cannot give all. Be at once all ice, and torment me no more with the calm serenity which is never coldness. Do you know how often you have made me burn to remind you, that though I was no one to you, you might be some one to me; that you have made me long for the sting of indifference and pride; for a familiarity less tender, for a tenderness less dangerous? Do you know that if your affection has been too calm for love, it has been very ardent for mere friendship; that it has possessed the perilous charm of passion and purity; passion which would be divine if it could but be pure; purity which, if it were but ardent, would be irresistibly alluring. You have tormented me almost beyond endurance, then when I gave up hope, you have suddenly said and done the kindest things maiden ever said or did. You have deserted me and returned to me, embraced me with the careless confidence of a sister, spoken with the tenderness of a mistress, and perplexed me beyond all mortal knowledge. But why do I speak as if this were over? Daisy! you perplex me still. This very evening have you not declared that you care for no other, then almost as plainly said you cared not for me. Have you not heard me tell you how warmly I love you, yet have you not asked me to stay here in this house ever near you? Nay, though I speak now from the very fulness of my heart, do you not stand, your hand in mine, listening to me with patient, quiet grace? I dare not hope, I will not quite despair; I can do neither, for I protest, Daisy, that you are still to me a riddle and a mystery, and that whether you love him or love him not, is more than Cornelius O'Reilly can tell."
Cornelius had said all this without a pause of rest: he spoke with the daring rapidity of passion which tarries not for words, but with many an eloquent change of look, tone, and accent. I had heard him with throbbing bosom and burning brow. For the first time I was addressed in the language of love, and the voice that spoke was very dear to me. Answer I could not. I stood before him, listening to tones that had ceased, but that still echoed in my heart. When he confessed, however, that he did not know whether or not I loved him, an involuntary smile stole over my face, and this he was very quick to see; his look, keen and searching, sought mine; his face, eager and flushed, was bent over me.
"Look at me, Daisy," he said, quickly.
I looked up, smiling still; for I thought to myself, "I love him, but he shall not know it just yet." But as I looked, a change of feeling came over my heart. I remembered the past, his long goodness, his patient, devoted love, and I could not take my eyes away.
"Well," he said, uneasily, "why do you look at me so strangely? My face is not new to you, Daisy. You have had time to know it all these years."
Ay, years had passed since our first meeting; and what had he not been to me since then? My adopted father, my kind guardian, my secure protector, my faithful friend, my devoted lover! As I thought of all this, and still looked at him, his kind, handsome face grew dim through gathering tears.
"I will tell him all," I thought; "I will be ingenuous and good; tell him how truly, how ardently I love him." The words rose to my lips, and died away unuttered. Is the language in which woman utters such confessions yet invented? Oh! love and pride, tyrants of her heart, how sharp was your contest then in mine! He was bending over me with strange tormenting anxiety in his face. I bowed my head away from his gaze. He half drew me closer, half pushed me back; his hand sought, then rejected, mine. He saw my eyes overflowing.
"Oh, Daisy, Daisy!" he exclaimed, "what does this mean?"
"Guess," was my involuntary reply.
"Do not trifle with me," he said, in a tone of passionate entreaty--"do not."
"Trifle with you! Could I, Cornelius?"
"Prove it then."
He stooped and looked up; for a moment my lips touched his cheek, whilst his lingered on my brow. Many a time before had Cornelius kissed me; but this was the first embrace of a love, mutual, ardent, and yet, God knows it, very pure--ay, far too religiously pure to trouble. And thus it was all understood--all known--all told--without a word.
When I felt that the unconscious dream of my whole life was fulfilled; that I was everything to him who had so long been everything to me; when I looked up into his face, met his look, in which the affection of the tried friend, and the love of the lover, unequivocally blended, and knew that no other human being--not even his sister--could claim and fill that place where my heart had found its home, and that as I loved so was I loved,--I also felt that I had conquered fate; that I triumphed over by- gone sorrow, and could defy the might of time. I cried for joy, as I had often cried for grief on that kind heart which had sheltered my forsaken childhood and unprotected youth.
"Tears!" he said, with a smile of reproach; and yet he knew well enough they were not tears of sorrow.
"They will be to me what the rain has been to the night, Cornelius; a freshening dew."
I went up to the open window; I leaned my brow on the cool iron bar; the morning air came in pure, chill, and fragrant. I shivered slightly.