Bressant Part 26

"I feel sure he will be back by to-morrow evening. Don't let your daughters fail to be here to meet him."

After reading this, and without pausing to indulge in casuistry, Professor Valeyon betook himself straight to Sophie's chamber.

"You've heard something!" said she, in a low, a.s.sured tone the moment he entered. "A letter? give it me--I would rather read it myself."

The professor gave it into her hand, with a smile; but Sophie's eyes were too deep and dark for any smile to glimmer through. As she opened it he turned his back upon her, and saw out of the window the sinking sun redden the snow-covered hill-top above the road.

"Yes, I'm sure he will be back to-morrow," said Sophie's quiet voice after a minute or two. She made no comment on his having allowed any thing to take him away at such a time--on the eve of his marriage--without first sending word to her; but gave Abbie's letter back into her father's keeping, and lay with closed eyes. He sat down in the chair by the bedside, and presently noticed that she lay more peacefully, and breathed inaudibly and easily, and that the feverish flush was leaving her cheeks. A slight moisture, too, made itself perceptible on her forehead.

"Her life is in this fellow's hand!" thought the professor, and he trembled to his very heart, but dared not ask himself wherefore.

"Do you really think it would hurt me to sew, dear papa?" said she, at length, looking up from her pillow.

"Better let sewing and every thing else alone for the present, my dear; it'll be enough work to get all well again by next Sunday."

Sophie sighed. "I did so want to finish my wedding-dress all myself,"

said she. "It needs only a few hours' work now, and Cornelia is so busy on her own account, it's hard to ask her. Oh, yes! dear papa, I know how glad she'd be to help me," she added quickly, seeing the old gentleman's eyebrows meet, and his forehead redden.

"I should hope she would! Must be very busy if she hasn't time to do so much as that!" growled he. "I'll send her up to you, my dear."

"Papa!" said Sophie, calling him back from the door; and it was not until she had possession of his hand and was holding it against her cheek that she went on. "Don't let the wedding be put off, if I shouldn't be able to sit up on Sunday. I'll be carried down into the guest-chamber, where he was ill for so long. Don't--papa, I know you won't think hardly of me; but I feel a kind of superst.i.tion about that particular day and hour: that if all is not done then, it never will be.

Am not I foolish? But do let it be so, and never mind wisdom!"

There was a vein of strenuous earnestness only partly concealed beneath her words and manner, which the gruff old gentleman, who was as sensitive as a photographic plate, where his affections were concerned, did not fail to note. He kissed her on both cheeks--a fully sufficient answer to her request, and shuffled out of the room in his old slippers; which, thanks to Sophie's filial attentions, still held together with dying faith fulness.

The rest of the day the two sisters pa.s.sed together--Cornelia working upon her sister's wedding-dress, and Sophie guiding her by directions and suggestions. Not since they first began to grow apart, had there been between them so great an appearance of sisterly love and cordiality. Yet, if Cornelia allowed herself to think at all, it must have seemed, in the light of her purpose regarding Bressant, as if she was preparing a shroud rather than a wedding-garment. Or, perhaps, as she observed the change which even so brief and light an illness had made in Sophie's delicate face, there may have lurked, in the secret places of her mind, a darker and guiltier thought than that. But let not our condemnation be too unconditional, lest the precedent come home, some day, to ourselves. It may astonish us, hereafter, to discover how many of our most respectable acquaintances are murderers--only in thought!

But Sophie's condition seemed steadily to improve, and, by the morning of the 30th, the professor apprehended no danger but from imprudence.

That she should attend Abbie's party was, of course, out of the question; but there was no longer any obstacle in the way of Cornelia's availing herself of the entertainment, if she were so inclined.

Deadly and immitigable as woman's purpose is often represented to be, it may, especially before she becomes thoroughly hardened to crime, be swayed by shades of feeling or sentiment which would appear, to a man, ridiculously trifling, and which, indeed, she could not herself explain or calculate upon; and there is the more likelihood of this, in proportion to the depth to which her emotions and affections are involved in the affair. As to Cornelia, there are no means of determining whether she ever wavered in her designs against her sister's happiness, and her friend's constancy, or not; she, at any rate, decided to go to the ball, and even condescended to accept Mr. Reynolds's tender of his escort thither. There are a host of respectable motives always on hand for such occasions, and Cornelia might be going either from a curiosity to find out whether Bressant would return, and in order, if so, to bring her sister the latest news; or, to obtain relief from the monotony of home-life; or, to oblige Abbie, who counted upon her appearance; or, to display her ball-dress, cut after the latest New-York pattern; or, all these small matters may have been the wheels whereon rolled the invisible car, but for which they would not have existed.

As she was attiring herself, Sophie, who was seated in her deep invalid-chair, looking at her, was seized by an uncontrollable longing to put on her wedding-dress, and satisfy her mind as to its being a good fit. There it lay, upon the sofa, and nothing could be easier than just to slip into it. Cornelia, absorbed in her own crowded thoughts, never dreamed of opposing the idea, and lent all necessary a.s.sistance to carry it out. It was not until Mr. Reynolds had sent up word that the sleigh waited at the door, and, gathering up her cloak and tippet, she had kissed Sophie, left her, and was hurrying down-stairs with rustling skirts, that she realized that she had given her parting salute to one dressed as a bride!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A DISAPPOINTMENT.

There could not have been a better night for sleighing. The temperature had risen considerably since the storm, and the snow, which had fallen to the depth of a foot, was already packed down hard upon the road, so that the runners seldom sank beneath the surface. Moreover, there was a full moon, just pus.h.i.+ng its deep orange circ.u.mference above the horizon.

It had chanced to come up just where a black skeleton forest stood out against the sky, encouraging the fancy that it had somehow got entangled in the branches, and had grown red in the face from struggling to get out. But, ere the young people reached the scene of the entertainment, the struggle was over; the perfect circle was calmly and radiantly uplifting itself above the world, far beyond the reach of the outstretched arms of the gnarled and black-limbed forest; yet did the dark earth benefit by its defeat, in the chaste illumination which descended upon its wintry countenance.

Mr. Reynolds was perfectly happy; it is pleasant to reflect how small an amount of bliss can overflow some souls. Cornelia was brief but kind in her answers to his turbid and confused pourings forth; not that she paid heed to any thing the poor fellow said--she was only occasionally aware of his presence. Her mind was revelling in dreams of heated and exalted imagination; she was filled with inspiration, as with the rich, palpitating blast of a mighty organ; but the tumultuous chorus of her thoughts produced upon her an effect of magnetism which found its expression in a gentle graciousness of words and manner.

She had made up her mind that the first person she should meet would be Bressant; and, so full did she feel of victorious power, it seemed as if, with scarcely a conscious effort, she could overbear and bring him to her feet. Yes, and dictate the terms upon which she would consent to receive his homage. What a pity that the key-notes of so few natures correspond, at the critical moment, with our own; and that Providence sees fit to forward, by even negative help, so small a proportion of our superbly-conceived plans!

It was half-past eight when they drew up at the boarding-house door. No sooner had Cornelia set foot within the threshold, and caught sight of Abbie's face, than it was borne in upon her that Bressant was not there; and the former, after questioning her about Sophie's non-appearance, confirmed her fear. He had not come, nor was it now probable that he would arrive before morning. It would have been useless to expect him by the late train, due at half-past ten, since, to avail himself of that, it would be necessary to make a difficult connection by walking two or three miles from one railway to another.

After climbing to such a height, it was terrible to fall. Cornelia had not allowed herself to antic.i.p.ate the disaster, precisely because it was so cras.h.i.+ng. In a moment the great, rainbow-tinted bubble of her hope and imagination had burst, leaving only a bitter and unpleasant sense of the paltry and unclean materials--the soap-suds and clay-pipe--wherewith it had been created.

Furthermore, the polite fictions which she had lubricated her conscience withal, regarding her desires and intentions, were shown up at precisely their true value, and a very discreditable spectacle they made. Nothing is more exasperating after a failure than to be stared out of countenance by the unworthy means we have employed. During her progress up-stairs to the dressing-room, and brief stay there, Cornelia had ample leisure to review her thoughts and deeds during the latter months of her life. What a waste of time, opportunity, and emotion! It was a tragedy of ridicule and a farce of profound pathos.

Her perception of these things was a.s.sisted by the depression which reacted upon her previous excitement: it had an embarra.s.sing way of presenting, in the clearest colors, whatever in her conduct had been most unwise and indefensible. She could have borne it easily had there been as much as one stirring struggle for victory, even had the struggle resulted in defeat. Her state of mind might have borne a.n.a.logy to his who, having deeply caroused overnight in celebration of some glorious triumph, learned, upon coming to his racked and tortured senses the next day, that it was a triumph for the other side.

Had the sense of despair been less overwhelming, had Cornelia been merely disappointed, rage would have taken the place of depression, and her thoughts would have run in far different channels. But there was no hope: this was her last chance of all: hereafter a rampart would be erected against her, which she neither was able nor dared to scale.

There was no element in her position that could make it endurable, and yet there was no escape. She had not enough spirit of enterprise left to return home at once, but yielded herself with torpid insensibility to whoever chose to make a suggestion. She wonderingly speculated as to how she had ever been able to originate an idea herself.

The evening dragged its slow length along, and dragged Cornelia with it.

To be where she was, was insupportable; but to go back to the Parsonage was worse still; and the thought of the solitary drive thither with the overflowing Mr. Reynolds filled her with a nauseating pain of antic.i.p.ation.

It could not have been far from midnight when she awoke to a sense of being alone and not far from the side-door into the yard. Her partner--whoever he was--had gone to get her some ice-cream or a cup of coffee. Cornelia did not wait for his return, but walked quickly and un.o.bserved to the door, which stood a few inches ajar, opened it, pa.s.sed through, and stood in the unconfined air. The keen intensity of the tonic made her nostrils ache, and her uncovered bosom heave. She unb.u.t.toned one of her gloves, and, taking some snow in her hand, pressed it to her warm temples, and then let it drop s.h.i.+vering into her breast.

"It must feel like that to die, I suppose," thought she. "If I were Sophie, now, that snow would be the death of me in two days: as it is, I shall only have a cold in the head to-morrow. There seems to be no reason in these things."

A dark figure turned the farther corner of the house, and came ploughing through the snow immediately under the eaves, dragging one hand along the clapboards as it came. The crunching of the snow caught Cornelia's ears, and she turned and recognized the figure in half a breath. The great height, the ma.s.sive breadth, the easy, springing tread--it was Bressant from head to foot. He was b.u.t.toned up in a short pea-jacket, and there was a round fur cap on his head. As Cornelia turned upon him, he stopped a moment, standing quite motionless, with the fingers of one hand resting on the side of the house. Then he came close up to her and grasped her wrist with his gloved hand.

"Where is Sophie?" demanded he in his rapid, m.u.f.fled voice.

"She's ill: she caught cold: she's at home," answered Cornelia, who, at the first recognition, had felt a kind of tw.a.n.g through all her nerves, and was now trying to control the effects of the shock. There was something queer in Bressant's manner--in the way he looked at her.

"But you came," rejoined he, stooping down and peering into her beautiful, troubled face. He broke into a laugh, which terrified Cornelia greatly, because he laughed so seldom. "One might know you'd come. You thought I'd be here: you came to see me, and here I am. Will Sophie get well?"

"Oh, yes! she was much better. When I left she had on her--wedding-dress."

Bressant drew in his breath hissingly between his teeth, and his fingers tightened a moment round Cornelia's wrist. The pain forced a sob from her and turned her lips pale. He paid no attention to her, presently dropped her wrist, and put his hands behind him, grinding the snow beneath his heel, and looking down.

"Whom is she going to marry?" was his next question, asked without raising his head.

"You!" exclaimed Cornelia, in astonishment and fear. The answer sprang to her lips without forethought or reflection, so much had the strange question startled her.

But he again stooped down and peered into her eyes, watching the effect of his words on her as he spoke them.

"No, no! I am not he who promised to marry her. She wouldn't have me, if I asked her: she don't know me. I'm going to marry some one else.

_She'll_ love me, no matter who I am. Shall I tell you her name?"

Cornelia could only s.h.i.+ver--s.h.i.+ver--with dry mouth and dilated eyes.

Bressant put his hand on her shoulder, and drew her forward a step or two, so that the white moonlight fell upon her.

"Cornelia Valeyon is her name," said he, and then, as she remained rigid, he bent forward, with a whispered laugh, and kissed her on the face.

"There! now we belong to each other--a good match, aren't we? Quick!

now; run into the house, and get your things on. You must walk home with me, and we'll arrange every thing. Go! I shall wait for you here."

She reentered the house, cold and dizzy, just as her partner arrived with the coffee. She explained--what scarcely needed to be told--that she felt faint: she must go up-stairs. In three minutes she had put her satin-slippered feet into a pair of water-proof overshoes, pinned up her trailing skirts, thrown on her long wadded mantle, with sleeves and hood, and had got down-stairs again before "a.s.sistance" could arrive.

All the time, there was a burning and tingling where his lips had been, but she would not put up her hand to touch the spot, and relieve the sensation. It was, in a manner, sacred to her; albeit the sanct.i.ty was largely mingled with bewilderment, remorse, and fear. When she came out, Bressant was standing where she had left him, tossing a couple of snow-b.a.l.l.s from one hand to another. He dropped them as she approached, and brushed the snow from his gloves. She took the arm he offered her--timidly, and yet feeling that it was all in the world she had to cling to. It was true--by that kiss she belonged to him, for it had made her a traitor to all else on whom she had hitherto had a claim. Yet upon how different a footing did they stand with one another from that which she had prefigured to herself! This was he whom she was to have brought vanquished to her feet! With one motion of his strong, masculine hand he had swept away all her fine-spun cobwebs of opportunity and method, and had laid his clutch upon the very marrow of her soul. But though she had lost the command, she was party, if not princ.i.p.al, to the guilt. It was he who had taken fire from her.