Chapter 7 No.7

I hurried away from the forge earlier than usual one July day, and, finding the studio vacant, worked a full hour before Mr. Leopold presented himself. He came in hurriedly, glanced at my picture, pointing out a fault or two, then seated himself at his easel for an hour longer of silent work. At the expiration of this time he rose, put away his materials, and said, as he turned toward the door,-

"Miss Merton and Mr. Lang are to be married this afternoon, Sandy. They wished me to ask you down to the ceremony, which is to be private. An unexpected affair, hurried on account of business which calls Mr. Lang to town for a great part of the winter, and so would separate them much, if she could not go with him."

I was extremely surprised. However, Mr. Leopold was so collected that I felt called upon to refrain all expression of astonishment.

"You need not go home to make any alteration in your dress, Sandy," he added. "Come up to my room and help yourself to all the minor articles you need."

It was not long before I entered the drawing-room, where I found Miss Darry, evidently expecting me.

"Well, Sandy, this is a hurried affair. Your presence was particularly desired; and, by the way, Alice insisted upon dispatching a messenger to Annie Bray with an invitation to the ceremony, but her mother sends word that she is away on some excursion. Alice will be sorry, she has taken such a fancy to her: you must explain that she was really wanted."

"Oh, no,-Annie will be so disappointed! I can hunt her up and be back here before Miss Merton is prepared for the occasion"; and I started for the door, but the will stronger than my own recalled me.

"Sandy, pray reflect a moment, and you will attempt nothing of the kind. They leave in the eight o'clock train, and will be married some time about sunset. In the interval you could never go and return from Warren on any other horse than Mr. Lang's, and I suppose you would not expect your little friend to ride before you. Besides, we have been busy to-day planning other matters, and the final decorations have not been thought of. You are the very one to make the proper disposition of light and shade, flowers, etc."

"Miss Darry, do call in Mr. Leopold to gather flowers and pull the shades up or down, and let me try at least to find Annie," I answered, impatiently.

But she only replied,-

"Mr. Leopold! why, you innocent youth, he hasn't half your artistic capacity. I can see how you reverence him; but trust me, it is only from the innate modesty of your nature."

"He exhausted the fanciful region in which I dwell years ago, Miss Darry, and has gone up higher. You surely must see you undervalue his great nature."

"I see nothing just at present, Sandy, but the need of your assistance," she replied.

And by various devices she busied me until the arrival of the minister and the few intimate friends banished all further thought of Annie's regret at not being present. Miss Merton's loveliness and Mr. Lang's manly beauty made a picture I would gladly have studied longer than the time required to make them man and wife. I had long ago seen the ceremony performed by Mr. Purdo for a rustic couple; but this was a new and more fascinating phase of it. Impressed as I was apt to be by anything appealing to my emotions or sense of beauty, I did not care to join at once Miss Darry and Mr. Leopold, who engaged in their customary repartee directly after the bride retired to prepare for her journey; but Miss Darry, slipping away from Mr. Leopold, soon joined me on the lawn, to which I had stepped from the French window.

"What a serious expression, Sandy! One might imagine you had been making all these solemn promises yourself. You must learn not to be so easily affected by forms and symbols. It is a weakness of your poetic temperament. Their love has existed just as truly all these months as now; yet I never saw you grow serious over the contemplation of it, until a minister consecrated it by prayer and address."

I started.

"You do not give much of a niche to Cupid in your gallery of life, Miss Darry."

"Now that is poorer reasoning than I should have looked for even from you, Sandy. Because I laugh at your reverence for outward expression, do I necessarily depreciate the sentiment?"

"No," I answered, bluntly; "I was thinking how you bade me set aside Annie Bray,-how you always slight her claims upon me."

"Ah, it has a personal application, then," she replied, thoughtfully, but frankly as before. "It is only because I want you to make the most of your fine powers, that I would have you choose friends who can appreciate you."

"I know that you have been disinterested, noble," I returned, remorsefully. "But outward success would never atone to me for the lack of love. Perhaps it is through my very weakness that I cling so to the only human being who really loves me."

Miss Dairy's face changed color. For the first time in her intercourse with me, she was strongly and visibly moved.

"Sandy," she said, after a pause, in a low, broken voice, strangely at variance with its usual ringing tone, "without this love I, as a woman, have lived all my life, until a week ago; and then, because it was not the love I demanded, even though I could have taken it with inexpressible comfort into my lonely life, I rejected it. I tell you this merely as an encouragement. If Annie Bray is all you crave, forsake everything else for her; if not, deny yourself the gratification of being worshipped, and wait until you also can bestow your whole heart."

She stood there, in the waning light, plucking nervously the petals from the rose-bush, and scattering them on the grass,-her dark eye filled with a melancholy which I had never supposed could subdue its flashing light, or relax the outlines of the thinly cut lips,-unsatisfied,-her womanly nature rebelling against an unusually lonely lot. It needed just this humble acknowledgment of human need and human love to make Frank Darry irresistible, and my impressible fancy responded to the spell. Impelled by a passion which from its very force forbade analysis, I bent over her. Even then, as my hand fell upon her shoulder, and her eyes, still lulled in their dangerous trance of sadness, met mine inquiringly, my purpose was arrested by the voices of Nature around me, as if Annie Bray, herself allied to them, were reminding me of claims which had once held such power over me. I recall now the oriole whose nest swung like a pendulum from the branch above, marking the passing of the summer day, and whose clear note struck more sweetly than the cuckoo clock the evening hour. I noticed a humming-bird nestled in its silver-lined apartment, its long bill looking as though even the honeyed sweetness of the flowers must be rendered more delicate before it could help to nourish the exuberant and palpitating life of its little body. Then I looked at the begonias and fuchsias in Miss Darry's hair, spilling their precious juices on the stem, as they hurried to reveal the glowing secret of their blossom; and while I yielded to the fascination of the scene, the woman beside me was absorbed into its wonderful witchery, Annie Bray and Frank Darry-timid, loving child and brilliantly developed woman-both united to win from me the passion of my life. Had I waited, the affinity of moods which drew us together would probably never have been reproduced; but I exclaimed,-

"Miss Darry, I can never entirely love any other woman than yourself!"

She started almost convulsively from the contact of my hand, and met my burning glance with one of such alarm and astonishment that I was stung almost to madness. Undoubtedly, my anger was partly a reaction from the period of dependence and tutelage, so galling to a proud and sensitive nature.

"You have no right," I cried, passionately, "to despise the love you have created. Listen; I do not expect any return. I know how theories are practically applied,-how one may work for the poor and ignorant on the broad table-land of perfect equality before God, and yet shrink from contact with the befriended brothers and sisters at the same social meal or in the same church. Shakspeare might have blackened Othello's skin by toil, instead of nature, and the obstacles to a happy love would have been in no degree lessened."

I paused; yet not a word did Miss Darry utter. Her face was so pale and rigid that all my suspicion was confirmed; and I exclaimed, more vehemently than before,-

"Remember, you cannot avoid the fact that I, a mere blacksmith, am your lover; if rejected and despised, your lover still. I shall think of you daily. You will not come to me alone the companion of my studio, one of those delicate visions which flit through an artist's brain. You shall stand beside my anvil. I will whisper your name when rough men are about me. You shall be the one gold thread embroidered into the coarse garment of my life,-my constant companion; yes, though you marry the first man in the land."

Still she stood immovable, as if carved in her favorite marble.

"Miss Darry," I implored, "I know how unworthy my character is of your love. Speak! If it is that you reject, I say no more; but what if your prophecies are fulfilled,-if I become what you desire?"

Then my statue glowed with life,-a deep color on the cheek, a frank, loving smile on the lips, banishing the doubtful, troubled expression I had watched so narrowly.

"You do not understand the woman you profess to love, Sandy," she replied, "if you suppose her capable of staking her favor on your future distinction. Not as blacksmith or artist, but as the man I love, I think of you to-night," she added, in a lower tone, returning to my side.

My happiness for the next few moments was complete. I held her closer in that fading light, and studied with delight the sweet, half-yielding, half-reproving expression with which she met my protestations of gratitude and devotion, and which I fondly fancied my love had stamped upon her face forever. Then I heard a quick step in the shrubbery, as of some one sent to summon us, and reluctantly released from my hold the embodiment at that instant of all I esteemed noblest and loveliest in woman. With characteristic composure, Miss Darry answered the message by gathering some of the roses beside us, and turning to re?nter the house. Afraid of my own lack of self-control, I would gladly have gone home like a blushing girl; but my new pride of protecting Miss Darry under all circumstances of difficulty compelled me to follow her. She was, however, on returning to the house, the same bright, helpful person as before. The scene on the lawn became, in half an hour, as the baseless fabric of a dream; and thinking that Miss Darry's sentiment, like that of the Colosseum, was best revealed by moonlight, I trusted in the few parting words which I should seek occasion to speak to her on the steps, as likely to restore her most captivating mood. When we parted, however, she only said, with heightened color, to be sure,-

"Sandy, I am well aware, that, were you the 'mere blacksmith' you called yourself in momentary passion to-night, bounded by narrow aims and desires, I could never love you. We must not, therefore, allow our affection to delay the destiny which, if you are faithful, most surely awaits you."

The fervent nonsense which might naturally have disgusted or at least wearied her she endured at first, as a necessary drawback; but it was soon toned down by the consciousness that she was guiding me, as usual, in paths best, if not always most agreeable to myself. She made no stipulations of secrecy with regard to our engagement. Her frank nature apparently admitted of no dim recesses to which only one must have the key.

After a few days, therefore, I resolved to disclose my new relations to the Brays, though I felt a most unaccountable reluctance to so doing. Mr. Bray received the information with indifference; Mrs. Bray looked surprised, and said she always knew Amos was respected, still she shouldn't have felt certain that the "school-ma'am" (in which capacity Miss Darry was spoken of in the village) would like to marry his apprentice; and Annie stole from her seat at the breakfast-table, and, laying her little hand on my shoulder, with a troubled look in her large blue eyes, asked,-

"Do you really mean it, Sandy,-that you have promised to marry the proud, handsome woman at Hillside?"

"Certainly, my little Annie," I replied; "I have promised to love and care for her, and I suppose we shall be married by-and-by. Miss Darry is not proud; it is only because you are too young to understand her that you think so."

"But I understand Mrs. Lang, and I thought I understood you, Sandy. Are you sure she will help you to grow happier and better?"

The tears were in her eyes. What induced these two-my betrothed wife and little sister-to have such doubts of each other?

"Of course I am sure of her, Annie. She has helped me to grow more of a man ever since I have known her; and as to being happier, two persons loving each other must, of course, be happy together. Besides," I added, smothering a sudden doubt, and assuming the philosopher, "we were not placed in this world to be happy, Annie,-only to make of ourselves all we can in every way."

"And to make others happy, Sandy," she added, in a wistful, tremulous way, as though her heart were full.

"Yes, certainly; and when I have a wife and home, I will make my little Annie so. She shall live with me, and confess that my wife is not proud, but noble and kind."

"No, Sandy, I shall not leave my mother, father, and brother Tom, to live with any one. I shall work with them and for them," she returned, with a womanly dignity I had never before noticed in her.

"You do not love me, then, Annie?" I asked, selfishly grasping at the affection I had so lightly prized.

"Yes, Sandy, as you love me; but not as we either of us care for our own,-you for Miss Darry, I for my mother, father, and Tom."

This final, clear settlement of my claims was all that was granted, though I lingered while she busied herself with her morning work, in the hope of more hearty sympathy. I carried about with me all day a restless, unsatisfied state of mind, quite strange in a newly accepted lover, and scarcely to be exorcised by Miss Darry's bright cordiality in the evening.