CHAPTER II.

_A Day of Love_.

MEANWHILE the beautiful Henrietta sat in her bower, her music neglected,

her drawing thrown aside. Even her birds were forgotten, and her flowers

untended. A soft tumult filled her frame: now rapt in reverie, she

leaned her head upon her fair hand in charmed abstraction; now rising

from her restless seat, she paced the chamber, and thought of his quick

coming. What was this mighty revolution that a few short days, a few

brief hours had occasioned? How mysterious, yet how irresistible, how

overwhelming! Her father was absent, that father on whose fond idea she

had alone lived; from whom the slightest separation had once been

pain; and now that father claims not even her thoughts. Another, and a

stranger’s, image is throned in her soul. She who had moved in the world

so variously, who had received so much homage and been accustomed from

her childhood to all that is considered accomplished and fascinating in

man, and had passed through the ordeal with a calm clear spirit; behold,

she is no longer the mistress of her thoughts or feelings; she had

fallen before a glance, and yielded in an instant to a burning word!

But could she blame herself? Did she repent the rapid and ravishing

past? Did regret mingle with her wonder? Was there a pang of remorse,

however slight, blending its sharp tooth with all her bliss? No! Her

love was perfect, and her joy was full. She offered her vows to that

Heaven that had accorded her happiness so supreme; she felt only

unworthy of a destiny so complete. She marvelled, in the meekness and

purity of her spirit, why one so gifted had been reserved for her,

and what he could recognise in her imperfect and inferior qualities to

devote to them the fondness of his rare existence.

Ferdinand Armine! Did there indeed ever breathe, had the wit of poet

ever yet devised, a being so choice? So young, so beautiful, so lively

and accomplished, so deeply and variously interesting! Was that sweet

voice, indeed, only to sound in her enchanted ear, that graceful form

to move only for the pleasure of her watchful eye? That quick and airy

fancy but to create for her delight, and that soft, gentle heart to own

no solicitude but for her will and infinite gratification? And could it

be possible that he loved her, that she was indeed his pledged bride,

that the accents of his adoration still echoed in her ear, and his fond

embrace still clung to her mute and trembling lips! Would he always love

her? Would he always be so fond? Would he be as faithful as he was now

devoted? Ah! she would not lose him. That heart should never escape her.

Her life should be one long vigilant device to enchain his being.

What was she five days past? Is it possible that she lived before she

met him? Of what did she think, what do? Could there be pursuits without

this companion, plans or feelings without this sweet friend? Life

must have been a blank, vapid and dull and weary. She could not recall

herself before that morning ride to Armine. How rolled away the day!

How heavy must have been the hours! All that had been uttered before she

listened to Ferdinand seemed without point; all that was done before he

lingered at her side, aimless and without an object.

O Love! in vain they moralise; in vain they teach us thou art a

delusion; in vain they dissect thine inspiring sentiment, and would

mortify us into misery by its degrading analysis. The sage may announce

that gratified vanity is thine aim and end; but the lover glances with

contempt at his cold-blooded philosophy. Nature assures him thou art a

beautiful and sublime emotion; and, he answers, canst thou deprive the

sun of its heat because its ray may be decomposed; or does the diamond

blaze with less splendour because thou canst analyse its effulgence?

A gentle rustling sounded at the window: Henrietta looked up, but the

sight deserted her fading vision, as Ferdinand seized with softness her

softer hand, and pressed it to his lips.

A moment since, and she had longed for his presence as the infant for

its mother; a moment since, and she had murmured that so much of the

morn had passed without his society; a moment since, and it had seemed

that no time could exhaust the expression of her feelings. How she had

sighed for his coming! How she had hoped that this day she might convey

to him what last night she had so weakly, so imperfectly attempted!

And now she sat trembling and silent, with downcast eyes and changing

countenance!

‘My Henrietta!’ exclaimed Ferdinand, ‘my beautiful Henrietta, it seemed

we never should meet again, and yet I rose almost with the sun.’

‘My Ferdinand,’ replied Miss Temple, scarcely daring to meet his glance,

‘I cannot speak; I am so happy that I cannot speak.’

‘Ah! tell me, have you thought of me? Did you observe I stole your

handkerchief last night? See! here it is; when I slept, I kissed it and

wore it next my heart.’

‘Ah! give it me,’ she faintly murmured, extending her hand; and then she

added, in a firmer and livelier tone, ‘and did you really wear it near

your heart!’

‘Near thine; for thine it is, love! Sweet, you look so beautiful to-day!

It seems to me you never yet looked half so fair. Those eyes are so

brilliant, so very blue, so like the violet! There is nothing like your

eyes!’

‘Except your own.’

‘You have taken away your hand. Give me back my hand, my Henrietta. I

will not quit it. The whole day it shall be clasped in mine. Ah! what a

hand! so soft, so very soft! There is nothing like your hand.’

‘Yours is as soft, dear Ferdinand.’

‘O Henrietta! I do love you so! I wish that I could tell you how I love

you! As I rode home last night it seemed that I had not conveyed to you

a tithe, nay, a thousandth part of what I feel.’

‘You cannot love me, Ferdinand, more than I love you.’

‘Say so again! Tell me very often, tell me a thousand times, how much

you love me. Unless you tell me a thousand times, Henrietta, I never can

believe that I am so blessed.’

They went forth into the garden. Nature, with the splendid sky and the

sweet breeze, seemed to smile upon their passion. Henrietta plucked the

most beautiful flowers and placed them in his breast.

‘Do you remember the rose at Armine?’ said Ferdinand, with a fond smile.

‘Ah! who would have believed that it would have led to this?’ said

Henrietta, with downcast eyes.

‘I am not more in love now than I was then,’ said Ferdinand.

‘I dare not speak of my feelings,’ said Miss Temple. ‘Is it possible

that it can be but five days back since we first met! It seems another

era.’

‘I have no recollection of anything that occurred before I saw

you beneath the cedar,’ replied Ferdinand: ‘that is the date of my

existence. I saw you, and I loved. My love was at once complete; I have

no confidence in any other; I have no confidence in the love that is

the creature of observation, and reflection, and comparison, and

calculation. Love, in my opinion, should spring from innate sympathy; it

should be superior to all situations, all ties, all circumstances.’

‘Such, then, we must believe is ours,’ replied Henrietta, in a somewhat

grave and musing tone: ‘I would willingly embrace your creed. I know not

why I should be ashamed of my feelings. They are natural, and they are

pure. And yet I tremble. But so long as you do not think lightly of me,

Ferdinand, for whom should I care?’

‘My Henrietta! my angel! my adored and beautiful! I worship you, I

reverence you. Ah! my Henrietta, if you only knew how I dote upon you,

you would not speak thus. Come, let us ramble in our woods.’

So saying, he withdrew her from the more public situation in which they

were then placed, and entered, by a winding walk, those beautiful bowers

that had given so fair and fitting a name to Ducie. Ah! that was a

ramble of rich delight, as, winding his arm round her light waist, he

poured into her palpitating ear all the eloquence of his passion. Each

hour that they had known each other was analysed, and the feelings

of each moment were compared. What sweet and thrilling confessions!

Eventually it was settled, to the complete satisfaction of both,

that both had fallen in love at the same time, and that they had been

mutually and unceasingly thinking of each other from the first instant

of their meeting.

The conversation of lovers is inexhaustible. Hour glided away after

hour, as Ferdinand alternately expressed his passion and detailed the

history of his past life. For the curiosity of woman, lively at all

times, is never so keen, so exacting, and so interested, as in her

anxiety to become acquainted with the previous career of her lover. She

is jealous of all that he has done before she knew him; of every person

to whom he has spoken. She will be assured a thousand times that he

never loved before, yet she credits the first affirmation. She envies

the mother who knew him as a child, even the nurse who may have rocked

his cradle. She insists upon a minute and finished portraiture of his

character and life.

Why did he not give it? More than once it was upon his lips to reveal

all; more than once he was about to pour forth all his sorrows, all the

entanglements of his painful situation; more than once he was about

to make the full and mortifying confession, that, though his heart was

hers, there existed another, who even at that moment might claim the

hand that Henrietta clasped with so much tenderness. But he checked

himself. He would not break the charm that surrounded him; he would not

disturb the clear and brilliant stream in which his life was at this

moment flowing; he had not courage to change by a worldly word the scene

of celestial enchantment in which he now moved and breathed. Let us

add, in some degree for his justification, that he was not altogether

unmindful of the feelings of Miss Grandison. Sufficient misery remained,

at all events, for her, without adding the misery of making her

rival cognizant of her mortification. The deed must be done, and done

promptly; but, at least, there should be no unnecessary witnesses to its

harrowing achievement.

So he looked upon the radiant brow of his Henrietta, wreathed with

smiles of innocent triumph, sparkling with unalloyed felicity, and

beaming with unbroken devotion. Should the shade of a dark passion for

a moment cloud that heaven, so bright and so serene? Should even a

momentary pang of jealousy or distrust pain that pure and unsullied

breast? In the midst of contending emotions, he pressed her to his heart

with renewed energy, and, bending down his head, imprinted an embrace

upon her blushing forehead.

They seated themselves on a bank, which, it would seem, Nature had

created for the convenience of lovers. The softest moss, and the

brightest flowers decked its elastic and fragrant side. A spreading

beech tree shaded their heads from the sun, which now was on the

decline; and occasionally its wide branches rustled with the soft breeze

that passed over them in renovating and gentle gusts. The woods widened

before them, and at the termination of a well-contrived avenue, they

caught the roofs of the village and the tall grey tower of Ducie Church.

They had wandered for hours without weariness, yet the repose was

grateful, while they listened to the birds, and plucked wildflowers.

‘Ah! I remember,’ said Ferdinand, ‘that it was not far from here, while

slumbering indeed in the porch of my pretty farm-house, that the fairy

of the spot dropped on my breast these beautiful flowers that I now

wear. Did you not observe them, my sweet Henrietta? Do you know that

I am rather mortified, that they have not made you at least a little

jealous?’

‘I am not jealous of fairies, dear Ferdinand.’

‘And yet I half believe that you are a fairy, my Henrietta.’

‘A very substantial one, I fear, my Ferdinand. Is this a compliment to

my form?’

‘Well, then, a sylvan nymph, much more, I assure you, to my fancy;

perhaps the rosy Dryad of this fair tree; rambling in woods, and

bounding over commons, scattering beautiful flowers, and dreams as

bright.’

‘And were your dreams bright yesterday morning?’

‘I dreamed of you.’

‘And when you awoke?’

‘I hastened to the source of my inspiration.’

‘And if you had not dreamt of me?’

‘I should have come to have enquired the reason why.’

Miss Temple looked upon the ground; a blended expression of mirth and

sentiment played over her features, and then looking up with a smile

contending with her tearful eye, she hid her face in his breast and

murmured, ‘I watched him sleeping. Did he indeed dream of me?’

‘Darling of my existence!’ exclaimed the enraptured Ferdinand,

‘exquisite, enchanting being! Why am I so happy? What have I done

to deserve bliss so ineffable? But tell me, beauty, tell me how you

contrived to appear and vanish without witnesses? For my enquiries

were severe, and these good people must have been less artless than I

imagined to have withstood them successfully.’

‘I came,’ said Miss Temple, ‘to pay them a visit, with me not uncommon.

When I entered the porch I beheld my Ferdinand asleep. I looked upon

him for a moment, but I was frightened and stole away unperceived. But I

left the flowers, more fortunate than your Henrietta.’

‘Sweet love!’

‘Never did I return home,’ continued Miss Temple, ‘more sad and more

dispirited. A thousand times I wished that I was a flower, that I might

be gathered and worn upon your heart. You smile, my Ferdinand. Indeed I

feel I am very foolish, yet I know not why, I am now neither ashamed nor

afraid to tell you anything. I was so miserable when I arrived home, my

Ferdinand, that I went to my room and wept. And he then came! Oh! what

heaven was mine! I wiped the tears from my face and came down to see

him. He looked so beautiful and happy!’

‘And you, sweet child, oh! who could have believed, at that moment, that

a tear had escaped from those bright eyes!’

‘Love makes us hypocrites, I fear, my Ferdinand; for, a moment before,

I was so wearied that I was lying on my sofa quite wretched. And then,

when I saw him, I pretended that I had not been out, and was just

thinking of a stroll. Oh, my Ferdinand! will you pardon me?’

‘It seems to me that I never loved you until this moment. Is it possible

that human beings ever loved each other as we do?’

Now came the hour of twilight. While in this fond strain the lovers

interchanged their hearts, the sun had sunk, the birds grown silent, and

the star of evening twinkled over the tower of Ducie. The bat and the

beetle warned them to return. They rose reluctantly and retraced their

steps to Ducie, with hearts softer even than the melting hour.

‘Must we then part?’ exclaimed Ferdinand. ‘Oh! must we part! How can

I exist even an instant without your presence, without at least the

consciousness of existing under the same roof? Oh! would I were one of

your serving-men, to listen to your footstep, to obey your bell, and

ever and anon to catch your voice! Oh! now I wish indeed Mr. Temple were

here, and then I might be your guest.’

‘My father!’ exclaimed Miss Temple, in a somewhat serious tone. ‘I ought

to have written to him to-day! Oh! talk not of my father, speak only of

yourself.’

They stood in silence as they were about to emerge upon the lawn, and

then Miss Temple said, ‘Dear Ferdinand, you must go; indeed you must.

Press me not to enter. If you love me, now let us part. I shall retire

immediately, that the morning may sooner come. God bless you, my

Ferdinand. May He guard over you, and keep you for ever and ever. You

weep! Indeed you must not; you so distress me. Ferdinand, be good, be

kind; for my sake do not this. I love you; what can I do more? The time

will come we will not part, but now we must. Good night, my Ferdinand.

Nay, if you will, these lips indeed are yours. Promise me you will

not remain here. Well then, when the light is out in my chamber, leave

Ducie. Promise me this, and early tomorrow, earlier than you think, I

will pay a visit to your cottage. Now be good, and to-morrow we will

breakfast together. There now!’ she added in a gay tone, ‘you see

woman’s wit has the advantage.’ And so without another word she ran

away.