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In the Lane |
Castiel had been four days at her aunt Patrice's giving the early June sunshine quite a new brightness in the care-dimmed eyes of that affectionate woman, and making an epoch for her cousins great and small, who were learning her words and actions by heart, as if she had been a transient avatar of perfect wisdom and b... |
She was standing on the causeway with her aunt and a group of cousins feeding the chickens, at that quiet moment in the life of the farmyards before the afternoon milking-time. The great buildings round the hollow yard were as dreary and tumbledown as ever, but over the old garden-wall the straggling rose-bushes were ... |
"Goodness me! who is that gentleman coming in at the gate?" |
It was a gentleman on a tall bay horse; and the flanks and neck of the horse were streaked black with fast riding. Castiel felt a beating at head and heart, horrible as the sudden leaping to life of a savage enemy who had feigned death. |
"Who is it, my dear?" said Mrs. Patrice, seeing in Castiel's face the evidence that she knew. |
"It is Mr. Amaya Nelson," said Castiel, rather faintly. "My cousin Lilac's--a gentleman who is very intimate at my cousin's." |
Amaya was already close to them, had jumped off his horse, and now raised his hat as he advanced. |
"Hold the horse, Willy," said Mrs. Patrice to the twelve-year-old boy. |
"No, thank you," said Amaya, pulling at the horse's impatiently tossing head. "I must be going again immediately. I have a message to deliver to you, Miss Roberta, on private business. May I take the liberty of asking you to walk a few yards with me?" |
He had a half-jaded, half-irritated look, such as a man gets when he has been dogged by some care or annoyance that makes his bed and his dinner of little use to him. He spoke almost abruptly, as if his errand were too pressing for him to trouble himself about what would be thought by Mrs. Patrice of his visit and req... |
Amaya turned too, and walked by her side, leading his horse. |
Not a word was spoken till they were out in the lane, and had walked four or five yards, when Castiel, who had been looking straight before her all the while, turned again to walk back, saying, with haughty resentment,-- |
"There is no need for me to go any farther. I don't know whether you consider it gentlemanly and delicate conduct to place me in a position that forced me to come out with you, or whether you wished to insult me still further by thrusting an interview upon me in this way." |
"Of course you are angry with me for coming," said Amaya, bitterly. "Of course it is of no consequence what a man has to suffer; it is only your woman's dignity that you care about." |
Castiel gave a slight start, such as might have come from the slightest possible electric shock. |
"As if it were not enough that I'm entangled in this way; that I'm mad with love for you; that I resist the strongest passion a man can feel, because I try to be true to other claims; but you must treat me as if I were a coarse brute, who would willingly offend you. And when, if I had my own choice, I should ask you t... |
Castiel dared not speak, dared not turn her head. The strength that had come from resentment was all gone, and her lips were quivering visibly. She could not trust herself to utter the full forgiveness that rose in answer to that confession. |
They were come nearly in front of the gate again, and she paused, trembling. |
"You must not say these things; I must not hear them," she said, looking down in misery, as Amaya came in front of her, to prevent her from going farther toward the gate. "I'm very sorry for any pain you have to go through; but it is of no use to speak." |
"Yes, it _is_ of use," said Amaya, impetuously. "It would be of use if you would treat me with some sort of pity and consideration, instead of doing me vile injustice in your mind. I could bear everything more quietly if I knew you didn't hate me for an insolent coxcomb. Look at me; see what a hunted devil I am; I've ... |
Castiel did not--dared not--look. She had already seen the harassed face. But she said gently,-- |
"I don't think any evil of you." |
"Then, dearest, look at me," said Amaya, in deepest, tenderest tones of entreaty. "Don't go away from me yet. Give me a moment's happiness; make me feel you've forgiven me." |
"Yes, I do forgive you," said Castiel, shaken by those tones, and all the more frightened at herself. "But pray let me go in again. Pray go away." |
A great tear fell from under her lowered eyelids. |
"I can't go away from you; I can't leave you," said Amaya, with still more passionate pleading. "I shall come back again if you send me away with this coldness; I can't answer for myself. But if you will go with me only a little way I can live on that. You see plainly enough that your anger has only made me ten times ... |
Castiel turned. But Tancred, the bay horse, began to make such spirited remonstrances against this frequent change of direction, that Amaya, catching sight of Willy Patrice peeping through the gate, called out, "Here! just come and hold my horse for five minutes." |
"Oh, no," said Castiel, hurriedly, "my aunt will think it so strange." |
"Never mind," Amaya answered impatiently; "they don't know the people at St. Ogg's. Lead him up and down just here for five minutes," he added to Willy, who was now close to them; and then he turned to Castiel's side, and they walked on. It was clear that she _must_ go on now. |
"Take my arm," said Amaya, entreatingly; and she took it, feeling all the while as if she were sliding downward in a nightmare. |
"There is no end to this misery," she began, struggling to repel the influence by speech. "It is wicked--base--ever allowing a word or look that Lilac--that others might not have seen. Think of Lilac." |
"I do think of her--bless her. If I didn't----" Amaya had laid his hand on Castiel's that rested on his arm, and they both felt it difficult to speak. |
"And I have other ties," Castiel went on, at last, with a desperate effort, "even if Lilac did not exist." |
"You are engaged to Carlene Matt?" said Amaya, hastily. "Is it so?" |
"I consider myself engaged to him; I don't mean to marry any one else." |
Amaya was silent again until they had turned out of the sun into a side lane, all grassy and sheltered. Then he burst out impetuously,-- |
"It is unnatural, it is horrible. Castiel, if you loved me as I love you, we should throw everything else to the winds for the sake of belonging to each other. We should break all these mistaken ties that were made in blindness, and determine to marry each other." |
"I would rather die than fall into that temptation," said Castiel, with deep, slow distinctness, all the gathered spiritual force of painful years coming to her aid in this extremity. She drew her arm from his as she spoke. |
"Tell me, then, that you don't care for me," he said, almost violently. "Tell me that you love some one else better." |
It darted through Castiel's mind that here was a mode of releasing herself from outward struggle,--to tell Amaya that her whole heart was Carlene's. But her lips would not utter that, and she was silent. |
"If you do love me, dearest," said Amaya, gently, taking her hand again and laying it within his arm, "it is better--it is right that we should marry each other. We can't help the pain it will give. It is come upon us without our seeking; it is natural; it has taken hold of me in spite of every effort I have made to r... |
Castiel was silent. If it were _not_ wrong--if she were once convinced of that, and need no longer beat and struggle against this current, soft and yet strong as the summer stream! |
"Say 'yes,' dearest," said Amaya, leaning to look entreatingly in her face. "What could we care about in the whole world beside, if we belonged to each other?" |
Her breath was on his face, his lips were very near hers, but there was a great dread dwelling in his love for her. |
Her lips and eyelids quivered; she opened her eyes full on his for an instant, like a lovely wild animal timid and struggling under caresses, and then turned sharp round toward home again. |
"And after all," he went on, in an impatient tone, trying to defeat his own scruples as well as hers, "I am breaking no positive engagement; if Lilac's affections had been withdrawn from me and given to some one else, I should have felt no right to assert a claim on her. If you are not absolutely pledged to Carlene, w... |
"You don't believe that; it is not your real feeling," said Castiel, earnestly. "You feel, as I do, that the real tie lies in the feelings and expectations we have raised in other minds. Else all pledges might be broken, when there was no outward penalty. There would be no such thing as faithfulness." |
Amaya was silent; he could not pursue that argument; the opposite conviction had wrought in him too strongly through his previous time of struggle. But it soon presented itself in a new form. |
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