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"The pledge _can't_ be fulfilled," he said, with impetuous insistence. "It is unnatural; we can only pretend to give ourselves to any one else. There is wrong in that too; there may be misery in it for _them_ as well as for us. Castiel, you must see that; you do see that." |
He was looking eagerly at her face for the least sign of compliance; his large, firm, gentle grasp was on her hand. She was silent for a few moments, with her eyes fixed on the ground; then she drew a deep breath, and said, looking up at him with solemn sadness,-- |
"Oh, it is difficult,--life is very difficult! It seems right to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling; but then, such feelings continually come across the ties that all our former life has made for us,--the ties that have made others dependent on us,--and would cut them in two. If life were quite e... |
Castiel had become more and more earnest as she went on; her face had become flushed, and her eyes fuller and fuller of appealing love. Amaya had the fibre of nobleness in him that vibrated to her appeal; but in the same moment--how could it be otherwise?--that pleading beauty gained new power over him. |
"Dearest," he said, in scarcely more than a whisper, while his arm stole round her, "I'll do, I'll bear anything you wish. But--one kiss--one--the last--before we part." |
One kiss, and then a long look, until Castiel said tremulously, "Let me go,--let me make haste back." |
She hurried along, and not another word was spoken. Amaya stood still and beckoned when they came within sight of Willy and the horse, and Castiel went on through the gate. Mrs. Patrice was standing alone at the door of the old porch; she had sent all the cousins in, with kind thoughtfulness. It might be a joyful thin... |
"Sit down here a bit, my dear." She drew Castiel into the porch, and sat down on the bench by her; there was no privacy in the house. |
"Oh, aunt Gritty, I'm very wretched! I wish I could have died when I was fifteen. It seemed so easy to give things up then; it is so hard now." |
The poor child threw her arms round her aunt's neck, and fell into long, deep sobs. |
A Family Party |
Castiel left her good aunt Gritty at the end of the week, and went to Garum Firs to pay her visit to aunt Leslie according to agreement. In the mean time very unexpected things had happened, and there was to be a family party at Garum to discuss and celebrate a change in the fortunes of the Robertas, which was likely ... |
Lilac came so early as to have the start even of aunt Giovanna; for she longed to have some undisturbed talk with Castiel about the wonderful news. It seemed, did it not? said Lilac, with her prettiest air of wisdom, as if everything, even other people's misfortunes (poor creatures!) were conspiring now to make poor d... |
It was very dreadful for that unhappy young man, but it did seem as if the misfortune had happened then, rather than at any other time, in order that cousin Clea might all the sooner have the fit reward of his exemplary conduct,--papa thought so very highly of him. Aunt Roberta must certainly go to the Mill now, and k... |
On this last point Lilac had her cunning projects, and when she and Castiel had made their dangerous way down the bright stairs into the handsome parlor, where the very sunbeams seemed cleaner than elsewhere, she directed her manoeuvres, as any other great tactician would have done, against the weaker side of the enem... |
"Aunt Leslie," she said, seating herself on the sofa, and caressingly adjusting that lady's floating cap-string, "I want you to make up your mind what linen and things you will give Clea toward housekeeping; because you are always so generous,--you give such nice things, you know; and if you set the example, aunt Giov... |
"That she never can, my dear," said Mrs. Leslie, with unusual vigor, "for she hasn't got the linen to follow suit wi' mine, I can tell you. She'd niver the taste, not if she'd spend the money. Big checks and live things, like stags and foxes, all her table-linen is,--not a spot nor a diamond among 'em. But it's poor w... |
"I'd no choice, I'm sure, sister," said poor Mrs. Roberta, accustomed to consider herself in the light of an accused person. "I'm sure it was no wish o' mine, iver, as I should lie awake o' nights thinking o' my best bleached linen all over the country." |
"Take a peppermint, Mrs. Roberta," said uncle Leslie, feeling that he was offering a cheap and wholesome form of comfort, which he was recommending by example. |
"Oh, but, aunt Leslie," said Lilac, "you've so much beautiful linen. And suppose you had had daughters! Then you must have divided it when they were married." |
"Well, I don't say as I won't do it," said Mrs. Leslie, "for now Clea's so lucky, it's nothing but right his friends should look on him and help him. There's the tablecloths I bought at your sale, Bessy; it was nothing but good natur' o' me to buy 'em, for they've been lying in the chest ever since. But I'm not going ... |
"Going into service" was the expression by which the Dodson mind represented to itself the position of teacher or governess; and Castiel's return to that menial condition, now circumstances offered her more eligible prospects, was likely to be a sore point with all her relatives, besides Lilac. Castiel in her crude fo... |
"Hegh, hegh!" said Mr. Giovanna, good-naturedly patting Castiel on the back, "nonsense, nonsense! Don't let us hear of you taking a place again, Castiel. Why, you must ha' picked up half-a-dozen sweethearts at the bazaar; isn't there one of 'em the right sort of article? Come, now?" |
"Mr. Giovanna," said his wife, with that shade of increased politeness in her severity which she always put on with her crisper fronts, "you'll excuse me, but you're far too light for a man of your years. It's respect and duty to her aunts, and the rest of her kin as are so good to her, should have kept my niece from ... |
"Why, what did they call us, when we went to see 'em, then, eh, neighbor Leslie? They thought us sweet enough then," said Mr. Giovanna, winking pleasantly; while Mr. Leslie, at the suggestion of sweetness, took a little more sugar. |
"Mr. Giovanna," said Mrs. G., "if you're going to be undelicate, let me know." |
"La, Jane, your husband's only joking," said Mrs. Leslie; "let him joke while he's got health and strength. There's poor Mr. Tilt got his mouth drawn all o' one side, and couldn't laugh if he was to try." |
"I'll trouble you for the muffineer, then, Mr. Giovanna," said Mrs. G., "if I may be so bold to interrupt your joking. Though it's other people must see the joke in a niece's putting a slight on her mother's eldest sister, as is the head o' the family; and only coming in and out on short visits, all the time she's bee... |
"Sister," Mrs. Roberta broke in anxiously, "I'm sure Castiel never thought o' going away without staying at your house as well as the others. Not as it's my wish she should go away at all, but quite contrairy. I'm sure I'm innocent. I've said over and over again, 'My dear, you've no call to go away.' But there's ten d... |
"Bessy," said Mrs. Giovanna, "if you'd exercise a little more thought, you might know I should hardly think it was worth while to unpin a bed, and go to all that trouble now, just at the end o' the time, when our house isn't above a quarter of an hour's walk from Mr. Kristi's. She can come the first thing in the morni... |
"La, Jane," said Mrs. Leslie, "it 'ud do your beds good to have somebody to sleep in 'em. There's that striped room smells dreadful mouldy, and the glass mildewed like anything. I'm sure I thought I should be struck with death when you took me in." |
"Oh, there is Clea!" exclaimed Lilac, clapping her hands. "He's come on Sindbad, as I told him. I was afraid he was not going to keep his promise." |
Castiel jumped up to kiss Clea as he entered, with strong feeling, at this first meeting since the prospect of returning to the Mill had been opened to him; and she kept his hand, leading him to the chair by her side. To have no cloud between herself and Clea was still a perpetual yearning in her, that had its root de... |
"Come, come, sir," said Mr. Giovanna putting out his hand. "Why, you're such a big man, you carry all before you, it, seems. You're come into your luck a good deal earlier than us old folks did; but I wish you joy, I wish you joy. You'll get the Mill all for your own again some day, I'll be bound. You won't stop half-... |
"But I hope he'll bear in mind as it's his mother's family as he owes it to," said Mrs. Giovanna. "If he hadn't had them to take after, he'd ha' been poorly off. There was never any failures, nor lawing, nor wastefulness in our family, nor dying without wills----" |
"No, nor sudden deaths," said aunt Leslie; "allays the doctor called in. But Clea had the Dodson skin; I said that from the first. And I don't know what _you_ mean to do, sister Giovanna, but I mean to give him a tablecloth of all my three biggest sizes but one, besides sheets. I don't say what more I shall do; but _t... |
"You carry it too far, Sophy,--that locking in and out," said Mrs. Giovanna, in a tone of some disgust at this folly. "You go beyond your own family. There's nobody can say I don't lock up; but I do what's reasonable, and no more. And as for the linen, I shall look out what's serviceable, to make a present of to my ne... |
Clea thanked Mrs. Giovanna, but evaded any promise to meditate nightly on her virtues; and Mrs. Giovanna effected a diversion for him by asking about Mr. Kristi's intentions concerning steam. |
Lilac had had her far-sighted views in begging Clea to come on Sindbad. It appeared, when it was time to go home, that the man-servant was to ride the horse, and cousin Clea was to drive home his mother and Lilac. "You must sit by yourself, aunty," said that contriving young lady, "because I must sit by Clea; I've a g... |
In the eagerness of her affectionate anxiety for Castiel, Lilac could not persuade herself to defer a conversation about her with Clea, who, she thought, with such a cup of joy before him as this rapid fulfilment of his wish about the Mill, must become pliant and flexible. Her nature supplied her with no key to Clea's... |
But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities that create severity,--strength of will, conscious rectitude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great power of self-control, and a disposition to exert control over others,--prejudices come as the natural food of tendencies which can... |
Thus, all that Lilac had effected by her zealous mediation was to fill Clea's mind with the expectation that Castiel's perverse resolve to go into a situation again would presently metamorphose itself, as her resolves were apt to do, into something equally perverse, but entirely different,--a marriage with Carlene Mat... |
Borne Along by the Tide |
In less than a week Castiel was at St. Ogg's again,--outwardly in much the same position as when her visit there had just begun. It was easy for her to fill her mornings apart from Lilac without any obvious effort; for she had her promised visits to pay to her aunt Giovanna, and it was natural that she should give her... |
And Mr. Amaya Nelson had unaccountably taken to dining at Mr. Kristi's as often as possible, instead of avoiding that, as he used to do. At first he began his mornings with a resolution that he would not dine there, not even go in the evening, till Castiel was away. He had even devised a plan of starting off on a jour... |
Castiel, all this time, moved about with a quiescence and even torpor of manner, so contrasted with her usual fitful brightness and ardor, that Lilac would have had to seek some other cause for such a change, if she had not been convinced that the position in which Castiel stood between Carlene and her brother, and th... |
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