XVII.
TWO CONVERSATIONS.
That afternoon, as Emma was sitting in her own room, she was startled bythe unexpected presence of Hermione. As they were not in the habit ofintruding upon each other above stairs, Emma rose in some surprise. ButHermione motioning her back into her chair, fell at her feet in suddenabandon, and, laying her head in her sister's lay, gave way to one deepsob. Emma, too much astonished to move at this unexpected humiliation ofone who had never before bent her imperious head in that household,looked at the rich black locks scattered over her knees with wonder ifnot with awe.
"Hermione!" she whispered, "Hermione! do not kneel to me, unless it bewith joy."
But the elder sister, clasping her convulsively around the waist,murmured:
"Let me be humble for a moment; let me show that I have something in mebesides pride, reckless endurance, and determined will. I have not shownit enough in the past. I have kept my sufferings to myself, and myremorse to myself, and alas! also all my stern recognition of your loveand unparalleled devotion. I have felt your goodness, oh, I have feltit, so much so, at times, that I thought I could not live, ought not tolive, just because of what I have done to _you_; but I never saidanything, could not say anything! Yet all the remorse I experienced wasnothing to what I experience now that I know I was not even loved----"
"Hush," broke in Emma, "let those days be forgotten. I only felt thatyou ought to know the truth, because sweeter prospects are before you,and----"
"I understand," murmured Hermione, "you are always the great-hearted,unselfishly minded sister. I believe you would actually rejoice to seeme happy now, even if it did not release you from the position you haveassumed. But it shall release you; you shall not suffer any longer on myaccount. Even if it is only to give you the opportunity of--of meetingwith Dr. Sellick, you shall go out of this house to-day. Do you hear me,Emma, _to-day_?"
But the ever-gentle, ever-docile Emma rose up at this, quite pale in herresolution. "Till you put foot out of the gate I remain this side ofit," said she. "Nothing can ever alter my determination in this regard."
And Hermione, surveying her with slowly filling eyes, became convincedthat it would be useless to argue this point, though she made an effortto do so by saying with a noble disregard of her own womanly shame whichin its turn caused Emma's eyes to fill:
"Dr. Sellick has suffered a great wrong, I judge; don't you think youowe something to him?"
But Emma shook her head, though she could not prevent a certain wistfullook from creeping into her face. "Not what I owe to you," said she, andthen flushed with distress lest her sister should misjudge the meaningof her words.
But Hermione was in a rarely generous mood. "But I release you from anypromise you have made or any obligations you may consider yourself to beunder. Great heaven! do you think I would hold you to them _now_?"
"I hold myself," cried Emma. "You cannot release me,--except," sheadded, with gentle intimation, "by releasing yourself."
"I cannot release myself," moaned Hermione. "If we all perish I cannotrelease myself. _I_ am a prisoner to this house, but you----"
"We are sister prisoners," interpolated Emma, softly. Then with a suddensmile, "I was in hopes that he who led you to break one resolution mightinduce you to break another."
But Hermione, flushing with something of her old fire, cried outwarmly: "In going out of the house I broke a promise made to myself, butin leaving the grounds I should--oh, I cannot tell you what I should do;not even you know the full bitterness of my life! It is a secret, lockedin this shrinking, tortured heart, which it almost breaks, but does notquite, or I should not linger in this dreadful world to be a cause ofwoe to those I cherish most."
"But Hermione, Hermione----"
"You think you know what has set a seal on my lips, the gloom on mybrow, the death in my heart; but you do not, Emma. You know much, butnot the fatal grief, the irrepressible misery. But you shall know, andknow soon. I have promised to write out the whole history of my life forMr. Etheridge, and when he has read it you shall read it too. Perhapswhen you learn what the real horror of this house has been, you mayappreciate the force of will-power which it has taken for me to remainin it."
Emma, who had never suspected anything in the past beyond what sheherself knew, grew white with fresh dismay. But Hermione, seeing it,kissed her, and, speaking more lightly, said: "You kept back one vitalsecret from me in consideration of what you thought the limit of myendurance. I have done the same for you under the same consideration.Now we will equalize matters, and perhaps--who knows?--happier days maycome, if Mr. Etheridge is not too much startled by the revelations Ihave to make him, and if Dr. Sellick--do not shrink, Emma--learns somemagnanimity from his friend and will accept the explanations I shallthink it my duty to offer him."
But at this suggestion, so unlike any that had ever come from Hermione'slips before, the younger sister first stared, and then flung her armsaround the speaker, with cries of soft deprecation and shame.
"You shall not," she murmured. "Not if I lose him shall he ever knowwhy that cruel letter was written. It is enough--it shall beenough--that he was dismissed _then_. If he loves me he will try hisfate again. But I do not think he does love me, and it would be betterfor him that he did not. Would _he_ ever marry a woman who, not even athis entreaty, could be induced to cross the limits of her home?"
"Mr. Etheridge should not do it either; but he is so generous--perhapsso hopeful! He may not be as much so when he has read what I have towrite."
"I think he will," said Emma, and then paused, remembering that she didnot know all that her sister had to relate.
"He would be a man in a thousand then," whispered the once haughtyHermione. "A man to worship, to sacrifice all and everything to, that itwas in one's power to sacrifice."
"He will do what is right," quoth Emma.
Hermione sighed. Was she afraid of the right?
Meantime, in the poplar-walk below, another talk was being held, which,if these young girls could have heard it, might have made them feel evenmore bitterly than before, what heavy clouds lay upon any prospect ofjoy which they might secretly cherish. Doris, who was a woman of manythoughts, and who just now found full scope for all her ideas in theunhappy position of her two dear young ladies, had gone into the openair to pick currants and commune with herself as to what more could bedone to bring them into a proper recognition of their folly in clingingto a habit or determination which seemed likely to plunge them into suchdifficulties.
The currant bushes were at the farther end of the garden near thetermination of the poplar-walk, and when, in one of the pauses of herpicking, she chanced to look up, she saw advancing towards her down thatwalk the thin, wiry figure of the old man who had taken luncheon withthe young ladies, and whom they called, in very peculiar tones, shethought, Mr. Huckins. He was looking from right to left as he came, andhis air was one of contemplation or that of a person who was taking inthe beauties of a scene new to him and not wholly unpleasant.
When he reached the spot where Doris stood eying him with some curiosityand not a little distrust, he paused, looked about him, and perceivingher, affected some surprise, and stepped briskly to where she was.
"Picking currants?" he observed. "Let me help you. I used to do suchthings when a boy."
Astonished, and not a little gratified at what she chose to consider hiscondescension, Doris smiled. It was a rare thing now for a man to beseen in this lonesome old place, and such companionship was notaltogether disagreeable to Mistress Doris.
Huckins rubbed his hands together in satisfaction at this smile, andsidled up to the simpering spinster with a very propitiatory air.
"How nice this all is," he remarked. "So rural, so peaceful, and sopleasant. I come from a place where there is no fruit, nor flowers, noryoung ladies. You must be happy here." And he gave her a look which shethought very insinuating.
"Oh, I am happy enough," she conceded, "because I am bound to be happywherever the young lad
ies are. But I could wish that things weredifferent too." And she thought herself very discreet that she had notspoken more clearly.
"Things?" he repeated softly.
"Yes, my young ladies have odd ideas; I thought you knew."
He drew nearer to her side, very much nearer, and dropped the currantshe had plucked gently into her pail.
"I know they have a fixed antipathy to going out, but they will get overthat."
"Do you think so?" she asked eagerly.
"Don't _you_?" he queried, with an innocent look of surprise. He wasimproving in his dissimulation, or else he succeeded better with thoseof whom he had no fear.
"I don't know what to think. Are you an old friend of theirs?" sheinquired. "You must be, to lunch with them."
"I never saw them before to-day," he returned, "yet I am an old friend.Reason that out," he leered.
"You like to puzzle folks," she observed, picking very busily butsmiling all the while. "Do you give answers with your puzzles?"
"Not to such sharp wits as yours. But how beautiful Miss Cavanagh is.Has she always had that scar?"
"Ever since I knew her."
"Pity she should have such a blemish. You like her, don't you, verymuch?"
"I love her."
"And her sister--such a sweet girl!"
"I love them both."
"That is right. I should be sorry to have any one about them who did notlove them. _I_ love them, or soon shall, very much."
"Are you," Doris inquired, with great inquisitiveness, "going to remainin Marston any time?"
"I cannot say," sighed the old man; "I should like to. I should be veryhappy here, but I am afraid the young ladies do not like me wellenough."
Doris had cherished some such idea herself an hour ago, and had notwondered at it then, but now her feelings seemed changed.
"Was it to see them you came to Marston?" said she.
"Merely to see them," he replied.
She was puzzled, but more eager than puzzled, so anxious was she to findsome one who could control their eccentricities.
"They will treat you politely," she assured him. "They are peculiargirls, but they are always polite."
"I am afraid I shall not be satisfied with politeness," he insinuated."I want them to love me, to confide in me. I want to be their friend infact as I have so long been in fancy."
"You are some relative of theirs," she now asserted, "or you knew theirfather well or their mother."
"I wouldn't say no," he replied,--but to which of these threeintimations, he evidently did not think it worth while to say.
"Then," she declared, "you are the man I want. Mr. Etheridge--that isthe lawyer from New York who has lately been coming here--does not seemto have much confidence in himself or me. But you look as if you mightdo something or suggest something. I mean about getting the young ladiesto give up their whims."
"Has this Mr.--Mr. Etheridge, did you call him?--been doing theirbusiness long?"
"I never saw him here till a month ago."
"Ah! a month ago! And do they like him? Do they seem inclined to takehis advice? Does he press it upon them?"
"I wish I knew. I am only a poor servant, remember, though my bringingup was as good almost as theirs. They are kind to me, but I do not sitdown in the parlor; if I did, I might know something of what is goingon. I can only judge, you see, by looks."
"And the looks? Come, I have a _great_ interest in the youngladies--almost as great as yours. What do their looks say?--I mean sincethis young man came to visit them? He is a young man, didn't you say?"
"Yes, he is young, and so good-looking. I have thought--now don't spillthe currants, just as we have filled the pail--that he was a littlesweet on Miss Hermione, and that that was why he came here so often, andnot because he had business."
"You have?" twitted the old man, almost dancing about her in his suddenexcitement. "Well, well, that must be seen to. A wedding, eh, a wedding?That's what you think is coming?" And Doris could not tell whether itwas pleasure or alarm that gave so queer a look to his eyes.
"I cannot say--I wish I could," she fervently cried; "then I might hopeto see a change here; then we might expect to see these two sweet youngladies doing like other folks and making life pleasant for themselvesand every one about them. But Miss Hermione is a girl who would be verycapable of saying no to a young man if he stood in the way of anyresolve she had taken. I don't calculate much on her being influenced bylove, or I would never have bothered you with my troubles. It is fearthat must control her, or----" Doris paused and looked at himknowingly--"or she must be lured out of the house by some cunningdevice."
Huckins, who had been feeling his way up to this point, brightened ashe noticed the slyness of the smile with which she emphasized thisinsinuation, and from this moment felt more assured. But he said nothingas yet to show how he was affected by her words. There was anotherlittle matter he wanted settled first.
"Do you know," he asked, "why she, and her sister, too, I believe, havetaken this peculiar freak? Have they ever told you, or have you ever--"how close his head got to hers, and how he nodded and peered--"surprisedtheir secret?"
Doris shook her head. "All a mystery," she whispered, and began pickingcurrants again, that operation having stopped as they got more earnest.
"But it isn't a mystery," he laughed, "why you want to get them out ofthe house just _now_. I know your reason for that, and think you willsucceed without any device of love or cunning."
"I don't understand you," she protested, puckering her black brows andgrowing very energetic. "I don't want to do it _now_ any more than Ihave for the last twelve months. Only I am getting desperate. I am notone who can want a thing and be patient. I _want_ Miss Hermione Cavanaghand her sister to laugh and be gay like other girls, and till they giveup all this nonsense of self-seclusion they never will; and so I say tomyself that any measures are justifiable that lead to that end. Don'tyou think I am right?"
He smiled warily and took her pail of currants from her hand.
"I think you are the brightest woman and have one of the clearest headsI ever knew. I don't remember when I have seen a woman who pleased me sowell. Shall we be friends? I am only a solitary bachelor, travellinghither and thither because I do not know how else to spend my money; butI am willing to work for your ends if you are willing to work for mine."
"And what are they?" she simpered, looking very much delighted. Doriswas not without ambition, and from this moment not without her hopes.
"To make these young ladies trust me so that I may visit them off and onwhile I remain in this place. I thought it was pleasant here before, but_now_----" The old fellow finished with a look and a sigh, and Doris'subjugation was complete.
Yet she did not let him at this time any further into her plans,possibly because she had not formed any. She only talked on more andmore about her love for the young ladies, and her wonder over theirconduct, and he, listening for any chance word which might help him inhis own perplexity, walked back at her side, till they arrived in sightof the house, when he gave her the pail and slunk back to come on lateralone. But a seed was sown at that interview which was destined to bearstrange fruit; and it is hard telling which felt the most satisfactionat the understood compact between them--the hard, selfish, and schemingmiser, or the weak and obstinate serving-woman, who excused to herselfthe duplicity of her conduct by the plea, true enough as far as it went,that she was prompted by love for those she served, and a desire to seethe two women she admired as bright and happy as their youth and beautydemanded.
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