What Answer?

by Anna E. Dickinson

  CHAPTER V

  "_A breathing sigh, a sigh for answer, A little talking of outward things._"

  JEAN INGELOW

  Ah, the weeks that followed! People ate and drank and slept, lived andloved and hated, were born and died,--the same world that it had been alittle while before, yet not the same to them,--never to seem quite thesame again. A little cloud had fallen between them and it, and changedto their eyes all its proportions and hues.

  They were incessantly together, riding, or driving, or walking, lookingat pictures, dancing at parties, listening to opera or play.

  "It seems to me Will is going it at a pretty tremendous pace somewhere,"said Mr. Surrey to his wife, one morning, after this had endured for aspace. "It would be well to look into it, and to know something of thisgirl."

  "You are right," she replied. "Yet I have such absolute faith inWillie's fine taste and sense that I feel no anxiety."

  "Nor I; yet I shall investigate a bit to-night at Augusta's."

  "Clara tells me that when Miss Ercildoune understood it was to be agreat party, she insisted on ending her visit, or, at least, staying fora while with her aunt, but they would not hear of it."

  "Mrs. Lancaster goes back to England soon?"

  "Very soon."

  "Does any one know aught of Miss Ercildoune's family save that Mrs.Lancaster is her aunt?"

  "If 'any one' means me, I understand her father to be a gentleman ofelegant leisure,--his home near Philadelphia; a widower, with one otherchild,--a son, I believe; that his wife was English, married abroad;that Mrs. Lancaster comes here with the best of letters, and, forherself, is most evidently a lady."

  "Good. Now I shall take a survey of the young lady herself."

  When night came, and with it a crowd to Mrs. Russell's rooms, theopportunity offered for the survey, and it was made scrutinizingly.Surrey was an only son, a well-beloved one, and what concerned him wasinvestigated with utmost care.

  Scrutinizingly and satisfactorily. They were dancing, his sunny headbent till it almost touched the silky blackness of her hair. "Saxon andNorman," said somebody near who was watching them; "what a deliciouscontrast!"

  "They make an exquisite picture," thought the mother, as she lookedwith delight and dread: delight at the beauty; dread that fills the soulof any mother when she feels that she no longer holds her boy,--that hislife has another keeper,--and queries, "What of the keeper?"

  "Well?" she said, looking up at her husband.

  "Well," he answered, with a tone that meant, well. "She's thorough-bred.Democratic or not, I will always insist, blood tells. Look at her: noone needs to ask _who_ she is. I'd take her on trust without a word."

  "So, then, you are not her critic, but her admirer."

  "Ah, my dear, criticism is lost in admiration, and I am glad to find itso."

  "And I. Willie saw with our eyes, as a boy; it is fortunate that we cansee with his eyes, as a man."

  So, without any words spoken, after that night, both Mr. and Mrs. Surreytook this young girl into their hearts as they hoped soon to take herinto their lives, and called her "daughter" in their thought, as apleasant preparation for the uttered word by and by.

  Thus the weeks fled. No word had passed between these two to which theworld might not have listened. Whatever language their hearts and theireyes spoke had not been interpreted by their lips. He had not yettouched her hand save as it met his, gloved or formal, or as it restedon his arm; and yet, as one walking through the dusk and stillness of asummer night feels a flower or falling leaf brush his check, and starts,shivering as from the touch of a disembodied soul, so this slightoutward touch thrilled his inmost being; this hand, meeting his for aninstant, shook his soul.

  Indefinite and undefined,--there was no thought beyond the moment; nowish to take this young girl into his arms and to call her "wife" hadshaped itself in his brain. It was enough for both that they were in oneanother's presence, that they breathed the same air, that they could seeeach other as they raised their eyes, and exchange a word, a look, asmile. Whatever storm of emotion the future might hold for them was notmanifest in this sunny and delightful present.

  Upon one subject alone did they disagree with feeling,--in other matterstheir very dissimilarity proving an added charm. This was a curiousquestion to come between lovers. All his life Surrey had been a devoteeof his country and its flag. While he was a boy Kossuth had come tothese shores, and he yet remembered how he had cheered himself hoarsewith pride and delight, as the eloquent voice and impassioned lips ofthe great Magyar sounded the praise of America, as the "refuge of theoppressed and the hope of the world." He yet remembered how when thehand, every gesture of which was instinct with power, was lifted to theflag,--the flag, stainless, spotless, without blemish or flaw; the flagwhich was "fair as the sun, clear as the moon," and to the oppressors ofthe earth "terrible as an army with banners,"--he yet remembered how, asthis emblem of liberty was thus apostrophized and saluted, the tearshad rushed to his boyish eyes, and his voice had said, for his heart,"Thank God, I am an American!"

  One day he made some such remark to her. She answered, "I, too, am anAmerican, but I do not thank God for it."

  At another time he said, as some emigrants passed them in the street,"What a sense of pride it gives one in one's country, to see her sostretch out her arms to help and embrace the outcast and suffering ofthe whole world!"

  She smiled--bitterly, he thought; and replied, "O just and magnanimouscountry, to feed and clothe the stranger from without, while sheoutrages and destroys her children within!"

  "You do not love America," he said.

  "I do not love America," she responded.

  "And yet it is a wonderful country."

  "Ay," briefly, almost satirically, "a wonderful country, indeed!"

  "Still you stay here, live here."

  "Yes, it is my country. Whatever I think of it, I will not be drivenaway from it; it is my right to remain."

  "Her right to remain?" he thought; "what does she mean by that? shespeaks as though conscience were involved in the thing. No matter; letus talk of something pleasanter."

  One day she gave him a clew. They were looking at the picture of agreat statesman,--a man as famous for the grandeur of face and form asfor the power and splendor of his intellect.

  "Unequalled! unapproachable!" exclaimed Surrey, at last.

  "I have seen its equal," she answered, very quietly, yet with a shiverof excitement in the tones.

  "When? where? how? I will take a journey to look at him. Who is he?where did he grow?"

  For response she put her hand into the pocket of her gown, and took outa velvet case. What could there be in that little blue thing to causesuch emotion? As Surrey saw it in her hand, he grew hot, then cold, thenfiery hot again. In an instant by this chill, this heat, this pain, hisheart was laid bare to his own inspection. In an instant he knew thathis arms would be empty did they hold a universe in which FrancescaErcildoune had no part, and that with her head on his heart the worldmight lapse from him unheeded; and, with this knowledge, she heldtenderly and caressingly, as he saw, another man's picture in her hand.

  His own so shook that he could scarcely take the case from her, to openit; but, opened, his eyes devoured what was under them.

  A half-length,--the face and physique superb. Of what color were thehair and eyes the neutral tints of the picture gave no hint; the browprincely, breaking the perfect oval of the face; eyes piercing and full;the features rounded, yet clearly cut; the mouth with a curiouscombination of sadness and disdain. The face was not young, yet it wasso instinct with magnificent vitality that even the picture impressedone more powerfully than most living men, and one involuntarilyexclaimed on beholding it, "This man can never grow old, and death musthere forego its claim!"

  Looking up from it with no admiration to express for the face, he sawFrancesca's smiling on it with a sort of adoration, as she, reclaimingher property, said,--

  "My father's old friends have a great
deal of enjoyment, and amusementtoo, from his beauty. One of them was the other day telling me of theexcessive admiration people had always shown, and laughingly insistedthat when papa was a young man, and appeared in public, in London orParis, it was between two police officers to keep off the admiringcrowd; and," laughing a gay little laugh herself, "of course I believedhim! why shouldn't I?"

  He was looking at the picture again. "What an air of command he has!"

  "Yes. I remember hearing that when Daniel Webster was in London, andwalked unattended through the streets, the coal-heavers and workmen tookoff their hats and stood bareheaded till he had gone by, thinking it wasroyalty that passed. I think they would do the same for papa."

  "If he looks like a king, I know somebody who looks like a princess,"thought the happy young fellow, gazing down upon the proud, daintyfigure by his side; but he smiled as he said, "What a little aristocratyou are, Miss Ercildoune! what a pity you were born a Yankee!"

  "I am not a Yankee, Mr. Surrey," replied the little aristocrat, "if tobe a Yankee is to be a native of America. I was born on the sea."

  "And your mother, I know, was English."

  "Yes, she was English."

  "Is it rude to ask if your father was the same?

  "No!" she answered emphatically, "my papa is a Virginian,--a Virginiagentleman,"--the last word spoken with an untransferable accent,--"thereare few enough of them."

  "So, so!" thought Willie, "here my riddle is read.Southern--Virginia--gentleman. No wonder she has no love to spend oncountry or flag; no wonder we couldn't agree. And yet it can't bethat,--what were the first words I ever heard from her mouth?" and,remembering that terrible denunciation of the "peculiar institution" ofVirginia and of the South, he found himself puzzled the more.

  Just then there came into the picture-gallery, where they were wasting apleasant morning, a young man to whom Surrey gave the slightest ofrecognitions,--well-dressed, booted, and gloved, yet lacking thenameless something which marks the gentleman. His glance, as it restedon Surrey, held no love, and, indeed, was rather malignant.

  "That fellow," said Surrey, indicating him, "has a queer story connectedwith him. He was discharged from my father's employ to give place to aman who could do his work better; and the strange part of it"--hewatched her with an amused smile to see what effect the announcementwould have upon her Virginia ladyship--"is that number two is a blackman."

  A sudden heat flushed her cheeks: "Do you tell me your father made roomfor a black man in his employ, and at the expense of a white one?"

  "It is even so."

  "Is he there now?"

  Surrey's beautiful Saxon face crimsoned. "No: he is not," he saidreluctantly.

  "Ah! did he, this black man,--did he not do his work well?"

  "Admirably."

  "Is it allowable, then, to ask why he was discarded?"

  "It is allowable, surely. He was dismissed because the choice laybetween him and seven hundred men."

  "And you"--her face was very pale now, the flush all gone out ofit--"you have nothing to do with your father's works, but you are hisson,--did you do naught? protest, for instance?"

  "I protested--and yielded. The contest would have been not merely withseven hundred men, but with every machinist in the city. Justice_versus_ prejudice, and prejudice had it; as, indeed, I suppose it willfor a good many generations to come: invincible it appears to be in theAmerican mind."

  "Invincible! is it so?" She paused over the words, scrutinizing himmeanwhile with an unconscious intensity.

  "And this black man,--what of him? He was flung out to starve and die;a proper fate, surely, for his presumption. Poor fool! how did he dareto think he could compete with his masters! You know nothing of _him _?"

  Surely he must be mistaken. What could this black man, or this matter,be to her? yet as he listened her voice sounded to his ear like that ofone in mortal pain. What held him silent? Why did he not tell her, whydid he not in some way make her comprehend, that he, delicate exclusive,and patrician, as the people of his set thought him, had gone to thisman, had lifted him from his sorrow and despondency to courage and hopeonce more; had found him work; would see that the place he strove tofill in the world should be filled, could any help of his secure thatend. Why did the modesty which was a part of him, and the high-bredreserve which shrank from letting his own mother know of the good deedshis life wrought, hold him silent now?

  In that silence something fell between them. What was it? But a moment,yet in that little space it seemed to him as though continents dividedthem, and seas rolled between. "Francesca!" he cried, under hisbreath,--he had never before called her by her Christianname,--"Francesca!" and stretched out his hand towards her, as adrowning man stretches forth his hand to life.

  "This room is stifling!" she said for answer; and her voice, dulled andunnatural, seemed to his strangely confused senses as though it camefrom a far distance,--"I am suffering: shall we go out to the air?"