by G.P.R. James.
Originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.8 #48 (May 1854).
There was a young and gentle lady reading in a large old-fashioned room, well-furnished with China vases, and small pictures, and Louis Quatorze clocks, and sundry monsters in earthenware, and black wood, and ivory, from China, and Ceylon, and Japan. She was very fair to look upon, with white even teeth, and rosy lips, with a peculiar liquid translucency of eye which none but Lawrence could transfer to canvas, and he had done it in her case marvelously well. Her form was full of easy and natural grace, and it was very delicate in its symmetry; but it was not sylph-like, as poets will have their beauties; which, as sylphs are supposed to be-of air, I imagine must mean thin. Her dress had something of negligence in it, and so had her hair:—mind I say negligence, not neglect. It was all easy, and the ringlets and large curls, though suffered to mingle in some confusion, were as glossy and bright as if the fingers of a dozen maids had been brushing them all day. Perhaps that little air of negligence might be altogether accidental—perhaps a little savoring of design, for she had a strong love for the picturesque, and knew that it became her. There might be the least possible touch of coquetry in it, for it can not be said that she altogether disliked admiration, though she had not that thirsty fondness for it which occasionally mars many bright perfections. Her name was Eleanor; but she called herself Ellen, and there might be a little affectation in that too.
Was she really reading! Yes: she read a line or two, now and then, and played with one dark brown curl upon her cheek, bringing gleams of gold upon it as she wound it round her delicate fingers. But she meditated between whiles, and more than once turned her eyes toward the windows, and gazed out, and sighed.
There was a world of poetry in her young heart, and that poetry had found a voice in many a little piece which had found its way, by one means or another, to the public, bringing that applause which is most surely found when it is least sought. Hers was the poetry of feeling, however—which is almost always sure to wake an echo—and it would be written. Not that she valued it much, or cared for it when it was done, for she would often cast it from her as soon as it was upon the paper, or leave it where careless servants would sweep it away to light fires with.
And now some such imaginations were busy within her, clothing themselves in words, and, after she had read, and pondered, and gazed forth for some time, she drew the inkstand near and wrote. Let us look over her shoulder and read the words. They were these:
TO HIM.
The summer days are passing, love,
The air has lost it balm,
The lingering flowers fold up too soon
Their leaves in slumbers calm.
The autumn's yellow hand has touched
The leaves upon the tree,
And wizard evening sails too soon
Across the silent sea.
Whate'er I hear—whate'er I see,
Tells to the eye and ear
That this year's life is well-nigh spent,
That winter's death is near.
And thus my hours are fleeting love,
Ere thou return'st again;
And oft I look, and oft I sigh,
But look and sigh in vain.
Oh come before the autumn comes
Its blighting dews to shed;
Oh come before the winter pours
Its snows upon my head!
Oh come before remembrance flies
From thine inconstant breast;
Lest chill forgetfulness should freeze
The warm dove in her nest
To him! To whom! Hark! there are carriage wheels. He is near—it must be, and she knows it. The color flutters in her cheek like the shifting lights of the northern aurora. Now deadly pale; now rosy as the morn. There are steps on the stairs: the door is opened, and two men in travelers' guise appear. One is young and very like her, the other a few years older. The one she kisses fondly, and calls him brother; but she is folded in the arms of the other, and clings to his breast in silence. Is that the poet's love!
It is. Is he not handsome?
Yes—it can not be denied. He is handsome, finely formed—one can not find a fault with a feature or a limb; but yet there is a certain coarseness, more in the expression than aught else. Can I call it an animal look? Not exactly: the fineness of the features forbids that. But still the sensual stamps its seal, as firmly as the intellectual or the spiritual; and though that man may be the poet's love—ay, and love the poet—he is no poet himself. There is too much clay in the image, even to represent a god. Still he is fond—very fond. See how he presses her to his heart, how he kisses those rich lips, how be gazes into her eyes, how he holds her a little from him to drink in the nectar of her looks. And he tells her she is lovelier than ever—and dearer too; and that he has come back never to part from her more, to take her with him to the fair but distant island where he now plays the ruler with deputed sway. He accounts for his long absence too by assuring her, that he could not quit the government bestowed upon him by his sovereign the moment he had received it, or he would have flown to her at once; and he appeals to her brother, if it had been possible.
Oh yes, he loves her, there is no doubt of it—as well as he can love any thing. And she will make her idol of him; and, from the garden of fancy and the treasury of imagination, she will take some flowers and brilliant gems to decorate him, and will offer him sacrifice-—well for her if the sacrifice be not her whole happiness.
And what says the brother? Oh, he vouches for all his friend affirms. He is one of those soft, easy, worldly beings, who judges leniently of worldly faults, sees no great harm in a number of things that men of sterner thought or finer feeling would condemn—doubts not in the least that his sister will be quite happy with the husband that God has given her, if she will wisely shut her eyes to a few little errors, as other good wives do; and can not in the least conceive the purity of her heart or the delicacy of her character, nor that love can condemn as well as warm. Well let us leave them alone: their affairs are small concern of ours—let us leave them to be married, and sail away before them to a distant shore where that man rules as Governor a fair colony of Great Britain—ay and rules it well, admirably well; for he is not without talents; and it is a certain and sad fact that in the hard and mechanical state of society in which we live, the men who have the least delicacy of sentiment and tenderness of feelings, or who have strong powers to overrule them, are those who govern other men most safely. You would not put a wheel of pasteboard into a clock of cast iron, would you?
Well, there on that high white rock at the western end of the town stands a fine and imposing building called the Castle. The square and the round towers and the walls and battlements give it the aspect of a place of strength; and it was so once, but is so no longer. Its fortifications are not worth half an hour's siege to modern art—unavailable altogether, as the fierce and fiery passions which once raged here and still linger are impotent in the presence of new powers and combinations. But how man has improved the place for beauty if he has neglected it for defense. Those ramparts and bastions looking down on blue sea and haloed in the high air with the golden radiance of the finest of climates, are but terraced gardens where the orange and the vine, the myrtle and the pomegranate, flourish in rich luxuriance and cast perfume and beauty on the wind. Behind, there lies many a winding walk and pleasant grove as the gardens climb the mountain, and wider and wider views extend of the glittering waves, and gem-like islands, and fairy-like distant dreams of coasts and headlands.
Oh it is a very lovely spot—a spot just fit for a young bride full of happy hopes and sweet sensations, and bright, false, foolish expectations. But that beautiful creature wandering there, is she a bride? Nay, not so. There is nothing bride-like in her look and air—nothing in the dark moody downcast eye—nothing in the pale unvarying olive of her cheek. No fluttering blush, no varying light and shade of expression, is there: none of the sunshine of the May of life: none of the changeful gleam and shadow of its April. And yet she is very young. Not twenty summers even have passed over that broad brow. But if we may trust the black eye when it is raised, and the flashes it gives forth, young as she is, there is within her bosom maturity of passion. Her hand, too, covered with jeweled rings, is now clenched tight as if grasping a hard purpose, now relaxed as if some tenderer feelings stole across her heart. And now she gazes toward the Castle—the Government house it is called—and as she sees it gleaming white between those two tall cypresses, memories flow over her soul like deep waters. That house has been the tomb of her hopes and of her happiness, and the cypress and the willow are but emblems of her fate. There she lived and reigned almost as a queen for a brief fifteen months, fondled, petted, a plaything, a spoiled child. Little did her seducer think that there were other, stronger feelings in her breast than in his own—feelings dangerous in their power. At length he bethought him that he had a promised bride in England, a bride fair, virtuous, wealthy, well allied; and he set out on pressing business, as he told his lovely toy, leaving a lawyer and a friend to make an arrangement with his cast-off mistress. They found that they had undertaken a terrible task; but with time and argument, and much cajolery, they succeeded to a certain degree—at least, so they thought. They bought her a small pretty cottage, a mile or two distant: they settled on her a small estate—sufficient for her small wants—and they exacted of her that she was never again to go near the Government House, nor to show any recognition of the Governor. They thought they had done magnificently, that they had given her all that she could possibly desire. But they forgot love, and hope, and happiness; and—perhaps revenge. Did she keep her promise, implied if not uttered. Why should she keep any promise! Had not all promises been broken with her? She went almost daily to wander in the gardens of the Castle, to hang round the building, to haunt like a ghost the scenes of past joy. She made no concealment of it! She went at mid-day—at morning—at evening. It is a bad thing to take away hope from any one, for it takes away fear. The servants carried the intelligence to the advocate, and he came up and found her there, and tried to argue with her, mingling reproaches with reasons, and threats with reproaches. But the sadness and the heaviness passed away in an instant: the eye flashed, the nostril expanded, the brow became dark and cloudy.
"Silence, advocate!" she cried, "you can do nothing to me that I dread. I spit upon you and your menaces. Now mark me: the threshold of that door I have never passed since I was driven forth from my house—ay mine, mine, pander! It was mine by every tie between heart and heart—by every tie that God will hold holy. I have never passed the door since that day. But if I hear one threat from you or any other, I will enter those walls—I will take possession of my home again—I will claim all that is mine; and let me see who will dare to dispossess me. Away with you, man, and do not stand gaping there. You make tigers of us, and then wonder that we rend you!"
"But Lilla—" said the advocate.
"Away!" she answered with a look of bitter contempt, "not a word more;" and leaving him she pursued her walk to the very doors of the Castle.
The poor advocate was sorely puzzled: he knew not what to do or how to act. But the next packet took a letter for him to his Excellency the Governor, which somewhat troubled the joy of his approaching nuptials. There was no resource but to prolong his wedding tour a little, and send forward his good, kind, complaisant brother-in-law and secretary to clear the ground, before he brought his bride home to his bright island.
And now the beautiful Lilla is in those gardens and groves once more; but yesterday evening as the sun was setting and when, amidst the warm light cast around, the sea looked like a sapphire set in gold, a white sail came on toward the island, and by the star-light reached the port below. And now the woman's figure flitting among the orange-trees, is seen from the windows and the good-humored easy Henry Mansell is speedily walking toward her—with a somewhat beating heart it must be confessed; for the stolidest minds have instincts.
She knew him and she liked him well; and would rather have had any one else to deal with on hard subjects. The sight of him agitated her; did not shake her resolves; but shook her frame. He had been always kind and courteous to her in other days, had treated her with decent respect, and shown her small attentions. She paused then to take breath and to consider—to arrange her plans, determine upon her conduct. She paused—but she did not avoid him.
"Lilla, Lilla!" said Henry in a tone of reproach, "I did not expect to find you here."
"Why not?!" asked Lilla with a melancholy smile.
"Because you promised you would not come near the house again," he answered.
"I did not promise," she replied, "but even if I had, why should my promise be more binding than other people's?"
"Oh, but you know Lilla," he said, "young men always make all sorts of promises to ladies situated as you were, without their meaning any thing."
"Do they?" answered Lilla, with another smile—her smiles were very terrible, "I did not know it. I wish I had known it before, Henry."
"But now listen to me, there's a dear girl," said Henry in his most coaxing manner, "you were always kind and good hearted, and I am sure you would not wish to make mischief. Now his Excellency has married my sister, you know, and—"
"His Excellency!" said Lilla, with a sneer so bitter curling her lip, that it seemed to Henry Mansell as if she had stung him. "And so, he has married your sister," she said after thinking for a moment gloomily, "poor thing! I am sorry for her."
"Why? why so?" demanded Henry somewhat alarmed.
"Because I should think she would not like a husband who makes promises which mean nothing," replied the girl, with a shrewd meaning look.
"Well, well; but this is all nonsense," answered Henry with more firmness of tone. "He is married. That is the end of it. My sister will be here in a few days. Now the question is, do you wish to make her unhappy. If you are the girl I believe you to be, you do not. Him you may be angry with, and have good cause; but you have no cause to wish my poor sister unhappy."
"I do not—I will not," she replied in a calm, quiet tone, though she had turned deadly pale while he spoke.
"I thought so," said the other in a joyful tone. "Then, dear Lilla, the only way to do will be for you to have the pretty little villa on the other side of the island, and give up this cottage to me. I can not think why those two fools placed you there."
"Because I would have none other, Mr. Mansell," she replied, and then added very slowly and deliberately, "and will have none other."
"Then you will make my sister unhappy," said Mansell bitterly.
"Why so?" she asked, "she need never know who or what I am, or what I have been. From me she shall never know. I have promised, and that promise I will keep, never to seem to recognize the villain who—who is now your sister's husband."
"Then why should you wish to stay here?" he asked, thinking the question would puzzle her; but she answered at once:
"Because I do wish to make him unhappy. Each time he sees me in his ride or walk, there will be fear in his heart and remorse in his breast. My eye will lash him, my look reproach him, though my tongue be mute and my hand still. Talk not to me of going hence, Henry Mansell. Here I am, and here I will be daily. So long as no one tries to stop me or to interfere with me, I will be silent and discreet. The moment any one does, I will speak in a voice that shall reach within the rosy curtains of your sister's wedding-chamber, and poison her repose forever. She shall then know that her husband is a perjurer and villain."
"But what will she think, if she sees you constantly flitting about here like a shadow?" asked the young man, at his wits' end.
"Think what she likes," said Lilla sternly. "See you to that. Tell any tale you like. I will not contradict it. He will help you. He is never embarrassed for a lie."
She looked at him with a magnificent air of disdain as she turned away and left him.
"She has got the advantage, and she understands it," thought Henry, gazing after her. "She will torment the poor fellow's soul out; or force him to buy her off at an enormous sacrifice."
It is a curious fact that mere worldly people can never transport themselves out of themselves: can make no allowance for—have no comprehension of passion, feeling, or even the higher ranges of intellectual consciousnesses. They are merely perceptive machines with a very limited object-glass. No thought had he of all the powerful sensations that were working in that poor girl's breast as she stood there talking with him—sensations that often nearly bore her away on the whirlwind of passion in the midst of her assumed calmness—sensations only the more intense for the compression to which the strong will subjected them. He had no thought of them, and but little consciousness of coming danger. He did indeed get a vague notion that she was very angry, and feel a little doubt, as he expressed it to himself, of what she would do next. But it was but as a naturalist observing an insect through a microscope, who feels the instrument shaken by an earthquake and yet goes on peering at his flea, with one eye.
"I'll tell him he must give her a thousand pounds and get rid of her," he thought, and walked back to the Castle.
And now, forward three days. The cannon thundered; the ship dropped her anchor; the boat manned with the lusty rowers skimmed on toward the shore. Shout and hurrah and sounding music welcomed the Governor and his fair lady, and gratulating friends and bowing dependents escorted them up to their princely residence. Oh, how cold those sounds made one poor heart in that island; but it was with the coldness of that black rock which a spark kindles into fire. But the bright and beautiful bride went on unconscious that her happiness was the misery of another. The soul of the young poet seemed lighted up by her joy; it shone upon her face; it beamed in her smile; it sparkled in her words; and every one was charmed and forgot that there was such a being as Lilla on earth. There was a fête, and rejoicings, and gay company, and visits endless to receive. All was very gay and very bright; but it was when these scenes closed and when, with the chosen of her heart, she could go forth alone to gaze upon the beauty of the sunset, and the sweet majesty of the sea, and the glory of rock and mountain, that the poet dreamed of real happiness.
At first she was contented with the terrace before the Castle, where a useless sentry at each end seemed placed to guard the lovely prospect from the rampart for her especial use. There he and she walked the whole of their first leisure evening, seeing the sun slowly sinking down to the verge of ocean.
"Let us go, my love, into those beautiful groves behind," she said, as the last bright spot sank beneath the sea; "I love to rest a little in the purple light which lingers amidst the trees after the summer day has closed. It is to me like the memory of joy."
But he told her that in that climate the evening dews were dangerous to those not steeled against them by early habit, and he must guard his flower from all noxious things.
The next day she again proposed a walk in the groves; but he said it was sultry there in the heat; and he was busy. He would ride with her in the evening to a very lovely scene a few miles distant. She waited for the evening patiently, and through several of the warmer hours of the day her voice might be heard singing sweet songs of her own loved distant land. Many an ear that listened thought them charming and full of warm happiness, but there was one that caught the sounds, and to it they were as poison.
The evening came; the horses were brought round, and the young wife and the gay husband went forth together. Her looks were all joyful exhilaration; but as they passed out along the road skirting the groves, the servants who followed, saw his eye roam furtively, anxiously around.
By the time they returned he had recovered his self-possession, and she was radiant with the exercise and with the beauty of the ride. But as they came near the groves, a female figure of transcendent beauty and grace, richly habited, and with her black hair decked with pins and coins, suddenly crossed their path and gazed full in the lady's face. That face was bright with happiness, and there is nothing so sad as happiness to the sight of the unhappy. A look of wildness—almost of madness crossed the face of Liila, and the poet turned suddenly toward her husband. He was as pale as death. But he said nothing; the figure disappeared, and they rode on.
"Who could that be, love," asked the lady, after a moment's troubled silence—troubled she knew not why.
"Some woman of the country," he answered carelessly; "they all deck themselves out in that fantastic fashion. Did you remark the gold coins in her hair! Ha, ha, ha! Was ever any thing so absurd?"
"I delight in costume," answered his bride, "it is the great want of England in a picturesque point of view that we have no characteristic dress. Had I been born in a country where a peculiar garb had descended to us from our ancestors, I would not abandon it for all the milliners of London or of Paris."
"You are a dear little enthusiast," answered her husband; and the first trial over, he thought he could bear the rest quietly enough.
But that figure seemed to haunt their walks and rides and drives. They seldom went out without seeing it; and the wife's curiosity became somewhat excited—it was curiosity, nothing more, though she could not but observe that whenever they saw it a shade, as it were, came upon her husband's face—a look of hesitancy—of alarm; that his manner was abstracted, strange, unnerved. She questioned one of the attendants; but he was discreet. She was a lady, he said, who lived in a small house near, and who had for years enjoyed the privilege of walking in the gardens and the groves, so that nobody ever interrupted her. She was a moody sort of person, he said; but a very good lady.
"For years!" rejoined his mistress, she seems still quite young."
"Oh yes, from her childhood, I should have said, Madam," he replied, "she was born hard by."
And there he spoke the truth. She was born hard by; and those were the scenes of her innocent childhood and of her young affections, and of her guilty happiness as well as of her desertion, and sorrow, and despair. The chains that bind us to particular spots of earth are sometimes of gold and sometimes of iron; and on the limbs of her spirit there were both.
The man's intentions were to quiet doubt and still inquiry, for he knew her and her history quite well. He was a skillful diplomatist in his way also; but he knew not nor comprehended the heart of her to whom he spoke, and he failed of his purpose—nay, not only failed, but effected quite the reverse. His words excited interest and sympathy. Oh, what a strange thing is imagination! how it bends itself to every other faculty—for it, too, is a faculty—of the human mind—a guide, a light, a mysterious star, shining before reason, and leading us to fate!
The Governor's lady sat and meditated. The harp and the voice were silent the greater part of that day. She was thinking of the beautiful girl with the dark black eyes, and the gold-spangled hair, and the graceful form. She was thinking of the sad and moody aspect of the solitary life she seemed to lead. Why should she be so sad? Why should she be solitary! Such a face and form were sure to attract the eyes and win the society of youth. Why was she not surrounded by the crowd of gay suitors and of merry companions! Why was she so lonely and so woe-begone! She must have loved and been disappointed—perhaps deserted, too—deserted by him whom she had loved and trusted—ah, that sweet young bride little knew how far.
"I will go and see her," she thought; "I will try to console and cheer her."
Then came a train of sweet and happy thoughts, for she was one of those who would make their happiness in giving it to others; but, suddenly, as a dark cold mist will sometimes rise from the bosom of the ocean in the midst of the sunniest summer's day, a memory of her husband's look and manner, whenever the figure of Lilla had crossed them, came up before her with a painful, perplexing sensation.
She was not suspicious—oh, not in the least. She suspected nothing, even then. There was a doubt that her husband might know something to the discredit of that beautiful girl—that he might not like her—might not esteem her; but that was all.
She would try him, she thought. The subject of Lilla's appearance had never been mentioned between them but once. For some reason, unaccountable to herself, she had dropped it, and he had never approached it again. It is a dangerous thing between husband and wife to have an avoided subject. She felt a reluctance to approach it; but she sincerely pitied the poor forlorn girl, and that day, at dinner, she forced herself to speak and ask more about her. There were several servants in the room; and her husband's cheek turned for a moment fiery red and then white. "Avoid her, my love," he said at length, in a harsh, altered tone. "I do not wish you to know aught of her."
If suspicion ever entered her mind, it was then. His look, his manner was so changed; and, besides, a little deceit stood apparent. When first they had encountered her, he had merely said, in answer to her inquiry, that she was "some woman of the country," as if he knew nothing more; but now his words implied that he did know more, and much.
But woman's heart soon finds excuses for those they love. She thought that he might know things he had not liked to shock her ear by telling, or that he had learned more since he first spoke; and again she was satisfied. Neither did she at all feel inclined to rebel against his expressed wishes. She gave up all thought of going to see the object of her sympathy. He had spoken, and that was enough. But her words had alarmed the Governor. Fear is always tyrannical—prompting to tyranny, I mean; and the next day he sent a fierce and imperious message to her he had betrayed and injured, forbidding her ever to be seen in the gardens or the groves again; and telling her that the first time she was seen there it should be the last. He knew how much force vagueness adds to a threat; but still he had resolved to be as good as his word, and if she did not obey, to have her forcibly carried from the island. He would bear the infliction of her sight no longer. She was a terror to him—and who can live a life in terror?
Lilla heard the message to an end in silence—silence of countenance as well as voice. A slight shade indeed came over her face, but her broad brow did not contract; her lip quivered not; and she only answered, "Well, well. So be it."
The messenger reported her words and her demeanor. For a week she was no more seen near the castle. The Governor and his emissary thought she was tamed. He began to feel cheerful again—quite gay and happy. He had not been married three months—he had not had time to grow tired of his beautiful young bride. Nay, he loved her, as I have said, as well as he could love any thing. He was a very happy man.
Some troublesome business, however, at the end of that time called him to a distance—as far as the other end of the island. He set out early in the day, and was to return the next day before nightfall. Oh how fondly his bright lady gazed at him as he rode away upon his handsome horse followed by a glittering train. She thought of him and him alone for the next hour, and then she went forth with her maid in the groves so often mentioned. They had not gone far, when they met Lilla, but she merely bowed her head as she passed by. The lady bowed hers in return with a gentle smile, speaking the kindly feelings of her heart; and at that smile Lilla turned deadly pale. But as she went on she set her white teeth firmly together and strangled emotions that I must not pause to tell.
The day passed heavily with the Governor's Lady. Her poetry did not stand her friend. She could not write; she could not read; she could only think of her beloved husband, and long fer his return. The day was very sultry, like one of those on which earthquakes happen: not a breath of air was stirring, and there was a thirsty dryness in the atmosphere which made the very flowers in the shade hang their heads. She lay languidly on the sofa, gazing from the window, turned from the sun, upon the waves lighted by his beams, and watched the light skiffs with their painted sides as they flitted about the bay, and longed for swiftness and freedom like theirs to follow on the track where the loved one had gone.
At length the sun sunk behind the hills to the west. There were still other hours of day and twilight, but the burning beams were off the groves and gardens. The sea-breeze was springing up; and the birds, silent in the intense heat of the middle day, were beginning to break out into evening song.
She fancied that she should find refreshment in a walk both for body and mind, and throwing a light vail over her head, she went out into the garden behind the house. It was a pleasant place, laid out by some man of Italian tastes in days long ago, with vases and urns and a fountain here and there, casting up clear water brought from the mountains, and there were aloes, strange harsh-looking picturesque things, and several of the aremosa and acacia tribe, and a cypress or two here and there. It was completely in shadow, but there was the bright blue sky filled with light above—like the calm heaven of hope canopying the shady world of thought.
She passed unnoticed through the stone court, as it was called, into that garden, and wandered up the first open walk, and then mounted a flight of steps leading to a higher terrace; and one or two turns she took, musing with thoughts sweeter than those of the morning. "One day has gone," she said to herself, "to-morrow he will return."
When she turned the third time there was another figure in the broad walk just circling round the fountain that rose in the midst. It was that of Lilla, dressed more plainly than usual, with a basket covered over with vine leaves in her hand.
The lady hesitated for a moment, with her husband's words ringing in the ear of memory. But then she thought, "I must not pain her by too apparently avoiding her. I will just pass her by, saluting her as I go."
But Lilla stopped when they came near each other, and in a low sweet voice said, "Lady."
The wife bent her head, and said some gentle word in return.
"I have brought you some fruit, madam," said Lilla, uncovering the basket, "such as your garden can not afford, fine as it is. There are some fruits love the shelter of the cottage wall better than that of the castle's ramparts. These peaches for instance. It is a rare fruit in this island, but no land can show finer than these."
"They are very beautiful," replied the lady; "and I thank you much. But, indeed," she added, with a feeling she could not account for, "I must not stay with you. My husband warned me—warned me, till I was better acquainted with this country to avoid all strange acquaintances."
She would not pain her by telling her that against her especially had she been warned, and yet Lilla stood exactly in the path, and she could not easily pass her.
But the other caught the full meaning at a word, and for an instant her brow darkened and her eye flashed. Then all was calm again, and she answered sorrowfully, "Ay, the happy fly the unhappy: the sorrowful are hateful in the sight of the joyful and fortunate."
"Nay, indeed," said the wife, "such is not my nature. I saw—I thought you were unhappy, and long ago I would have come to inquire if I could have given you comfort; but—"
"But you were forbidden!" said Lille, slowly. "Unhappy! I am unhappy, lady. I am sick with a disease that nothing can cure, and in which none will give me help."
"Indeed!" cried the lady, "that is cruel.—What is it affects you?"
"Listen," said Lilla. Some time ago, I was stung by a serpent. For a short time the effect was very strange. It seemed to raise me up to heaven with wild joy and delirious excitement. But soon, the poison had a different effect. I lost hope, happiness, was plunged into a black and gloomy melancholy, so that people have almost thought me mad. There is no telling you the dark and despairing feelings that have since taken possession of my heart. I have no trust, no expectation, no hope in any thing: a raging thirst consumes me, and I can only find peace in wandering in lone places where the shade is sombre as my thoughts."
"I am indeed very sorry for you," replied the lady. "It is a strange case. I never heard of such; I trust you will be able to find a cure in time. But indeed I must now go in."
"Because he told you," said Lilla, still standing in the way. "He fears me—perhaps he, too, thinks me mad. But indeed he is mistaken. I would do you good, not harm you; and I came into this garden to warn you against the snake that bit me—he crawls about this place—to deliver you from him. But he is not here now. You are thirsty; I see your lips are parched. Take one of these peaches."
"Nay, I am only agitated. Your words seem strange," said the lady. "I could almost fancy you are speaking allegories."
"Not so, not so," replied Lilla with a laugh. "All hard facts, believe me. But you, too, are frightened at me—you, too, believe me mad; and you will not even take a peach offered you by the poor sorrowful girl. Do you think they are poisoned! Nay, I will convince you. You take the one half—I the other. In here is a knife—a silver knife made in your own land, and given me by a false-hearted man as fair as your own husband. Yet part the peach yourself for there is a story I have somewhere read of a Prince of the Medici who slew his brother with a knife poisoned on one side and pure on the other. Take it and give me which half you choose."
"But why should I do so when I am not thirsty!" replied the lady.
"Because I wish to be your sister," answered Lilla, "and if we part this fruit and eat it, according to the belief of my land, we shall be sisters in one sense, at least. In the misfortunes that may befall us, there will be a link of sympathy between us that will end but with the grave—not even then, perhaps."
"Well," answered the lady, "I do not mind. I have no fear. I have done naught to injure you. On the contrary, I have felt compassion and sympathy even for sorrows I did not know, and if this fruit now make it greater, so let it be."
As she spoke she divided the fruit with the knife, and proffered her one half. Lilla took it and ate, and the fair girl with whom she spoke raised the other half to her lips also. A wavering came upon Lilla's face—a look of fear—of agony—and she suddenly stretched forth her hand. But it was too late. The wife had eaten.
The gesture did not escape her eye, however—nor the look of hesitation. "What have you done?" she said, in a low solemn tone.
"We are sisters indeed!" answered Lilla, raising her hand high, with all hesitation gone. "But I have done you good, not evil; I delivered you from agonies like mine. Your time would have come as surely as mine has come. Now it will never come. We are sisters indeed in death. A few months more and he would have betrayed—neglected—abandoned."
"Hush, hush!" cried the wife. "Wretched girl, you turn pale—your eyes roll—what have you done? What do I feel—I am—I am—"
"Dying!" said Lilla. "We are sisters in death, I told you. Now let him come—let him come!"
She sank slowly down while she spoke, and then murmured as she leaned her head against the pedestal of an urn, "He told me, the next time I appeared here again, should be the last. It is the last—it is the last!"
Heaven send the lady did not comprehend the whole—that she yet believed in human faith and truth—that she had trust in love and honor to the end—that she knew not how worthlessly her love had been bestowed. Perhaps it was so; for her eyes, beautiful and full of light, a moment earlier, were growing meaningless. Her lips parted: her breath came short: she staggered forward, reached the edge of the basin in which the fountain played, and then, with a wild unnatural shriek, fell to the ground. The spray dashed upon her face, but it revived her not; the birds caroled overhead, but she heard them not. Alarmed by the shriek, the servants rushed forth, found her, and raised her head; but she felt them not. A few convulsive movements and deep-drawn sighs, and all was over.
Lilla had died sooner and more silently, and there they lay, two lovely flowers blighted by one storm.
Her husband returned the following day, and found his home desolate. Rumor said that he went nearly frantic, and well he might, for the silver knife which he himself had given revealed how his wife had perished. But he was not frantic. He was as sorry as he could be for any thing; but he was soon consoled, and lived a happy and a prosperous man.