Bressant by Julian Hawthorne

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Michael now came for Cornelia's trunk--a ponderous structure packed
within an inch of its existence. Cornelia stood at the head of the
stairs and saw it go thump! thump! thump! down to the bottom, and then
scrape unwillingly over the oil-cloth to the door. Such a heavy-hearted
old trunk as it was! Then she walked to the hall-window, and watched its
further journey along the glistening marble causeway, which dimly
reflected its square ponderosity, and the tugging Michael behind it.

Now the gate had to be pulled open; the rasp of its rattle and sharpness
of its flap were somewhat impaired by the wet, but it managed to give
the trunk a parting kick as it went out, as much as to say the house was
well rid of it.

"Cornelia!" called the Professor from down-stairs, "you've just five
minutes to say good-by in. Get through and come along!"

She passed through Sophie's open door; her sister held out her arms, her
eyes overflowing with tears, but smiling with the strange perversity
that possesses some people on these occasions. Cornelia was troubled
with no such misplaced self-dental; she threw herself impatiently down
by Sophie, and sobbed with all her might. Possibly it was more than one
regret that found utterance then.

"You'll be all well and walking about when I come back, won't you dear?"
said she, at last, in a shaking voice.

"I shall get well thinking what a splendid time you're having,
darling."

"Sophie--will you be quite the same to me when I come back?"

"Why, Neelie, dear, what a question! I shall always be the same to you."

"But I feel as if there were going to be something--that something was
going to come between us;" and Cornelia began to droop like a flower
under an icy wind. "You never could hate me, could you, Sophie?"

"Hate you! Neelie! What makes you speak so, dear? I have no misgivings."

"Oh! I don't know--I don't know! it must be because I'm wicked!"

"_You_ wicked, my darling sister! Come," said Sophie, with an earnest
smile, "think only of how much we love each other; let the misgivings
go."

"Yes, we do love each other now, don't we? Whatever happens we'll always
remember that. Good-by, Sophie!" said Cornelia, with a strong hug and a
long kiss.

"Good-by, dear Neelie!"

Cornelia ran down-stairs; her papa had just gone out to the wagon; she
went into Bressant's room, and walked quickly up to the bedside.

"Here's your watch," said she. "I've kept it all safe, and wound it up
and every thing." She had also slept with it under her pillow, and worn
it all day in her bosom, but that she did not mention. She laid it down
on the table as she spoke.

"Have you a watch?" asked Bressant.

"I had one, but it did not go very long. It was very small and pretty
though;" this is the short and pathetic history of most ladies' watches.

"I'd like you to take something of mine with you that you can see and
hear and touch: will you keep this watch?" asked he, fixing his eyes
upon her. There was no time to deliberate; there was nothing she would
like so much; she snatched it up without a word and stuck it into her
belt.

"Good-by!" said she, holding out her hand. Bressant took it, not without
difficulty.

"I wish you were going to stay," said he, gloomily, "I should be more
happy to have you here, than ashamed to need your help."

Cornelia's eyes fell, and there was a tremulousness on her lips that
might mean either smiles or tears. "You'll be glad to see me when I come
back, then, and you are well?"

"You'll be like a beautiful morning when you come," returned he, with a
touch of that picturesqueness that sounded so quaintly coming from him.
All this time he had retained her hand, and now, looking her in the
eyes, he drew it with painful effort toward his lips. Cornelia's heart
beat so she could scarcely stand, and her mind was in a confusion, but
she did not withdraw her hand. Perhaps because he was so pale and
helpless; perhaps the old argument--"it's his way--he don't know it
isn't customary;" perhaps--for this also must have a place--perhaps from
a fear lest he should make no attempt to regain it. She felt his bearded
lips press against it. At the touch, a sudden weakness, a self-pitying
sensation, came over her, and the tears started to her eyes.

"No one ever did that before to me," she said, almost plaintively, for
he had spoken no justifying words, and she was balancing between a
remorseful timidity and a timid exultation.

"It's the first kiss I ever gave," said he, and his own voice vibrated.
"Are you angry? it shall be the last if you are."

"Oh, I'm not angry," faltered poor Cornelia; and then she felt, or
seemed to feel, a force drawing her down--scarcely perceptible, yet
strong as death. She bent her lovely glowing face, with its tearful eyes
and fragrant breath, close down to Bressant's.

At that very moment, or even an incalculable instant before, the
professor's voice was heard calling loudly from without:

"Come--come! be quick! you'll be too late!"

She rose and fled from the room; but it was too late, indeed.

CHAPTER XIV.

NURSING.

After seeing Cornelia off, Professor Valeyon bethought himself of Abbie;
she must be wondering what had become of her late boarder, and he
resolved to stop at the house, and give her an account of the accident.
He had got some distance beyond the boarding-house when the idea
occurred to him. Just as he was about to head Dolly round in the
opposite direction, he discerned a figure beyond, beneath an umbrella,
which looked very much like the person he was seeking. He drove on, and
in a few minutes overtook her.

"Going up to the Parsonage?" cried the old gentleman, getting gallantly
down into the mud. "Here, jump up into-the wagon; I want to tell you
about your--boarder."

"He--there's nothing the matter with him, of course?" said Abbie, with a
short laugh. She was looking very pale, and as if she had not slept much
of late. "No, don't drive mo to the Parsonage; take me home, if you
please, Professor Valeyon. Well, about Mr. Bressant?"

"Doing very well now; he was pretty seriously hurt." And he went on to
give a short account of what had happened, which Abbie did not interrupt
by word or gesture; she sat with her head bent, and her lips working
against each other.

"It's quite certain he'll recover?" she asked, when all was told.

"As certain," quoth the professor, non-committally, "as any thing in
surgery can be."

"It wouldn't be safe to move him, of course?"

"Not till he's a good deal better; you see, the collar-bone--"

"Yes, I'll take your word for it," said Abbie, very pale. "Well, I'm
glad he's in such good hands. If I had him he wouldn't be comfortable; I
should be sure to do him more harm than good; it's better as it is; much
better."

She spoke in an inward tone, looking vacantly out into the rain, and
fumbling with the handle of her umbrella.

"But you'll come up and see him once in a while, at the Parsonage?"

Abbie shook her head. "No, no, Professor Valeyon; why should I? Do you
suppose he wants to see me? do you suppose he's thought of me once since
he went away? It would be a strange thing for an educated, intellectual,
wealthy young man like him to do, wouldn't it?" asked Abbie, with a
smile.

The professor's eyes met hers for a moment, and then she looked away.
Presently she spoke again:

"I'd a great deal rather leave this world as I've lived in it, for the
last twenty years and more, than run any risk of making a blunder. I
don't want things to change, Professor Valeyon; but if they do, it
musn't be through any act of mine, or yours either."

By this time they had arrived at the boarding-house; and the old
gentleman, having seen Abbie safely in to the door, drove homeward,
frowning all the way, and at intervals shaking his head slowly. When he
got home, he shut himself into his study, and there paced restlessly
backward and forward, and stared out of the window across the valley.
That open spot on the hill-top seemed to afford little or no
enlightenment or satisfaction; and when he sat down to his solitary
dinner, the frown had not yet cleared away.

The next day the rain was over, and a cart was sent up to the parsonage,
containing Bressant's books, and such other of his belongings as he
would be likely to need during his illness; and, accompanying them, a
note from Abbie, expressing her regret at his misfortune, and her hopes
that he would return to his rooms at her house as soon as his health was
sufficiently reestablished. The young man heard the note read, and
congratulated himself, as he closed his eyes with a yawn, that he was
not under his quondam landlady's ministrations.

But even the best circumstances could do little to lighten the
insufferable tediousness of his confinement. Probably, however, such
changes and modifications as may have been in progress in his nature,
attained quicker and easier development by reason of his physical
prostration. The alteration in his bodily habits and conditions paved
the way for an analogous moral and mental process. The powers of a man
are never annihilated; if dormant in one direction, they will be active
in another; and thus Bressant's passions, naturally deep and violent,
being denied legitimate outlet, had given vigor, endurance, and heat of
purpose, to the prosecution of his intellectual exercises. But, as soon
as these elements of his nature found their proper channels, they rushed
onward with far more dash and fervor than if they had never been dammed
or deflected.

The combined effect upon the young man of the companionship of a
beautiful woman and his own broken bones, had been to make him feel and
ponder on the nature of her power over him. The name of love was of
course familiar to him, but he could hardly as yet, perhaps, grasp the
full significance of the sentiment. Like other forms of knowledge, it
must be approached by natural gradations. Here, if nowhere else,
Bressant's life of purely intellectual activity was a disadvantage. His
stand-points and views were artificial, speculative, and material. Love
cannot be reduced to a formula, and then relinquished; nor is it ever
safe to use, as pattern for an untried work, the plan whereby something
else was accomplished. Life has need of many methods.

Nearly a week of musing and speculation had passed over the young man's
head, when one day, as he was feeling unusually disconsolate, and
wishing for unattainable things--Cornelia among others--he became aware,
through some subtle channel of sensation, that somebody was standing in
the door-way. He was lying in such a position that he could not see the
door, so, after waiting a few moments, he exclaimed, with an invalid's
irritability:

"Come in--or shut the door!"

"I'll come in, if you please," answered an amused voice, which, though
soft and low, possessed a penetrating quality which made it easily
audible to the deaf man. He had never heard it before; but either
because of this quality, or for some other more occult reason, he
conceived a most decided liking for it.

It's owner now became visible. She was a delicate-looking girl, with a
pale, conch-shell complexion, brown hair as fine as silk, and pleasant,
serene, gray eyes. She was dressed very simply in white, with a blue
band across her hair, and a blue scarf and sash around throat and waist.
Her face, though showing signs of quiet strength, and of a
self-confidence which was the flower of maidenly modesty and innocence,
was not beautiful according to any recognized standard. Bressant, from
his intuitive perception of form and proportion, was aware of this. The
forehead was too high, the nose irregular, the mouth lacked the perfect
curve, and the teeth, though white and even, were not small enough for
beauty.

Nevertheless, Bressant was at once impressed with the young girl's
presence. It was as if an ethereal cloud--such as that which, shone
through by white sunlight, was just floating past the window--had eddied
unexpectedly into his chamber, cooling and quieting him with the
freshness of its heavenly vapor. Her eyes met his with a simple
directness which made his glance waver, though he was not given to
humility. Something, whereof neither science nor philosophy can take
cognizance, seemed to emanate from her, elevating while it humbled him.

"If I'd known who you were, I--I shouldn't have asked you to shut the
door!" said he, in an apologetic tone quite new to him.

"And how do you know who I am?" inquired the vision, with a refreshing
smile.

"I meant, what sort of a person you were; but you must be Miss Sophie:
only I thought she was ill."

"I am Miss Sophie, but I'm not to be thought ill any more. One invalid
in the house is enough. I'm going to nurse you, and, since I'm well, you
may be twice as ill as ever, if you choose."

"Well!" said Bressant, quite resignedly. He was becoming a very
respectable patient.

"In what way do you want to be taken care of?" resumed the nurse with a
cheerful, business-like gravity which was at once becoming and piquant.

"Stay here and talk; I like to hear your voice: and you look so cool and
pleasant."

Very few people could oppose this young man in any thing; he knew so
well what he wanted, and demanded it so uncompromisingly. But Sophie's
sense of fitness and propriety was as sound and impenetrable as adamant,
and scarcely to be affected by any human will or consideration. She felt
there was something not quite right in his manner and in the nature of
his demand; and, being in the habit of making people conform to her
ideas, rather than the reverse, she at once determined to correct him.

"If there's any thing you wish me to read to you, I'll do it. I didn't
come to sit down and talk to you; but, if you like my voice, you can
have more pleasure from it in that way."

"It would be no use for you to read: I couldn't understand--I couldn't
attend to your voice and the book at the same time."

"We'd better wait, then," said Sophie, turning her clear, gray eyes upon
him with an expression of demure satire. "By-and-by, perhaps, it won't
have such a distracting effect upon you--when you come to know me
better. If not, I must keep away altogether."

Bressant's forehead grew red with sudden temper. He felt reproved, but
was not prepared to acknowledge that he had merited it.

"You're very generous of your voice!" exclaimed he, resentfully. "It's
your fault, not mine, that it's agreeable. You're not so kind as your
tone is."

"I don't mean to be unkind," said she, more gently, looking down. "You
don't seem to see the difference between unkindness and--what I said."

"What is the difference?" demanded he, taking her up.

Sophie paused a few moments, compassionating this great, willful boy,
and wondering what she could do for him. He had saved her father's life,
thereby imperilling his own, and disabling himself, and she could not
but admire and thank him for it. But his manner puzzled and annoyed her,
and was an obstacle in the way of her would-be helpfulness.

"You wouldn't ask that question, I think, if you'd had sisters, or a
mother," she said, at last. "I suppose you've lived only with men. But
you must learn how to treat young women from your own sense of what is
delicate and true."

Bressant stared and was silent: and Sophie herself was surprised at the
authoritative tone she was assuming toward a bearded man whom she had
never met before. But it was impossible to associate with Bressant
without either yielding to him, or, at least, behaving differently from
at other times, in one way or another. He was a magnet that drew from
people things unsuspected by themselves.

The pause was finally broken by the young man's accepting the situation
with a grace, and even docility, which was nearly too much for Sophie's
gravity.

"If you'll read, I will listen and understand it: you'd better try the
Bible. I have a great deal of work to do upon that, still: you'll find
one on the table by the window."

She got the book, with whose contents she was considerably better
acquainted than was the divinity student, and sat down to read,
marveling at the oddness of the situation; while he lay apparently
absorbed in the cracks on the ceiling. By degrees--for having carried
her point she could not help being more gracious--she began to allow a
little embroidery of conversation to weave itself about the sacred text
She spoke to Bressant about such simple and ordinary matters as went to
make up her life--the books she had read, the people she knew, the
country round about, a few of her more inward thoughts. He listened, and
said no more than enough to show he was attentive; sometimes making her
laugh by the shrewdness of his questions, and the quaintness of his
remarks.

But he said nothing more to bring a grave look into the eyes of his
young nurse; and she, finding him so gentle and boyish, and withal manly
and profound, chatted on with more confidence and freedom; and, being
gifted with fineness and accuracy of observation, and a clear flow and
order of language and ideas, made talking a delight and a profit.

There was nothing formal or didactic about Sophie, and her talk rippled
forth as naturally and spontaneously as a brook trickles over its brown
stones, or the over-hanging willows whisper in the wind. There was in it
the unwearied and unweariable freshness of nature. And Sophie's vein of
humor was as fine and pungent as the aroma of a lemon: it touched her
words now and then, and made their flavor all the more acceptable.

So Bressant gained his end at last, though he had yielded it; and this
fact was not lost upon the trained keenness of his observation. After
his nurse was gone, he lay with closed eyes, and a general sensation of
comfort, until he fell asleep. Quiet dreams came to him, such as
children have sometimes, but grown-up people seldom. Everywhere he
seemed to follow a cool, white cloud. But where was Cornelia?

CHAPTER XV.

AN UNTIMELY REMINISCENCE.

In spite of nursing and a very strong constitution, Bressant's recovery
was slow. The fact was, his mind was restless and disturbed, and
produced a fever in his blood. Large and powerful as he was, his
physical was largely dependent on his mental well-being, as must always
be the case with persons well organized throughout. He would never have
been so muscular and healthy had his life not been an undisturbed and
self-complacent one. These questions of the heart and emotions were not
salutary to his body, however beneficial otherwise.

At the same time, no one is quite himself who is ill, and doubtless
Bressant would have escaped many of his difficulties, and solved others
with comparatively little trouble, if his faculties had not been untuned
by illness. While he was more open to the influx of all these novel
ideas and problems, he was less able to deal with and dispose of them.
So the professor, while encouraged by the observation of his apparent
progress in the direction of human feeling and emotional warmth, was
concerned to find him falling off in recuperative power.

Sophie was largely to blame for it. Bressant was getting to depend too
much upon her society. He brightened when she came in, and was gloomy
when she went out. He liked to talk and argue with her; to dash waves
of logic, impetuous but subtle, against the rock of her pure intuitions
and steady consistency. He was careful not to go too far; though,
indeed, she usually had the best of the encounter. Of course his
knowledge and trained faculties far surpassed Sophie's simple
acquirements and modest learning; but she had a marvelous penetration in
seeing a fallacy, even when she knew not how to expose it; and she
mercilessly pricked many of the conceited bubbles of his understanding.

Doubtless she would have noticed the too prominent position which she
had come to occupy in the invalid's horizon, had not her eyes, so clear
to see every thing else, been blinded by the fact that he, also, was
grown to be of altogether too much importance to her. She never for a
moment imagined that any thing but an abstract and ideal scheme for
benefiting Bressant was actuating her in her intercourse with him. She
proposed to educate him in pure beliefs and true aspirations; to show
him that there was more in life than can be mathematically proved. But
that she could derive other than an immaterial and impersonal enjoyment
from it--oh, no!

This was quixotic and unpractical, if nothing worse. What other means of
imparting spiritual knowledge could a young girl like Sophie have, than
to exhibit to her pupil the structure and workings of her own soul? But
this could not be done with impunity; neither was Bressant a cup, to be
emptied and then refilled with a purer substance. Young men and women
with exalted and ideal views about each other, cannot do better than to
keep out of one another's way. Unless they are prepared to mingle a
great deal of what is earthly with their dreams, they will be apt,
sooner or later, to have a rude awakening.

The conceit of her ideal crusade against Bressant's shortcomings blinded
Sophie to what she could not otherwise have helped seeing--that she
enjoyed his companionship for its own immediate sake. She had, perhaps,
more direct and simple strength of character than he; but he made up in
other ways for the lack of it. Besides, he had not taken measures to
obstruct the natural keenness of his vision, and therefore saw, with
comparative clearness, how the land lay; an immense advantage over
Sophie, of course. But when he came to analyzing and classifying what he
saw, he found his intelligence at fault. That little episode with
Cornelia was the only bit of experience he had to fall back upon; and
that was more of a puzzle than an assistance to him.

Matters went on thus for about six weeks, at which time Bressant was
still confined to his room, although decidedly convalescent. It had
seemed to him for some time past that a crisis would soon be reached in
his relations with Sophie, but what the upshot of it would be he could
not conjecture. He only felt that at present something was
concealed--that there were explanations and confessions to be made,
which would have the effect of putting his young nurse and himself upon
more open and intimate terms. He looked forward to this culmination with
impatience, and yet with anxiety. One morning, when they had been
reading Spenser's "Faerie Queene," Cornelia's weekly letter was brought
in, and subsequently the conversation turned upon her.

"I used to think she was much more beautiful than you," remarked
Bressant, thoughtfully, twisting and turning the palm-leaf fan he held
in his hands. "I don't think, now, that I knew what beauty was," he
added, concentrating his straight eyebrows upon Sophie, in a
scrutinizing look.

"No one could be more beautiful than Neelie," said Sophie, with gentle
emphasis. "What has made you change your opinion?" As she spoke, she
closed the book on her lap, and leaned her cheek upon her hand. Some of
the sunshine fell upon her white dress, but left her face in shadow. It
struck Bressant, however, that the clear morning light which filled the
room emanated from her eyes rather than from the sunshine.

"I don't know that I have changed my opinion," said he, looking down
again at the fan; "I learn new things every day, that's all. Do you ever
think about yourself?"

"I suppose I do, sometimes; nobody can help being conscious of
themselves once in a while."

"About what you are, compared with other people, I mean."

"There's nothing peculiar about me; still, I may be different, in some
ways, from other people," answered Sophie, with simplicity.

"I can judge better about that than you; there was some use in deafness,
and being alone, and thinking only of fame, and such things."

"What use?" asked Sophie, leaning forward, with interest, for he had
never spoken about his former life before.

"The same way that a man who never drinks has a more delicate sense of
taste than a drunkard," returned Bressant, apparently pleased with his
simile. "I've seen so little of women, that I can taste you more
correctly than if I had seen a great many. Understand?"

Sophie did not answer, being somewhat thrown out by this new way of
looking at the matter. There seemed to be some reason in it, too.

"If I'd associated with other people, I shouldn't have been sensitive
enough to recognize you when we met; no one except me can know you or
feel you," continued he, following out his idea.

Sophie began to feel a vague misgiving. What did this mean? What was
going to be the end of it? Ought she to allow it to go on? And yet--most
likely it meant nothing; it was only one of his queer fancies that he
was elaborating. There did not seem to be any thing suspicious in his
manner.

"It wasn't easy even for me," he resumed, throwing another glance at
her; she sat with her eyes cast down, so that he could observe her with
impunity. "It would have been impossible unless you had helped me to it.
You have taught me yourself, even more than I have studied you."

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