Read Ebook: Bressant: A Novel by Hawthorne Julian

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Ebook has 1389 lines and 99289 words, and 28 pages

Papa shook his head, and combed his bristly white beard with his fingers. "Sophie has been very ill," said he; "it wouldn't be safe to have her go anywhere this summer. We can't take too much care of her. Typhoid pneumonia is a dangerous thing, and though she's on the way to recovery now, she might easily relapse. And then," added the old gentleman, in a more inward tone, "she would recover no more."

Although he mumbled this sentence to himself, Cornelia caught his meaning, more, probably, from his manner than from any thing she heard; and being of an emotional and warmly-tender disposition, she began to cry. She loved her sister very much; and something must also be allowed to the fact that, having a great happiness in prospect for herself, she could afford to expend more sympathy on those less fortunate. As for the professor, he, for a second time that afternoon, gave evidence of possessing disgracefully little control over himself. He began another fruitless search after his handkerchief, and finally asked Cornelia, with some heat, whether she knew what had become of it.

"Why, it's on your head, papa!" warbled she, brightly changing a laugh for her tears; and papa, putting up his hand in great confusion, and finding that it was indeed so, laughed also, and this time in a perfectly natural manner; but he blew his nose very resoundingly, for all that.

The atmosphere being serene once more, the joy of the future became again strong in Cornelia's heart, and coupled with it, an earnest longing to disburden herself to some one, and who but her sister should be her confidant? So she rose from her knees, and picked up her brown straw hat, which, in the excitement, had fallen to the floor.

"Is there any thing you'd like to do, papa dear?" asked she, laying her forefinger caressingly upon his bald head. "Because if there isn't, I, I should like--I think I'd better go to Sophie."

Professor Valeyon nodded his head, being in truth desirous of taking solitary counsel with himself. The letter contained a good deal more than the invitation he had communicated to Cornelia, and he could not feel at ease until he had more thoroughly analyzed and digested it. So when his daughter had vanished through the door, with a smile and a kiss of the hand, he mounted his spectacles again, and spread the letter open on his knee.

After reading a while in silence, he spoke; though his voice was audible only to his own mental ears.

"There was a time," said he, "when I wouldn't have believed I could ever hear the news of that man's death, and take it so quietly! And now he sends me his son!--as it were bequeaths him to me. Can it be as a hostage for forgiveness, though so late? or is it merely because he knew I could not but feel a vital interest in the boy, and would instruct and treat him as my own? He was a shrewd judge of human nature--and yet, I must not judge him harshly now."

Here Professor Valeyon happened again to catch sight of his slipper, and interrupted his soliloquy to extend his stockinged toe, fork it toward himself, and having, with some trouble, got it right side uppermost, to put it on. And then he referred once more to the letter.

As Professor Valeyon arrived at this conclusion, he uplifted himself, with some slight signs of the rustiness of age, from his chair, took his brown-linen duster from the balcony railing across which it had been thrown, and put it on, with laborious puffings, and a slight increase of perspiration. Then, first turning round, to make sure that he had all his belongings with him, he entered the hall-door, and passed through into his study.

The rooms in which we live seem to imbibe something of our characteristics, and the examination of a dwelling-place may not infrequently throw some light upon the inner nature of its occupant. The professor's study was of but moderate size, carpeted with a red-and-white check straw matting, considerably frayed and defaced in the region of the table, and faded where the light from the windows fell upon it. The four walls were hidden, to a height of about seven feet from the floor, with rows upon rows of books, of all sizes and varieties of binding, no small proportion being novels, and even those not invariably of a classical standard. The only picture was a stained engraving of the Transfiguration, over the mantel-piece, in a faded and fly-be-spotted gilt frame. In the centre of the room, occupying, indeed, a pretty large share of all the available space, stood an ample study-table, covered with green baize, darkened, for a considerable space around the inkstand, by innumerable spatterings of ink. It supported a confused medley of natural and unnatural accompaniments to reading and writing. A ponderous ebony inkstand, with solid cut-glass receptacles, one being intended for powder, though none was ever put in it, a mighty dictionary, which, being too heavy to be considered movable, occupied one corner of the table by itself: the earthen tobacco-jar, with a small piece chipped from the cover; pamphlets and books, standing or lying upon one another; heaps of rusty steel and blunted quill pens; a quire or two of blue and white letter-paper; a paper-knife, loose in the handle, but smooth of edge; a box of lucifer matches, and several burnt ends; an extra pipe or two; the professor's straw hat; a brass rack for holding letters and cards; and a great deal of pink blotting-paper scattered about everywhere.

Opposite the table stood a chair, straight-backed and severe, in which Professor Valeyon always sat when at work. He had a theory that it was not well to be too much at bodily ease when intellectually occupied. Directly behind the chair, upon the shelf of a bookcase, stood a plaster cast of Shakespeare's face, the nose of which was most unaccountably darkened and polished. It is doubtful whether even the professor himself could have cleared up the mystery of this deepened color in the immortal bard's nose. But whoever, during those hours set apart by the old gentleman for solitary labor and meditation, had happened to peep in at the window, would, ten to one, have beheld him tilted thoughtfully back in his chair, abstractedly tweaking, with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, the sacred feature in question. He had done it every day, for many years past, and never once found himself out, and, doubtless, the great poet was far too broad-minded ever to think of resenting the liberty, especially as it was only in his most thoughtful moments that the professor meddled with him.

The room contained little else in the way of furniture, except a few extra chairs, and a malacca-joint cane, with an ivory head, which stood in a corner near the door. It produced an impression at once of cleanliness and disorder, therein bearing a strong analogy to the professor's own person and habits; and the disorder was of such a kind, that, although no rule or system in the arrangement of any thing was perceptible, Professor Valeyon would have been at once and almost instinctively aware of any alteration that might have been made, however slight.

On entering the study, the old gentleman first shuffled up to the fireplace, flapping the heels of his slippers behind him as he went, and deposited his pipe on the mantel-piece. Next, he put on his straw hat, and, turning to the engraving of the Transfiguration, which had served him as a looking-glass almost ever since it had hung there, he put himself to rights, with his usual fierce scowlings, liftings of the chin, and jerkings at collar and stock. When every thing seemed in proper trim, he took his ivory-headed cane from its place in the corner, and made his way along the entry to the front door.

"Bless me!" ejaculated the professor, as he emerged upon the porch, shading his eyes from the white dazzle of the road; "how hot it is, sure enough!" Scarcely had he spoken, however, when the sun, which had been coquetting for the last half-hour with the majestic white cloud which Cornelia had idly watched from the balcony, suddenly plunged his burning face right into its cool, soft bosom, and immediately a clear, gray shadow gently took possession of the landscape.

"Humph!" grunted the professor again, turning a sharp, wise eye to the westward, "we shall have a thunder-shower before long. I must take the covered wagon. But how's this? I declare I've forgotten to change my slippers! I'm growing old--I'm growing old, that's certain!"

As the old gentleman stood, shaking his head over this new symptom of approaching senility, he happened to turn his eyes in the direction of the village, and descried a figure approaching rapidly from the turn in the road, which at once arrested his attention.

"Who can that be?" muttered he to himself, frowning to assist his vision. "None of the town boys, that's certain. Never saw such a figure but once before! If any thing, this is the better man of the two. By-the-way, what if it should be--! Humph! I believe it is, sure enough."

"Is this the parsonage?" demanded he, speaking with great rapidity of utterance, and turning his head half sideways as he spoke, without, however, removing his eyes from the professor's face.

The old gentleman nodded his head, "It is known by that name, sir!" said he.

With the almost impatient quickness which marked every thing he did--a quickness which did not seem in any way allied to slovenliness or inaccuracy, however--the young man pushed through the gate, which protested loudly against such rough usage, and walked hastily up to the porch-steps. He paused a moment ere ascending.

"Are you Professor Valeyon?" he asked.

Again the professor bowed his head in assent. "And are you--?" began he.

The young man sprang up the steps, and grasping the other's half-extended hand, gave it a brief, hard shake.

"I'm Bressant," said he.

SOPHIE AND CORNELIA ENTER INTO A COVENANT.

When Cornelia left her father on the balcony, she danced up-stairs, and chass?ed on tiptoe up to the door of Sophie's room. There she stopped and knocked.

Somehow or other, nobody ever went into that room without knocking. It never entered any one's head to burst in unannounced. The door was an unimposing-looking piece of deal, grained by some village artist into the portraiture of an as yet undiscovered kind of wood, and considerably impaired in various ways by time. It could not have been the door, therefore. Nor was the bolt ever drawn, save at certain hours of the morning and night. Sophie was not an ogre, either. Cornelia, who was very trying at times, would have found it hard to recall an occasion when Sophie had answered or addressed her sharply or crossly. If she exerted any influence, or wielded any power, it was not of the kind which attends a violent or morose temper. But no vixen or shrew, how terrible soever she may be, can hope at all times or from all people to meet with respect or consideration; while to Sophie Valeyon the world always put on its best face and manner, secretly wondering at itself the while for being so well-behaved.

As to the affair of knocking, Sophie herself had never said a word about it, one way or another. She always took it as a matter of course; indeed, had she been loquacious on the subject, or insisted upon the observance, Cornelia for one would have been very likely to laugh to scorn and disregard her, therein acting upon a principle of her own, which prompted her to measure her strength against any thing which seemed to challenge her, and never to give up if she could help it. But she had never had a trial of strength with Sophie, and possibly was quite contented that it should be so. She would have shrunk from thwarting or crossing her sister as she would from committing a secret sin: there might be no material or visible ill-consequence, but the stings of conscience would be all the sharper.

So Cornelia knocked and entered, and the quiet, cool room in which her sister lay seemed to glow and become enlivened by the joyous reflection of her presence. Yet the effect of the room upon Cornelia was at least as marked. She hushed herself, as it were, and tried, half unconsciously, to adapt herself to the tone of her surroundings; for, although her physical nature was sound and healthy, almost to boisterousness, her perceptions remained very keen and delicate, and occasionally rallied her upon the redundancy of her animal well-being with something like reproof.

It was singular, with how few and how simple means was created the impression of purity and repose that this chamber produced! It brought to mind the pearly interior of a shell, and a fanciful person might have listened for the sea-music whispering through. The walls were papered with pale gray, relieved by a light pink tracery, and the white-muslin curtains were set off by a pink lining. A bunch of wild-flowers and grasses, which Cornelia had gathered that morning, and Sophie had arranged, stood on the mantel-piece. There were four or five pictures--one, a bass-relief of Endymion, deep asleep, yet conscious in his dream that the moon is peeping shyly over his polished shoulder, had been copied from a famous original by Sophie herself. She had painted it in a pale-brown mezzotint, which was like nothing in nature, but seemed suitable of all others for the embodiment of the classic fable. This picture hung over the mantel-piece. Opposite Sophie's bed was an illumination of the Lord's Prayer, with clear gold lettering, and capitals and border of celestial colors. The dressing-table was covered with a white cloth, on which reposed a comb and brush and a pink pin-cushion with a muslin cover, and over which hung a crayon of the cherub of the Sistine Madonna, who leans his chin upon his hand.

Within reach of Sophie's hand as she lay, were suspended a couple of hanging shelves, which held her books. There were not a great many of them, but they all bore signs of having been well read, and there was at the same time a certain neatness and spotlessness in their appearance which no merely new books could ever possess, but which was communicated solely by Sophie's pure finger-touches. On the opposite side of the bed stood a small table, on which ticked a watch; and beside the watch was a work-basket, full of those multifarious little articles that only a woman knows how to get together.

Looking around the room, and noting the delicate nicety and precision of its condition and arrangement, one would have supposed that Sophie's own hands must have been very lately at work upon it. But it was many weeks since she had even sat in the easy-chair that stood in the rosy-curtained window; and, although now far advanced in convalescence, she had taken no part in the care of her room since her illness. Why it had still continued to retain its immaculateness was one of many similar mysteries which must always surround a character like Sophie's. Every thing she accomplished seemed not so much to be done, as to take place, in accordance with her idea or resolve; and there were always, in her manifestations of whatever kind, more spiritual than material elements.

When Cornelia entered, Sophie laid down her sewing, and looked up-with a smile in her eyes, which were large and gray, and the only regularly beautiful part of her face. She had a way of confining a smile to them, when wishing merely to express good-will or pleasure, which was peculiar to herself, and very effective. Cornelia walked quite soberly up to the bedside, kissed her sister, and then stood silent for several moments.

Compared with her recent exhilaration, this was very extraordinary behavior. She had rushed up-stairs intent upon pouring into Sophie's ears the whole gorgeous tale of her hopes and anticipations for the coming summer. Yet no sooner was she within the door than her excitement seemed to die out, and her enthusiasm ebb away. Extraordinary as it appeared, it was by no means a rare occurrence. Cornelia alone could have told how common; if, indeed, she ever reflected upon the matter. She was very quick to feel a divergence of interests between her sister and herself, and always inferred that Sophie could not sympathize with any thing for which she had no personal taste. In the present instance, it had all at once occurred to her that her sister would not be likely to care half so much about the gayeties of fashionable watering-places and city-life as she did, and might therefore treat with indifference what was to her an affair of the greatest moment; and a snub being one of those things which Cornelia found it most difficult, even in the mildest form, to endure, she had resolved, on the spur of the moment, to approach the topic of her proposed departure with the same coolness which she expected Sophie to manifest when she heard about it.

"Have you kept at that sewing ever since I went away?" asked she, idly examining the work which Sophie had laid down.

"I believe so," replied Sophie, stroking her chin to a point between her forefinger and thumb. "It's so pleasant to be able to sew again at all that I should consider it no hardship to have to sew all day."

Cornelia's thoughts immediately reverted to the dresses which the next two weeks must see made.

"You wouldn't be strong enough to do that, though, would you? I mean to sew on dresses, and all that sort of thing?"

"Dresses?" said Sophie, looking up inquiringly into her sister's face. "Oh, you mean your dress for Abbie's Fourth-of-July party? I thought you were going to wear your--"

"Oh, no, not that; I wasn't thinking of that," interrupted Miss Valeyon, with a gesture as if deprecating the idea of having ever entertained ideas so lowly. "I shall hardly be in town on the Fourth," she added, reflectively, as if calculating her engagements.

Sophie looked amazed, though it would have taken a keener observer than Cornelia was at the moment to detect the slight contraction of the under eyelids, and the barely perceptible droop of the corners of the mouth. She saw that her sister had something of moment to tell her, and was, for some reason, coquettish about bringing it out. Cornelia was often entertaining to Sophie when she least had intention of being so; but Sophie was far too tender of the young lady's feelings knowingly to let her suspect it.

"Not be in town?" repeated she, demurely taking up her work; "why, where are you going, dear?"

"Oh!" said Cornelia, with one of those little half-yawns wherewith we cover our nervousness or suspense, "I didn't tell you, did I? Papa received a letter from a lady in New York, the one who wanted us to call her 'Aunt Margaret' when we were there ever so long ago--the year after mamma died, you know--asking me to come to her house there, and go round with her to Saratoga and all the fashionable watering-places. The invitation was for about the first of July, so--"

"Why, Sophie!" murmured Cornelia, covered with an astonishment of smiles and tears, "how sweet you are! I didn't think you'd care; I thought you'd think it foolish in me to be glad, dear Sophie!"

"My darling!" said Sophie, with another hug. She felt rebuked and remorseful; for if, as Cornelia's words unconsciously implied, her sympathy was unexpected, it would appear she had gained a reputation for coldness and indifference which she was far from coveting. It often happens, certainly, that those whom we consider intellectually beneath us, and whom, supposing them too dull to comprehend the evolutions of our minds, we occasionally use for our amusement, possess an instinctive insight far keener than that of experience, enabling them to read our very souls with an accuracy which puts our self-knowledge to the blush, and might quite turn the tables upon us, could they themselves but appreciate their power.

"But tell me all about it," resumed Sophie; "all the particulars. And then we'll discuss the dresses. Dear me! I long to get to work upon them."

As a matter of fact, Cornelia had very few particulars to tell: all she knew was the simple fact she had already stated. But it needed only a small spark to enkindle her imagination; she plunged at once into a perfect flower-garden of bright thoughts and rainbow fancies; foreshadowed her whole journey from the arrival in New York to the latest grand ball and conquest; glowed over the horses, the houses, and the people; speculated profoundly in possible romances and romantic possibilities, and became so eloquent in a pretty, half-childish, half-womanish way she had, that Sophie's eyes shone, and she told herself that Neelie was the dearest, cunningest sister in the world.

From these glorious imaginings they descended--or ascended, perhaps--to the dresses, and then Sophie's low, steady voice mingled with Cornelia's rich, strenuous one, like pure water with red wine. Cornelia paced the little room backward and forward--she could never keep still when she was talking about what interested her, and now paused by the window, now before the mantel-piece, now leaned for a moment on the foot-board of Sophie's bed. She was very happy; indeed, this may have been the happiest hour of her life, past or to come. We all have our happiest hour, probably; and not always shall we find that happiness to have been caused by higher or less selfish considerations than those which animated Cornelia Valeyon.

During one of her visits to the window, she was arrested by the vision of an unknown young man coining up the road. She at once became silent.

"What is it?" demanded Sophie, presently.

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