Mabel's Mistake Part 3

Again Lina lifted her eyes, so blue, so flooded with gentle grat.i.tude; but she did not speak, for Ben was resting on his oars, while the boat crept silently down the current.

"Why don't you steer for home?" asked Ralph, impatient of Ben's eyes.

"I see that ere old respectable gentleman on the bank, a looking this way, so I thought we'd lie to and refit more particularly about the upper story. If Miss Lina there'll just shake them ere curls back a trifle, and tie on her bonnet; and if you, Mister Ralph, could just manage to look t'other way and take an observation of the scenery, perhaps we should make out to pa.s.s with a clear bill and without over-haulin'."

"You are right," said Ralph after a moment, looking anxiously, toward the sh.o.r.e, where the stately figure of old Mr. Harrington was distinctly visible; "my father is a great stickler for proprieties. Here is your hat, Lina--let me fold this scarf about you."

As Ralph spoke, the flush left his face, and a look of fatigue crept over Lina. Ben still rested on his oars. He was determined to give the old gentleman ample opportunity to continue his walk inland, before the young people were submitted to his scrutiny. As they lingered floating upon the waters, a tiny boat shot from beneath a cliff below them, and was propelled swiftly down the river. In it was a female rendered conspicuous by a scarlet shawl, and in the still life around them, this boat became an object of interest. It was only for a moment, the young people were too deeply occupied with their own feelings to dwell upon even this picturesque adjunct to a scene which was now flooded gorgeously with the sunset. Ben, however, became restless and anxious.

Without a word he seized his oars, and pushed directly for the cove in which his boat was usually moored.

Ralph and Lina went homewards with a reluctance never experienced before. A sense of concealment oppressed them. An indefinite terror of meeting their friends, rendered their steps slow upon the green sward.

As they drew towards the house, Ralph paused.

"Speak to me, Lina, my heart is heavy without the sound of your voice: say you love me, or shall I be miserable with suspense?"

The young girl listened with a saddened and downcast look. A heaviness had fallen upon her with the first sight of old Mr. Harrington on the bank. True he had gone now, but his shadow seemed to oppress her still.

"Will you not speak to me, Lina? Will you not relieve this suspense by one little word?"

She lifted her head gently, but with modest pride.

"You know that I love you, Ralph."

"But not as you have done. I am not content with simple household affection. Say that you love me, body and soul, faults and virtues, as I love you."

Lina drew herself up, and a smile, sad but full of sweetness--half presentiment, half faith--beamed on her face.

"Your soul may search mine to its depths and find only itself there. I do love you, Ralph, even as you love me!"

Her answer was almost solemn in its dignity; for the moment that fair young girl looked and spoke like a priestess.

Ralph Harrington reached out his hand, taking hers in its grasp.

"Why are you so pale? Why tremble so?" he said, moving towards the house.

"I do not know," answered Lina, "but it seems as if the breath of that rattlesnake were around us yet."

"You are sad--your nerves have been dreadfully shaken--but to-morrow, Lina, all will be bright again."

Lina smiled faintly.

"Oh, yes, all must be bright to-morrow."

As they pa.s.sed the iron gate that separated the lawn from the sh.o.r.e, Ben, who had seated himself in the boat, arose suddenly, and pushed his little craft into the river again. His weather-beaten face was turned anxiously down the stream. He seized the oars, and urging his boat into the current, pulled stoutly, as if some important object had suddenly seized upon him.

"Where can she be a going to? What on earth is she after? Has the old rascal broke out at last? Has she give way? But I'll overhaul her! Pull away, Ben Benson, pull away, you old rascal! What bisness had you with them ere youngsters, and _she_ in trouble! Pull away, or I'll break every bone in your body, Ben Benson!"

Thus muttering and reviling himself, Ben was soon out of sight, burying himself, as it seemed, in the dull purple of the night as it crept over the Hudson.

CHAPTER V.

ON THE BANKS AND ON THE RIVER.

There are moments in every human life when we would gladly flee from ourselves and plunge into action of any kind, to escape from the recognition of our own memories. This recoil from the past seldom comes to early youth, for to that, memories are like the light breezes of April, with nothing but tender green foliage, and opening buds to disturb. With youth the past is so close to the present, that thought always leaps forward into the future, and in the first flush of existence that is invariably beautiful. But it is a different thing when life approaches its maturity. Then the spirit, laden down with events that have culminated, and feelings that have been shaken by many a heart storm, bends reluctantly to the tempest like the stately old forest trees laden with foliage, which bow to nothing but the inevitable tornado.

Mabel Harrington left the old Mansion House with a quicker movement and more rapid step than was natural to her, unless some strong feeling was aroused, or some important aim to be accomplished. At such times her action was quick, almost imperious, and all the evidences of an ardent nature, fresh as youth and strong as maturity, broke forth in each movement of her person and in every thought of her mind.

She walked more and more rapidly as the distance between her and the house increased, for the open air and wider country gave freedom to her spirit. As she walked her earnest grey eyes turned from the river to the sky and abroad upon the hills, as if seeking for something in nature to which her soul might appeal for sympathy in the swell and storm of feeling that a few simple words had let loose upon her, after a sleep of many years.

"Does he know what I have felt and how I have suffered, that he stings me with such words? His father's marriage! And was I not the spirit--nay, the victim of that marriage? Why should he speak to me thus? The air was enough--the calm sleep of the winds--the fragrance. I was a girl again, till his quiet taunt awoke me. Does he think that I have lost a thought or a feeling because of this dull heavy routine of cares? Why did he speak to me in that cold tone? I have not deserved it.

Heaven knows I have not deserved it from him, or from any of them!"

Mabel uttered these words aloud, as she approached the banks of the river, and her voice clear and rich with feeling, was swept out upon the wind which bore it away, mingled with fragrance from the dying leaves.

"Does he think with common men, that the impulses of youth die out and are gone? As if the pa.s.sions of youth did not become the power of maturity, and mellow at last into the calm grandeur of old age. If love were not immortal, how dreary even this beautiful world would seem, yet being so, I can but look forward to another, when the shackles of this life will fall away."

It was a relief to speak aloud. The sound of her own voice came back like the sympathy she dared to claim only of the wind and the waters, that flowed on with their eternal rush of sound, like the years of life that Mabel was mourning over. She stood upon the sh.o.r.e, stately and motionless, her eyes full of trouble, her lips tremulous with impulsive words that betrayed a soul at once ardent and pure. The wind rose around her, and seizing upon her shawl swept it in picturesque folds about her person, half drowning her voice, or she would not have dared to give her thoughts this bold utterance.

It was this picturesque att.i.tude which had attracted the attention of her husband in the library, and that moment he resolved to join her on the sh.o.r.e.

As if this resolve had been expressed to her in words, a feeling of unrest seized upon Mabel, and long before the old man was ready to come forth, she was walking rapidly across the brow of a hill that bounded the valley southward, keeping along the bank, but concealed by the undergrowth.

She paused upon a rocky cliff that broke the hill side, breathing more freely as if conscious that she had escaped some unwelcome intrusion. A boat upon the river drew her attention, and she saw within it her son and Lina floating pleasantly down the stream together.

"How happy and how young they are!" she said with a gush of gentle affection. "No cares--no broken hopes--no wishes unexpressed--no _secrets_; oh! in this lies the great happiness of existence. Until he has a secret to keep, man is, indeed, next to the angels."

Mabel sat down upon a fallen tree, covered with a drapery of pale green moss. She watched the boat in a sort of dream, as it drifted toward her.

How much of the suffering she endured might yet be saved to the young persons it contained! Was not that an object worth living and enduring for? Might she not renew her youth in them?

Renew her youth? What need was there of that? In all her existence had she ever been so full of life--so vigorous of mind--so capable of the highest enjoyment? In the very prime and glory of all her faculties--wise in experience--strong from many a silent heart-struggle, what could she gain by a return of youth? Nothing! surely nothing! Yet she watched those two young persons with a vague feeling of sadness.

They had life before them, a thousand dreamy delusions--a thousand alluring hopes evanescent as the apple blossoms of May, but as sweet also.

Mabel was too n.o.ble for envy, but these thoughts subdued her excitement into silent mournfulness. At first, she thought to walk slowly back and meet the young people when they landed, but something withheld her and she sat still, dreamily watching them.

She saw the boat drifting idly upon the current. The gorgeous forest leaves with which it was literally carpeted struck her eyes in rich ma.s.ses of colors, as if the young people had imprisoned a portion of the sunset around their feet. She could distinguish Ben stooping forward seemingly half asleep upon his oars. All in the boat seemed tranquil and happy, like creatures of another life afloat upon the rivers of paradise; she could almost see their faces--those happy faces that made the fancy still more natural.

As she watched them a strange pain stole to her heart. She rose suddenly to her feet, and sweeping a hand across her eyes as if to clear their vision, cast long searching glances toward the boat, striving to read those young faces afar off, and thus relieve her mind of a powerful suspicion.

"Why has this thought never presented itself before?" she said with a pang of self reproach. "Has this eternal dream blinded me, or am I now mistaken? Poor children--poor Lina--is this cruel destiny to fall on you also?"

The boat came drifting toward her now in the crimson light, again enveloped in purple shadows like those fairy skiffs that glide through our dreams. Mabel watched it till her eyes filled with tears, a strange thing--for she was not a woman given to weeping, save as tears are sometimes the expression of a tender or poetic thought. Pain or wrong were things for her to endure or redress; she never wept over them.

That night the interest which she felt in these young persons blended painfully with memories that had risen, like a sudden storm, in her nature. She felt as if they were destined to carry forth and work out the drama of her own life, and that this agency was just commencing. As she stood thus wrapped in turbulent thoughts, there came through the brushwood a crash of branches and a stir of the foliage louder than the wind could have produced.

Mabel Harrington was in no mood for companions.h.i.+p. She had fled from the house to be alone, and this approach startled her.