Home as Found Part 51

"Love you," said Eve, with a steadiness that afterwards astonished herself; but she felt that a being so placed, was ent.i.tled to be treated with a frankness different from the reserve that it is usual for her s.e.x to observe on similar occasions.

"Love!" cried Paul, dropping her arm. "Miss Effingham!--Eve--but that _we_!"

"I mean my dear father--cousin Jack--myself."

"Such a feeling will not heal a wound like mine. A love that is shared with even such men as your excellent father, and your worthy cousin, will not make me happy. But, why should I, unowned, bearing a name to which I have no legal t.i.tle, and virtually without relatives, aspire to one like you!"

The windings of the path had brought them near a window of the house, whence a stream of strong light gleamed upon the sweet countenance of Eve, as raising her eyes to those of her companion, with a face bathed in tears, and flushed with natural feeling and modesty, the struggle between which even heightened her loveliness, she smiled an encouragement that it was impossible to misconstrue.

"Can I believe my senses! Will _you_--_do_ you--_can_ you listen to the suit of one like me?" the young man exclaimed, as he hurried his companion past the window, lest some interruption might destroy his hopes.

"Is there any sufficient reason why I should not, Powis?"

"Nothing but my unfortunate situation in respect to my family, my comparative poverty, and my general unworthiness."

"Your unfortunate situation in respect to your relatives would, if any thing, be a new and dearer tie with us; your comparative poverty is merely comparative, and can be of no account, where there is sufficient already; and as for your general unworthiness, I fear it will find more than an offset, in that of the girl you have so rashly chosen from the rest of the world."

"Eve--dearest Eve--" said Paul, seizing both her hands, and stopping her at the entrance of some shrubbery, that densely shaded the path, and where the little light that fell from the stars enabled him still to trace her features--"you will not leave me in doubt on a subject of this nature--am I really so blessed?"

"If accepting the faith and affection of a heart that is wholly yours, Powis, can mate you happy, your sorrows will be at an end--"

"But your father?" said the young man, almost breathless in his eagerness to know all.

"Is here to confirm what his daughter has just declared," said Mr.

Effingham, coming out of the shrubbery beyond them, and laying a hand kindly on Paul's shoulder. "To find that you so well understand each other, Powis, removes from my mind one of the greatest anxieties I have ever experienced. My cousin John, as he was bound to do, has made me acquainted with all you have, told him of your past life, and there remains nothing further to be revealed. We have known you for years, and receive you into our family with as free a welcome as we could receive any precious boon from Providence."

"Mr. Effingham!--dear sir," said Paul, almost gasping between surprise and rapture--"this is indeed beyond all my hopes--and this generous frankness too, in your lovely daughter--"

Paul's hands had been transferred to those of the father, he knew not how; but releasing them hurriedly, he now turned in quest of Eve again, and found she had fled. In the short interval between the address of her father and the words of Paul, she had found means to disappear, leaving the gentlemen together. The young man would have followed, but the cooler head of Mr. Effingham perceiving that the occasion was favourable to a private conversation with his accepted son-in-law, and quite as unfavourable to one, or at least to a very rational one, between the lovers, he quietly took the young man's arm, and led him towards a more private walk. There half an hour of confidential discourse calmed the feelings of both, and rendered Paul Powis one of the happiest of human beings.

Chapter XXIV.

"You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo, Before you visit him, to make inquiry Of his behaviour."

HAMLET

Ann Sidley was engaged among the dresses of Eve, as she loved to be, although Annette held her taste in too low estimation ever to permit her to apply a needle, or even to fit a robe to the beautiful form that was to wear it, when our heroine glided into the room and sunk upon a sofa. Eve was too much absorbed with her own feelings to observe the presence of her quiet un.o.btrusive old nurse, and too much accustomed to her care and sympathy to heed it, had it been seen. For a moment she remained, her face still suffused with blushes, her hands lying before her folded, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, and then the pent emotions found an outlet in a flood of tears.

Poor Ann could not have felt more shocked, had she heard of any unexpected calamity, than she was at this sudden outbreaking of feeling in her child. She went to her, and bent over her with the solicitude of a mother, as she inquired into the causes of her apparent sorrow.

"Tell me, Miss Eve, and it will relieve your mind," said the faithful woman; "your dear mother had such feelings sometimes, and I never dared to question her about them; but you are my own child, and nothing can grieve you without grieving me."

The eyes of Eve were brilliant, her face continued to be suffused, and the smile which she gave through her tears was so bright, as to leave her poor attendant in deep perplexity as to the cause of a gush of feeling that was very unusual in one of the other's regulated mind.

"It is not grief, dear Nanny,"--Eve at length murmured--"any thing but that! I am not unhappy. Oh! no; as far from unhappiness as possible."

"G.o.d be praised it is so, ma'am! I was afraid that this affair of the English gentleman and Miss Grace might not prove agreeable to you, for he has not behaved as handsomely as he might, in that transaction."

"And why not, my poor Nanny?--I have neither claim, nor the wish to possess a claim, on Sir George Templemore. His selection of my cousin has given me sincere satisfaction, rather than pain; were he a countryman of our own, I should say unalloyed satisfaction, for I firmly believe he will strive to make her happy."

Nanny now looked at her young mistress, then at the floor; at her young mistress again, and afterwards at a rocket that was sailing athwart the sky. Her eyes, however, returned to those of Eve, and encouraged by the bright beam of happiness that was glowing in the countenance she so much loved, she ventured to say--

"If Mr. Powis were a more presuming gentleman than he is, ma'am--"

"You mean a less modest, Nanny," said Eve, perceiving that her nurse paused.

"Yes, ma'am--one that thought more of himself, and less of other people, is what I wish to say."

"And were this the case?"

"I might think _he_ would find the heart to say what I know he feels."

"And did he find the heart to say what you know he feels, what does Ann Sidley think should be my answer?"

"Oh, ma'am, I know it would be just as it ought to be. I cannot repeat what ladies say on such occasions, but I know that it is what makes the hearts of the gentlemen leap for joy."

There are occasions in which woman can hardly dispense with the sympathy of woman. Eve loved her father most tenderly, had more than the usual confidence in him, for she had never known a mother; but had the present conversation been with him, notwithstanding all her reliance on his affection, her nature would have shrunk from pouring out her feelings as freely as she might have done with her other parent, had not death deprived her of such a blessing. Between our heroine and Ann Sidley, on the other hand, there existed a confidence of a nature so peculiar, as to require a word of explanation before we exhibit its effects. In all that related to physical wants, Ann had been a mother, or even more than a mother to Eve, and this alone had induced great personal dependence in the one, and a sort of supervisory care in the other, that had brought her to fancy she was responsible for the bodily health and well-doing of her charge. But this was not all. Nanny had been the repository of Eve's childish griefs, the confidant of her girlish secrets; and though the years of the latter soon caused her to be placed under the management of those who were better qualified to store her mind, this communication never ceased; the high-toned and educated young woman reverting with unabated affection, and a reliance that nothing could shake, to the long-tried tenderness of the being who had watched over her infancy.

The effect of such an intimacy was often amusing; the one party bringing to the conferences, a mind filled with the knowledge suited to her s.e.x and station, habits that had been formed in the best circles of christendom, and tastes that had been acquired in schools of high reputation; and the other, little more than her single- hearted love, a fidelity that enn.o.bled her nature, and a simplicity that betokened perfect purity of thought Nor was this extraordinary confidence without its advantages to Eve; for, thrown so early among the artificial and calculating, it served to keep her own ingenuousness of character active, and prevented that cold, selfish, and unattractive sophistication, that mere women of fas.h.i.+on are apt to fall into, from their isolated and fact.i.tious mode of existence.

When Eve, therefore, put the questions to her nurse, that have already been mentioned, it was more with a real wish to know how the latter would view a choice on which her own mind was so fully made up, than any silly trifling on a subject that engrossed so much of her best affections.

"But you have not told me, dear Nanny," she continued, "what _you_ would have that answer be. Ought I, for instance, ever to quit my beloved father?"

"What necessity would there be for that, ma'am? Mr. Powis has no home of his own; and, for that matter, scarcely any country----"

"How can you know this, Nanny?" demanded Eve, with the jealous sensitiveness of a young love.

"Why, Miss Eve, his man says this much, and he has lived with him long enough to know it, if he had a home. Now, I seldom sleep without looking back at the day, and often have my thoughts turned to Sir George Temple more and Mr. Powis; and when I have remembered that the first had a house and a home, and that the last had neither, it has always seemed to me that _he_ ought to be the one."

"And then, in all this matter, you have thought of convenience, and what might be agreeable to others, rather than of me."

"Miss Eve!"

"Nay, dearest Nanny, forgive me; I know your last thought, in every thing, is for yourself. But surely, the mere circ.u.mstance that he had no home ought not to be a sufficient reason for selecting any man, for a husband. With most women it would be an objection."

"I pretend to know very little of these feelings, Miss Eve. I have been wooed, I acknowledge; and once I do think I might have been tempted to marry, had it not been for a particular circ.u.mstance."

"You! You marry, Ann Sidley!" exclaimed Eve, to whom the bare idea seemed as odd and unnatural, as that her own father should forget her mother, and take a second wife. "This is altogether new, and I should be glad to know what the lucky circ.u.mstance was, which prevented what, to me, might have proved so great a calamity."

"Why, ma'am, I said to myself, what does a woman do, who marries? She vows to quit all else to go with her husband, and to love him before father and mother, and all other living beings on earth--is it not so, Miss Eve?"

"I believe it is so, indeed, Nanny--nay, I am quite certain it is so," Eve answered, the colour deepening on her cheek, as she gave this opinion to her old nurse, with the inward consciousness that she had just experienced some of the happiest moments of her life, through the admission of a pa.s.sion that thus overshadowed all the natural affections. "It is, truly? as you say."

"Well, ma'am, I investigated my feelings, I believe they call it, and after a proper trial, I found that I loved you so much better than any one else, that I could not, in conscience, make the vows."

"Dearest Nanny! my kind, good, faithful old nurse! let me hold you in my arms: and, I, selfish, thoughtless, heartless girl, would forget the circ.u.mstance that would be most likely to keep us together, for the remainder of our lives! Hist! there is a tap at the door It is Mrs. Bloomfield; I know her light step. Admit her, my kind Ann, and leave us together."