Jessamine Part 3

"Not regularly handsome, I admit, my dear," Mrs. Beau Monde would say. "But there is something more potent, as more subtle in influence in his presence and speech. Do you know I think a fascinating homely man the most charming creature in the world? And Mr. Wyllys' deportment, tone, and conversation are unsurpa.s.sable.

Other men may be as well-bred, but there is a nameless Something about his manner that is exquisite and irresistible."

While Murphy would expatiate by the hour upon the "satisfaction a man experienced in daleing wid a pairfect gintleman, and it was Misther Wyllys had the beautiful way wid him!"

That he danced elegantly, sang expressively, and was a pleasing pianist; that he was conversant with the current literature of the day; that the stereotyped cant known as "art criticism" fell from his tongue aptly, and as if no one else had ever used the same phrases in his auditor's hearing,--undoubtedly contributed largely to his popularity; but these accomplishments were secondary in power to the nameless Something lauded by Mrs. Beau Monde. His own s.e.x recognized the charm more willingly than they are wont to acknowledge the claims to favoritism of one who is the woman's darling of his set. The graceful _insouciance_ that artfully concealed his consciousness of the degree long ago awarded him, as "Pet of the Petticoats;" his gay good-humor, his fund of anecdote and repartee, made him as welcome at bachelors' wine and dinner-parties as in mixed companies. If his negligent saunter through the a.s.sembly-room, his deliberate articulation and grave, deferential bend before his fair va.s.sals, provoked ill-nature to the charge of puppyism, the censor was silenced by tales of his proficiency in manly sports; how in the gymnasium and billiard-room, upon the cricket-green and skating-pond, he had few equals, so seldom found a superior, that his exploits had pa.s.sed into a proverb.

After all, however, his brightest bays were gained in his character as carpet knight. Trained coquettes and professional flirts, flushed by a long course of victories, had put confident lances in rest and run vain-glorious tilts with him. He was always ready to accept the challenge; ready to become, for a few days, or, in exceptionally tough cases, a few weeks, the apparent captive of the ambitious belle. The approach of proud humility than which nothing could have been more opposed to servility of spirit or demeanor; the gradual, and finally rapt absorption of his every faculty and sentiment into his unspoken adoration of her whose chains he wore; the delicate appreciation of each shade of feeling and thought, and prescience of each desire;--above and beneath all, his singular faculty of adaptation to the various phases of character set for his reading,--could hardly fail, first, to disarm, then to flatter, finally to captivate.

Up to this period of his career, when he had entered his nine-and-twentieth year, n.o.body said openly of him that his business in life was to win hearts for the pleasure of breaking them. If he had broken any, his victims made no moan. In the cases of the veteran coquettes alluded to just now, sympathy would have been thrown away. There were stealthy whispers to the effect, however, that others, less wary, had been drawn into his snare; had dreamed of love, and, awakening to anguished perception of their folly, had shrouded bleeding hearts in robes of pride or Christian resignation, and lived on outwardly as little changed by the experience as was he. It is superfluous to remark that these cautious rumors lent l.u.s.tre to his fame instead of tarnis.h.i.+ng it; that dozens of intrepid damsels were wrought by the hearing into a Curtius-like spirit of self-immolation; panted to leap, bedecked in their bravest array, into the gulf which yawned to destroy the safety and peace of mind of the whole sisterhood of marriageable women in the cla.s.sic town of Hamilton. The envious, nor the prudish, stigmatized him as a lady-killer. The coa.r.s.e term would be an insult to his refinement, his notable honor, and equally notable kindness of heart. He was, beyond question, the most charming of men, a social diamond of the first water, although the obtuse daughters of the Dundee manse had not at once discovered it.

What wonder that he, sitting among the roses in the arbor, found infinite diversion in the recollection that he was p.r.o.nounced by Jessie "positively homely"--utterly unattractive beside her handsome lover, and that her more discreet sister had mildly echoed her disappointment?

He enjoyed the novelty of the incident and the laugh it gave him--was sincere in the half-spoken regret--"What a pity I cannot publish this verdict and the manner of its delivery, in Hamilton."

With that, he pulled down a branch of musk roses nodding above his head; broke it, tore off the petals, until he had a double handful, and buried his face in the odorous ma.s.s. Roy came up with him as the sound of low, sweet singing moved the stillness of the garden and the sunset into music. The songstress was Jessie, lying within her oriel-window alone, and gazing at the amber ocean billowing above the purple hills at the outlet of the valley. Her rich contralto voice was like the colored light and the musk roses, Orrin thought, in no wise tempted to dislike or underrate her because she did not value him aright. That mistake would rectify itself, by and by. He could stay a fortnight in Dundee as well as not. Roy had pressed him to do so, and he began to think he would.

This was what Jessie sang, never dreaming of the audience, fit, but few, hidden in the blossoming thicket:

"Sleeping, I dreamed, Love--dreamed, Love, of thee; O'er the bright wave, Love, floating were we.

Light in thy fair hair played the soft wind, Gently thy white arms round me were twined; And as thy song, Love, swelled o'er the sea, Fondly thy blue eyes beamed, Love, on me."

Neither of the cousins stirred until the song was finished, when a robin in the nearest elm began his vespers.

"This is Arcadia!" said Orrin, ravis.h.i.+ng another spray--great white roses this time, with creamy hearts.

"It is _home_!" replied the other, softly.

Orrin appeared not to hear him.

"Or the Vale of Cashmere!" he went on, drawing in long breaths of perfume. "Here are

"'Timid jasmine buds that keep Their odors to themselves all day, But when the sunlight dies away Let the delicious secret out--'

roses of Kathay and bulbuls--and Nourmahal!"

Roy looked at him over his shoulder.

"If you have pulled enough of Eunice's rare, early roses to pieces to satisfy your destructive proclivities, we will go in," he said, pleasantly.

Something in his friend's eye and tone disinclined him to pursue the theme. He could not suspect him of an intention to ridicule Jessie or her home, but he felt the absence of sympathy with his own mood.

"Are they _hers_?" asked the other, brus.h.i.+ng the wasted leaves in an unheeded shower to the floor.

Roy paid no regard to the emphasis. He was strangely averse to talking about Jessie at that moment.

"They are," he said, leading the way to the house, Orrin treading on the scattered flakes of fragrance, to gain the door of the bower.

"She is an able florist. There is not another garden like hers for many miles around."

No one excepting Jessie observed that Mr. Wyllys did not accost her of his own accord while they were at tea, which was set out upon a small table near the large window in the parlor. She, used to petting, and what might have been considered by an impartial judge more than her share of general attention, and a trifle nervous withal, in her desire to produce an agreeable impression upon Roy's kinsman, did remark it, and was conscience-smitten by the fear lest her chagrin at beholding a man so unlike her preconceived ideal had been reflected in her manner. She seized an opportunity, therefore, when Roy rolled the table to its accustomed place in the middle of the apartment, to court Orrin's notice.

"So you ascended our Mont Blanc this afternoon?" she said, smiling engagingly. "I must retract my saucy innuendoes touching your fondness for ease."

He was quite near her, but he must have been inattentive, for he turned his face to her, with--"Pardon me! I did not catch your observation!"

"It was nothing so dignified as an observation," she retorted, coloring and laughing. "If I were to repeat it, you would be reminded of the poor girl whose complaint--'The soup is hot,'

uttered confidentially to a deaf old lady who chanced to sit next her at a dinner-party, was the signal for the solemn production of an ear-trumpet, and the remark--audible to all present--'A very profound and interesting observation, I doubt not, my dear! Will you oblige me by repeating it?'"

Mr. Wyllys laughed in well-bred moderation that, somehow, made Jessie feel that her little story was not very amusing, and had been tamely told.

"I submit to the consequences of my deafness, rather than annoy you by the ear-trumpet," was his answer.

Bowing, in quitting her, he followed Mr. Kirke to another window.

"We were speaking of Ruskin's 'Stones of Venice,' to-day," Jessie heard him begin.

She had read the book, and would have enjoyed listening to their discussion of it, as did Eunice, to whom Mr. Wyllys appealed at her re-entrance, setting a chair for her by her father's, and establis.h.i.+ng himself in front of them.

Roy apparently did not object to this arrangement, for he drew a stool to the sofa, and talked to Jessie, aside, of things that would have interested her beyond all other subjects, but for the sight of that group in the moonlight that now flooded the room. It kept astir the uneasy sensation produced by Mr. Wyllys' marked avoidance of her at tea-time. While her hand lay within her lover's, and her ear drank in all he said, and her heart beat, fast and warm, as he only could make it pulsate, she was ashamed to catch herself watching the slender figure, bending easily forward, his elbow upon the table at his side, his chin upon his hand, now in an att.i.tude of respectful attention, while her father or Eunice spoke, again talking earnestly--she was sure, eloquently also,--in the low, cleverly modulated accents of which he was the consummate master. Did he then regard her as a feather-brained rattle? a forward school girl, of whose prattle he was already weary, and whom he adjudged incapable of entering into, or appreciating, intellectual conversation?

"Oh dear!" escaped her, when she reached this point.

Roy looked amazed--almost aghast--as well he might. He was in the middle of a description of their future home, prefatory of a hint he deemed it best to drop relative to a pet.i.tion he had laid before the trustees of the college in which he was professor. This had asked a year's leave of absence, that he might pursue the study of the German language and literature abroad with one or two other branches of his profession. Orrin Wyllys had brought him letters of approbation from the body named, and the time had come when he must feel his way gently to the announcement of the approaching separation.

"My darling!" he said. "What is it? Are you in pain?"

"Yes! Not my foot!" seeing him look at it. "I have a desperate heartache! I shall never be good and wise enough for you, Roy! And you will discover this for yourself, one day."

"That is the only really foolish thing I have ever heard you say!"

returned he, in fond raillery. "I am tormented, without intermission, by the conviction that I am unworthy of your regard, so we will let the one fear neutralize the other. Love is a powerful solvent, dear. It will melt these stubborn doubts--these flintstones of fancied incompatibility, that fret your heart when you meditate upon the chances that we shall make one another happy."

"But if I were sedate and discreet; cautious as to what I say, and to whom I say it,--more learned and beautiful--more like the blessed old Euna over there. You see"--in real mortification--"I cannot express the wish to reform without falling into my nonsensical tricks of speech!"

Roy could not preserve his gravity.

"I am not laughing at you!" he whispered, as she flung her arm over her eyes. "What has moved you to this sensitiveness--and with _me_?

I could but liken my sentiments in the imaginary survey of the pattern bride you would give me to those of Jacob, who was put off with the demure Leah, when he had bargained for witching wicked Rachel."

"The comparison is an insult to Euna!" interrupted Jessie, warmly.

"I said you ought to marry a woman like her--pure as a pearl, true as steel--in principle like adamant. Leah! Bah! I always detested her! She was a sly, heartless traitor--a smooth-tongued hypocrite, who cozened the pretty young sister whom she envied--becoming, as she did, a willing party to her father's fraud. She deserved all the unhappiness she got!"

"We shall not differ there. The 'tender-eyed' Jewess is no favorite of mine. But, even supposing that I were to sacrifice inclination to a sense of what you consider the fitness of things, Eunice or one like her would never elect to marry me. It is dissimilarity in certain characteristics that provides the best sauce for courts.h.i.+p.

Your sister, for instance, would be well-mated with a man like Mr.

Wyllys, the salient points of whose character are those which she has not."

"In other words, you think the interests of the drama demand that I should do the light comedy as a counter-poise to your heavy tragedy?" said Jessie, appeased. "I am sure I could never like your cousin--or one like him--well enough to think of marrying him."

"I don't ask you to do it!" rejoined Roy, playfully. "But do not, on that account, shut your eyes to his real excellence. He is to be your brother, remember--for I have no other. His father was my guardian, and while he lived, I scarcely felt the early loss of my parents. To Orrin personally, I owe much. He is four years my senior, and when we were at school, he fought many a battle in my behalf with boys bigger than either of us. Then, we were separated for seven years, seeing one another only in vacations and casual furloughs from business. He is one of the trustees of our college, and, although he will not admit it, I am persuaded that I am indebted to his influence, seconded as it was by my dear old friend, Dr. Baxter's advocacy of my cause,--for my Professors.h.i.+p. You will like and esteem him when you come to know him. I hope you two will be great friends in time. As a preliminary to your better understanding, and consequently your admiration for him--I am going to ask him for some music."

Orrin obeyed the call, but not with alacrity. He seemed altogether content with his location and his companions.