Moods
clamor of voices filled the air, the little steamtug snorted with
impatience, and the waves flowed seaward with the ebbing of the tide.
But father and daughter saw only one object, heard only one sound,
Moor's face as it looked down upon them from the deck, Moor's voice as
he sent cheery messages to those left behind. Mr. Yule was endeavoring
to reply as cheerily, and Sylvia was gazing with eyes that saw very
dimly through their tears, when both were aware of an instantaneous
change in the countenance they watched. Something beyond themselves
seemed to arrest Moor's eye; a moment he stood intent and motionless,
then flushed to the forehead with the dark glow Sylvia remembered well,
waved his hand to them and vanished down the cabin stairs.
"Papa, what did he see?"
There was no need of any answer; Adam Warwick came striding through the
crowd, saw them, paused with both hands out, and a questioning glance as
if uncertain of his greeting. With one impulse the hands were taken;
Sylvia could not speak, her father could, and did approvingly--
"Welcome, Warwick; you are come to say good by to Geoffrey?"
"Rather to you, sir; he needs none, I go with him."
"With him!" echoed both hearers.
"Ay, that I will. Did you think I would let him go away alone feeling
bereaved of wife, and home, and friend?"
"We should have known you better. But, Warwick, he will shun you; he hid
himself just now as you approached; he has tried to forgive, but he
cannot so soon forget."
"All the more need of my helping him to do both. He cannot shun me long
with no hiding-place to fly to but the sea, and I will so gently
constrain him by the old-time love we bore each other, that he must
relent and take me back into his heart again."
"Oh, Adam! go with him, stay with him, and bring him safely back to me
when time has helped us all."
"I shall do it, God willing."
Unmindful of all else Warwick bent and took her to him as he gave the
promise, seemed to put his whole heart into a single kiss and left her
trembling with the stress of his farewell. She saw him cleave his way
through the throng, leap the space left by the gangway just withdrawn,
and vanish in search of that lost friend. Then she turned her face to
her father's shoulder, conscious of nothing but the fact that Warwick
had come and gone.
A cannon boomed, the crowd cheered, the last cable was flung off, and
the steamer glided from her moorings with the surge of water and the
waft of wind like some sea-monster eager to be out upon the ocean free
again.
"Look up, Sylvia; she will soon pass from sight."
"Are they there?"
"No."
"Then I do not care to see. Look for me, father, and tell me when they
come."
"They will not come, dear; both have said good by, and we have seen the
last of them for many a long day."
"They will come! Adam will bring Geoffrey to show me they are friends
again. I know it; you shall see it. Lift me to that block and watch the
deck with me that we may see them the instant they appear."
Up she sprung, eyes clear now, nerves steady, faith strong. Leaning
forward so utterly forgetful of herself, she would have fallen into the
green water tumbling there below, had not her father held her fast. How
slowly the minutes seemed to pass, how rapidly the steamer seemed to
glide away, how heavily the sense of loss weighed on her heart as wave
after wave rolled between her and her heart's desire.
"Come down, Sylvia, it is giving yourself useless pain to watch and
wait. Come home, my child, and let us comfort one another."
She did not hear him, for as he spoke the steamer swung slowly round to
launch itself into the open bay, and with a cry that drew many eyes upon
the young figure with its face of pale expectancy, Sylvia saw her hope
fulfilled.
"I knew they would come! See, father, see! Geoffrey is smiling as he
waves his handkerchief, and Adam's hand is on his shoulder. Answer them!
oh, answer them! I can only look."
The old man did answer them enthusiastically, and Sylvia stretched her
arms across the widening space as if to bring them back again. Side by
side the friends stood now; Moor's eye upon his wife, while from his
hand the little flag of peace streamed in the wind. But Warwick's glance
was turned upon his friend, and Warwick's hand already seemed to claim
the charge he had accepted.
Standing thus they passed from sight, never to come sailing home
together as the woman on the shore was praying God to let her see them
come.
CHAPTER XIX.
SIX MONTHS.
The ensuing half year seemed fuller of duties and events than any Sylvia
had ever known. At first she found it very hard to live her life alone;
for inward solitude oppressed her, and external trials were not wanting.
Only to the few who had a right to know, had the whole trouble been
confided. They were discreet from family pride, if from no tenderer
feeling; but the curious world outside of that small circle was full of
shrewd surmises, of keen eyes for discovering domestic breaches, and
shrill tongues for proclaiming them. Warwick escaped suspicion, being so
little known, so seldom seen; but for the usual nine days matrons and
venerable maids wagged their caps, lifted their hands, and sighed as
they sipped their dish of scandal and of tea--
"Poor young man! I always said how it would be, she was so peculiar. My
dear creature, haven't you heard that Mrs. Moor isn't happy with her
husband, and that he has gone abroad quite broken-hearted?"
Sylvia felt this deeply, but received it as her just punishment, and
bore herself so meekly that public opinion soon turned a somersault, and
the murmur changed to--
"Poor young thing! what could she expect? My dear, I have it from the
best authority, that Mr. Moor has made her miserable for a year, and now
left her broken-hearted." After that, the gossips took up some newer
tragedy, and left Mrs. Moor to mend her heart as best she could, a favor
very gratefully received.
As Hester Prynne seemed to see some trace of her own sin in every bosom,
by the glare of the Scarlet Letter burning on her own; so Sylvia, living
in the shadow of a household grief, found herself detecting various
phases of her own experience in others. She had joined that sad
sisterhood called disappointed women; a larger class than many deem it
to be, though there are few of us who have not seen members of it.
Unhappy wives; mistaken or forsaken lovers; meek souls, who make life a
long penance for the sins of others; gifted creatures kindled into
fitful brilliancy by some inward fire that consumes but cannot warm.
These are the women who fly to convents, write bitter books, sing songs
full of heartbreak, act splendidly the passion they have lost or never
won. Who smile, and try to lead brave uncomplaining lives, but whose
tragic eyes betray them, whose voices, however sweet or gay, contain an
undertone of hopelessness, whose faces sometimes startle one with an
expression which haunts the observer long after it is gone.
Undoubtedly Sylvia would have joined the melancholy chorus, and fallen
to lamenting that ever she was born, had she not possessed a purpose
that took her out of herself and proved her salvation. Faith's words
took root and blossomed. Intent on making her life a blessing, not a
reproach to her father, she lived for him entirely. He had taken her
back to him, as if the burden of her unhappy past should be upon his
shoulders, the expiation of her faults come from him alone. Sylvia
understood this now, and nestled to him so gladly, so confidingly, he
seemed to have found again the daughter he had lost and be almost
content to have her all his own.
How many roofs cover families or friends who live years together, yet
never truly know each other; who love, and long and try to meet, yet
fail to do so till some unexpected emotion or event performs the work.
In the weeks that followed the departure of the friends, Sylvia
discovered this and learned to know her father. No one was so much to
her as he; no one so fully entered into her thoughts and feelings; for
sympathy drew them tenderly together, and sorrow made them equals. As
man and woman they talked, as father and daughter they loved; and the
beautiful relation became their truest solace and support.
Miss Yule both rejoiced at and rebelled against this; was generous, yet
mortally jealous; made no complaint, but grieved in private, and one
fine day amazed her sister by announcing, that, being of no farther use
at home, she had decided to be married. Both Mr. Yule and Sylvia had
desired this event, but hardly dared to expect it in spite of sundry
propitious signs and circumstances.
A certain worthy widower had haunted the house of late, evidently on
matrimonial thoughts intent. A solid gentleman, both physically and
financially speaking; possessed of an ill-kept house, bad servants, and
nine neglected children. This prospect, however alarming to others, had
great charms for Prue; nor was the Reverend Gamaliel Bliss repugnant to
her, being a rubicund, bland personage, much given to fine linen, long
dinners, and short sermons. His third spouse had been suddenly
translated, and though the years of mourning had not yet expired, things
went so hardly with Gamaliel, that he could no longer delay casting his
pastoral eyes over the flock which had already given three lambs to his
fold, in search of a fourth. None appeared whose meek graces were
sufficiently attractive, or whose dowries were sufficiently large.
Meantime the nine olive-branches grew wild, the servants revelled, the
ministerial digestion suffered, the sacred shirts went buttonless, and
their wearer was wellnigh distraught. At this crisis he saw Prudence,
and fell into a way of seating himself before the well-endowed spinster,
with a large cambric pocket-handkerchief upon his knee, a frequent tear
meandering down his florid countenance, and volcanic sighs agitating his
capacious waistcoat as he poured his woes into her ear. Prue had been
deeply touched by these moist appeals, and was not much surprised when
the reverend gentleman went ponderously down upon his knee before her in
the good old-fashioned style which frequent use had endeared to him,
murmuring with an appropriate quotation and a subterranean sob--
"Miss Yule, 'a good wife is a crown to her husband;' be such an one to
me, unworthy as I am, and a mother to my bereaved babes, who suffer for
a tender woman's care."
She merely upset her sewing-table with an appropriate start, but
speedily recovered, and with a maidenly blush murmured in return--
"Dear me, how very unexpected! pray speak to papa,--oh, rise, I beg."
"Call me Gamaliel, and I obey!" gasped the stout lover, divided between
rapture and doubts of his ability to perform the feat alone.
"Gamaliel," sighed Prue, surrendering her hand.
"My Prudence, blessed among women!" responded the blissful Bliss. And
having saluted the fair member, allowed it to help him rise; when, after
a few decorous endearments, he departed to papa, and the bride elect
rushed up to Sylvia with the incoherent announcement--
"My dearest child, I have accepted him! It was such a surprise, though
so touchingly done. I was positively mortified; Maria had swept the room
so ill, his knees were white with lint, and I'm a very happy woman,
bless you, love!"
"Sit down, and tell me all about it," cried her sister. "Don't try to
sew, but cry if you like, and let me pet you, for indeed I am rejoiced."
But Prue preferred to rock violently, and boggle down a seam as the best
quietus for her fluttered nerves, while she told her romance, received
congratulations, and settled a few objections made by Sylvia, who tried
to play the prudent matron.
"I am afraid he is too old for you, my dear."