A DAY AT THE MANOR HOUSE.
Amelie, after a night of wakefulness and wrestling with a tumult of new thoughts and emotions,--no longer dreams, but realities of life,--dressed herself in a light morning costume, which, ****** as it was, bore the touch of her graceful hand and perfect taste. With a broad-brimmed straw hat set upon her dark tresses, which were knotted with careless care in a blue ribbon, she descended the steps of the Manor House. There was a deep bloom upon her cheeks, and her eyes looked like fountains of light and gladness, running over to bless all beholders.
She inquired of Felix Beaudoin of her brother. The old majordomo, with a significant look, informed her that Monsieur Le Gardeur had just ordered his horse to ride to the village. He had first called for a decanter of Cognac, and when it was brought to him he suddenly thrust it back and would not taste it. "He would not drink even Jove's nectar in the Manor House, he said; but would go down to the village, where Satan mixed the drink for thirsty souls like his!
Poor Le Gardeur!" continued Felix, "you must not let him go to the village this morning, mademoiselle!"
Amelie was startled at this information. She hastened at once to seek her brother, whom she found walking impatiently in the garden, slashing the heads off the poppies and dahlias within reach of his riding-whip. He was equipped for a ride, and waited the coming of the groom with his horse.
Amelie ran up, and clasping his arms with both hands as she looked up in his face with a smile, exclaimed, "Do not go to the village yet, Le Gardeur! Wait for us!"
"Not go to the village yet, Amelie?" replied he; "why not? I shall return for breakfast, although I have no appetite. I thought a ride to the village would give me one."
"Wait until after breakfast, brother, when we will all go with you to meet our friends who come this morning to Tilly,--our cousin Heloise de Lotbiniere is coming to see you and Pierre Philibert; you must be there to welcome her,--gallants are too scarce to allow her to spare the handsomest of all, my own brother!"
Amelie divined truly from Le Gardeur's restless eyes and haggard look that a fierce conflict was going on in his breast between duty and desire,--whether he should remain at home, or go to the village to plunge again into the sea of dissipation out of which he had just been drawn to land half-drowned and utterly desperate.
Amelie resolved not to leave his side, but to cleave to him, and inch by inch to fight the demons which possessed him until she got the victory.
Le Gardeur looked fondly in the face of Amelie. He read her thoughts, and was very conscious why she wished him not to go to the village. His feelings gave way before her love and tenderness. He suddenly embraced her and kissed her cheeks, while the tears stood welling in his eyes. "I am not worthy of you, Amelie," said he; "so much sisterly care is lost on me!"
"Oh, say not that, brother," replied she, kissing him fondly in return. "I would give my life to save you, O my brother!"
Amelie was greatly moved, and for a time unable to speak further; she laid her head on his shoulder, and sobbed audibly. Her love gained the victory where remonstrance and opposition would have lost it.
"You have won the day, Amelie!" said he; "I will not go to the village except with you. You are the best and truest girl in all Christendom! Why is there no other like you? If there were, this curse had not come upon me, nor this trial upon you, Amelie! You are my good angel, and I will try, oh, so faithfully try, to be guided by you! If you fail, you will at least have done all and more than your duty towards your erring brother."
"Le Brun!" cried he to the groom who had brought his horse, and to whom he threw the whip which had made such havoc among the flowers, "lead Black Caesar to the stable again! and hark you! when I bid you bring him out in the early morning another time, lead him to me unbridled and unsaddled, with only a halter on his head, that I may ride as a clown, not as a gentleman!"
Le Brun stared at this speech, and finally regarded it as a capital joke, or else, as he whispered to his fellow-grooms in the stable, he believed his young master had gone mad.
"Pierre Philibert," continued Amelie, "is down at the salmon pool.
Let us join him, Le Gardeur, and bid him good morning once more at Tilly."
Amelie, overjoyed at her victory, tripped gaily by the side of her brother, and presently two friendly hands, the hands of Pierre Philibert, were extended to greet her and Le Gardeur.
The hand of Amelie was retained for a moment in that of Pierre Philibert, sending the blood to her cheeks. There is a magnetic touch in loving fingers which is never mistaken, though their contact be but for a second of time: it anticipates the strong grasp of love which will ere long embrace body and soul in adamantine chains of a union not to be broken even by death.
If Pierre Philibert retained the hand of Amelie for one second longer than mere friendship required of him, no one perceived it but God and themselves. Pierre felt it like a revelation--the hand of Amelie yielding timidly, but not unwillingly, to his manly grasp.
He looked in her face. Her eyes were averted, and she withdrew her hand quietly but gently, as not upbraiding him.
That moment of time flashed a new influence upon both their lives: it was the silent recognition that each was henceforth conscious of the special regard of the other.
There are moments which contain the whole quintessence of our lives,--our loves, our hopes, our failures, in one concentrated drop of happiness or misery. We look behind us and see that our whole past has led up to that infinitesimal fraction of time which is the consummation of the past in the present, the end of the old and the beginning of the new. We look forward from the vantage ground of the present, and the world of a new revelation lies before us.