 | CHAPTER XII.
A DAUGHTER OF ZION AND A SON OF BELIAL. The Wetherel affair |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
A DAUGHTER OF ZION AND A SON OF BELIAL.
When Edward reached Nestoria she was gazing upon the moonlit sea,
lost in a dreamy admiration of its dimpling sparkling glory, and scarcely conscious
of the protracted absence of her friend.
Hearing footsteps close behind her, she took it for granted that Alice had
returned, and said, without looking around, “Ah, there you are. Isn't it beautiful!”
Wetherel, halting close by her shoulder, gazed down with enthusiastic
admiration upon her fair face and golden hair, to which the moonlight communicated
such an unearthly radiance that she seemed more seraphic than
human, and responded, meaning her more than the landscape, “Yes, very
beautiful!”
“Oh!” was the very natural exclamation of the startled girl, as she sprang
You frightened me.”
“I am sorry,” he said, and so he was in a cheerful sort of fashion, his slight
regret being mingled with joy at seeing her and a tender yearning to put re
assuring arms about her. “It was excessively awkward in me,” he went on,
keenly enjoying his apology. “I was so anxious to reach you that I forgot
that I might alarm you.”
“Where is Alice?” she asked, doubting whether she ought to be alone with
him, but doubting it, let us observe, through a purely instinctive shyness, and
not because she suspected him of being unfit company.
“She is there, with a friend of mine. She will be here in a moment.”
He barely touched the girl's hand, and then dropped it, so fearful was he of
still further disquieting her. Strange what an influence she already had over
him! she could transfigure him both in character and manner. In her presence
he seemed a different young fellow from the one whom we have heard
pouring out his recklessness and bitterness of spirit in the society of Wolverton;
and, for the moment at least, he was a very much better fellow than he
was capable of being amid unrestraining and evil surroundings. There was
something good left in his nature; he could perceive the charm of innocence,
if only it wore the guise of beauty; he could, for the sake of the beauty,
adore the innocence. He was as gentle and reverent with Nestoria now as if
he had never been ungentle and irreverent with other women. Not a sentiment
that was unworthy, and not even a reminiscence. Not a thought of
other girls whom he had made weep bitter tears; who had wept at parting
with him when they ought to have wept only that they had ever met him;
who had wasted on his hitherto ungrateful spirit both affection and pardon. He
forgot all the evil of his life, and seemed to himself not merely to be good now,
but to have been good always. The prime cause of this transformation, it
will be easily guessed, was that he was somewhat in love.
“Did you come in that boat?” asked Nestoria. “It seems as if you must
have sailed out of the moon. Where did you come from?”
“I have been living opposite you for the last two days. Only two miles
from you, and in plain sight. Didn't you guess it?”
“How could I?” returned the girl, and the answer really pained him.
“Don't you find it very dull here?” he continued, driven to make conversation.
“Not a bit, I am happy and amused every moment. I find your relatives
delightful—Mrs. Dinneford and Alice and the Judge—I like them all.”
While he stumbled through some reply she fell into a meditation, not even
hearing what he said, her mind was so occupied. The question which engaged
her spirit was, Should she allude to the family quarrel and try to end
it? It grieved her beyond expression that two such men as Edward Wetherel
and his uncle, two men who, in her eyes, were altogether noble and charming,
should disagree. She liked them both very much, and she wanted them to
like each other, not merely because their reconciliation would enable her to
see them both, but also because it would increase their happiness. Besides,
they were relatives, and for relatives to live in enmity, how unnatural and
dreadful!
If any one has inferred from Nestoria's simple ways and innocent air that
she was deficient in moral courage and energy, he has done her injustice.
Duty was a mighty force in her soul, and at its call she could face much. Was
with his good uncle and to urge him to bring it to a close? That
was the whole question, she said to herself; and her liking for him helped her
to decide it in the affirmative.
“Why haven't you been to visit Judge Wetherel?” she asked with a firmness
of voice and manner which surprised him.
“Don't you remember?” he replied, almost submissively. “We are not on
terms.”
“But why are you not on terms?” she continued, still resolute, though
with a propitiatory, pleading smile. “Is it your fault—or his?”
“It is not my fault,” he burst out. “Look here, Miss Bernard; I will talk
with you frankly about this matter. But first, has he told you anything against
me?”
“No,” said Nestoria. “Nor any one.”
“Then I mustn't talk harshly,” he went on more tranquilly. “But still I
will be as frank as I must. I want you to think charitably of me. The whole
thing, then, is this: Am I to be governed? I don't quarrel with him, but he
with me. Why? He wants to rule me, and I don't want to be ruled. He
wants to humiliate me, and I won't be humiliated. We both have our ideas.
I leave him to enjoy his; why can't he leave me in peace with mine? But he
can't. I must do and think and talk precisely as he learned to do and think
and talk three-quarters of a century ago. The older a man is, the more unfit
he is to hold absolute rule over the young, because his notions are necessarily
different from theirs, while not necessarily better. Suppose Adam were alive
now and wanted all his progeny to obey him. Can't you see that his ideas
might be unsuitable for the men of our day? What a time we should probably
have with the old gentleman, to be sure, and how grimly he would glare at us
through his spectacles, and how he would wave us off his premises! Well, my
uncle is not so very unlike what Adam might be. He has fearfully old-fashioned
whims, and he is tremendously stiff in them. I have been driven, out of
mere honesty and self-respect, to rebel. I am carrying on my war of independence.
You have heard of our revolutionary sires, and how they fought seven
years for an abstraction, as the great Daniel phrased it. I don't mean the
prophet, but the expounder.”
So he went on for some minutes. He had thought so much of this quarrel
and argued its merits over to himself so often that his mind was brimming full
of it. He could talk about it as abundantly as an enthusiast can declaim about
his pet whim wham: a woman's rights champion, for instance, about female
suffrage, or a communist about a new division of property. He was in earnest,
and indeed he was at heart very bitter, notwithstanding his jocosities about
Adam and our revolutionary fathers. This tone of jesting was assumed partly
to keep down his painful irritability, and partly to hide it from Nestoria. He
wanted to convince the girl, not only that he was right in the quarrel, but also
that he was a good-tempered, pleasant fellow. Being very much taken with
her, and for the moment at least not a little in love with her (she looked so
musually beautiful just then in the moonlight), he could not bear to have her
think ill of him in any fashion whatever.
Of course his defence of himself was mainly special pleading, and quite an
unfair representation of his uncle's case against him. Did he know it? We
must be so honestly severe with him, we must so far expose the inteilectual
weakness which had grown out of his moral one-sidedness, as to declare that
wickedness; it was merely, as he tenderly put it to himself, “sowing his wild
oats”; it was what one ought to expect of a young man, and rather admire in
him than otherwise. Even the exalting and purifying presence of Nestoria's
innocence could not so far lift him above his usual level as to enable him to
see that his life had been notably blameworthy. In short, very unluckily for
his soul and his fortunes, he could neither condemn himself harshly, nor forgive
the Judge for condemning him.
Nestoria was much perplexed and a little troubled. She did not feel pleased
with some remarks that this admirable young man had dropped. With the
reverent sensitiveness of a youthful soul which has received a purely religious
education, she did not like to hear even the great Daniel Webster linked
jocosely with that sacred Daniel who would not worship the gods of Babylon,
while the story of Adam seemed to her the story of a great moral tragedy, altogether
too solemn to be alluded to lightly. Furthermore, how could her
judicious and venerable and pious friend, the Judge, be altogether wrong in
this matter? It was extremely painful to her that Edward should speak of
that good man as he had, charging him with holding ideas that were current
before the flood, and hinting at his glaring at unconvinced people through his
spectacles, and waving them irrationally off his premises. What if beliefs were
antediluvian, so long as they were sensible and holy and fruitful of good works?
Enoch no doubt held antediluvian notions, and yet he was judged worthy of
translation.
However, Nestoria did not feel able to take up an argument with this wonderful
Edward Wetherel, as indeed it was not in her habits or disposition to
argue, not even with herself. Her usual mental process in matters open to
discussion was to choose the right with the lucid instinct of a pure, conscieutious
nature, and to simply say with the utmost gentleness, Why not do it?
It is a wonderfully effective mode of discussion, when one is gifted for it, and
frequently dulls the edge of the keenest hair-splitting.
“He is much older than you,” she sighed, after remaining some time in
thought. “Couldn't you put up with something on that account?”
“Perhaps so,” mumbled Edward, feeling that his allocution had all been
for naught. Then, his eyes still settled with steadfast admiration on her beaming
face, he added, “I would much rather put up with something on your account.”
“Will you come to the house soon and try to see him?” she pleaded, so
eager in her work of reconciliation that she did not notice his flattery.
“Yes,” he assented. “Yes, I will. Only, if you discover me coming, you
must ask him to see me.”
“I will be on the lookout for you,” she promised. “Oh, I am not a bit
afraid to ask him. He is so good, and it will be such a right thing to do! Be
sure you come.”
“Yes, yes,” he repeated eagerly more delighted with the interest that she
took in his affairs than with the prospect of reconciliation with his uncle, and
so emboldened by that interest that he seized her hand and tried to kiss it.
But the kiss went wild, for Nestoria snatched her fingers away, saying, “You
mustn't.”
It was enough; that gentle “mustn't” quelled him; it was mightier than a
box on the ear from some girls.
“It is an Oriental custom,” she added, fearful that she had seemed unfriendly.
it seems to me degrading to humanity.”
He would have liked a kiss of a more equal and exalted order, but he knew
the girl too well and respected her too tenderly to ask it.
At this moment Alice reached them on a little rustling run, calling breathlessly,
“Come, Nettie, we must go. We shall miss prayers. Good-night,
Cousin Edward. Come again.”
“Good-night, Mr. Wetherel,” added Nestoria, and the two girls hurried
away.
“I will try it,” muttered Edward to himself. “I'll see if the old gentleman
has a soft spot in him, confound him!”
It is sadly wonderful to observe how heartily relatives can dislike each
other, if their characters and tastes are in distinct opposition, and especially if
they are a drag on each other's pleasures.
| CHAPTER XII.
A DAUGHTER OF ZION AND A SON OF BELIAL. The Wetherel affair | |