University of Virginia Library

32. CHAPTER XXXII.
THE “BOIL.”

He went to his chamber, fell upon his bed, and buried his
face in the pillow; as if his pillow could help him, or cared
for him, or could soothe the sensations that racked his
thought. “Inquire of Miss Plumy Alicia Eyre.” Yes,
Plumy Alicia, you had done it; you were at the bottom of
this; you thrust that iron into his soul! Richard knew
Miss Eyre was rash, fickle, schemy, and fond of adventure;
he did not believe her so infamous, so utterly abominable,
so abandoned. What should he think now? What do?

When he came down to breakfast, the next morning, he
looked pale, and had small appetite. He drank half a cup
of coffee, nibbled at a slice of bread, and refused a piece of
Indian cake Roxy had baked on purpose for him. His sister
took alarm. “Are you sick, Richard?” “Not much,”
he answered. “Have some cracker toast, and sage tea?”
No. “A good cold-water bath, with hard rubbing, is the
thing,” said Munk, who was a real hydriatic in his way.
“If Uncle Richard is sick,” said Memmy, “Plumy will
come, and Miss Melicent will come too; and we shall have
such nice times, with quince sauce, and lots of candy!”
“Tanny, tanny!” shouted Bebby. “Pumy bing tanny!”
and she wriggled for joy in her high chair, and displaced her
bib, and pulled her dish of bread and milk into her lap.
“Dear me!” cried Roxy; “what trouble is in candy! I have
sometimes wished I could never see the sight of those ladies.
Bebby is all the whole continual time in mischief!” Richard

availed himself of the slight breeze to make his escape.
Roxy called after him, as he left the room: “You never
will have anything done for you; and you will come back
dead, the next we know!”

Richard felt, at the moment, there was more truth in her
words than she always put into them.

He went to the Mill, and assumed his customary duties.
But it was hard to carry them through. There was slipperiness
in his hold, and dizziness in his calculations. He was
like a man who undertakes to raise a barrel of flour in a fit
of laughter. “Sick,” muttered Mr. Gouch, “sick; and sick
is foolish to be here. Go to bed, — be sick.”

That afternoon Richard went to bed, on a cup of sage tea,
and slept soundly; he slept none the night before.

He made no blunders at tea, but drank two strong cups
of oolong, disposed of a large biscuit, and honored some new
cake, for which Roxy had obtained the receipt of Mrs.
Mellow.

In the evening he went to Whichcomb's, to see Miss Eyre.
“Plumy Alicia may be in to some folk,” replied the landlady
to his inquiry at the door. “Is she in to you?” “She
is,” replied Richard, emphatically, endeavoring to smooth the
way through the difficulty of his feeling by pleasantry of
speech. “Not as you knows of,” answered Mrs. Whichcomb.
“Plumy Alicia said, says she, I am not at home,
says she.” “Is she at home to me?” asked Richard.
“Can I find her?” He began to push by the doorkeeper.
“Ah! Charley Walter, said I;” so the woman went on.
“`No such a thing,' said he. They made the awfulest
piece of work of it that ever was. Velzora Ann had on her
spick and span new silk.”

“I must see Miss Eyre!” cried Richard.

“Would you impose on the Ladies' Parlor, which Cain

hasn't, and Miss Elbertina Lucetta, Miss Allura, Miss Elzena,
that was an orphan, and always slept four in a bed, till
she found Whichcomb's, and nothing relishing —” “Are
they all there?” urged the agonized caller. He enforced
his way to the room which on the door was labelled “Ladies'
Parlor.” Several girls fled as he entered, among whom
was not Miss Eyre. He did not wait long, however, before
the object of his quest came in sight. With right thumb
and finger she raised a fold of her muslin dress, trimmed
her face three points to the left, and crushed herself forward
in the direction of the floor, like a ship pitching, and, rising,
sailed away to a chair at some distance from her caller.
“What is the meaning of this?” asked Richard, or rather a
voice from within Richard, that came up, groping and
trembling, all the way, through the thickness and huskiness
of his feelings. “Mr. Edney, having precipitated himself
through a reserve which has been so long maintained, and
with such obvious propriety imposed, cannot be too much
out of breath to relate the nature of his errand,” replied Miss
Eyre, hammering the arm of the chair with her fan.

“Why have you so long avoided me, and why, at last,
have you approached me only to wound me, — approached
my happiness only to destroy it forever?”

“I shall not sit here to be accused,” replied Miss Eyre.
“I shall claim the protection of the house.”

“The house,” rejoined Richard, “and all its walls, and
all its inmates, may tumble down upon us; — you must
hear what I have to say.”

Miss Eyre paced the room loftily, as if she were in a pair
of buskins.

She turned and said, “Is your happiness my happiness,
Mr. Edney?”

Richard stammered in reply.

“The question embarrasses you, I see; you need not
answer it.”

“I am at a loss to know why your happiness should aim
so fatally at my wretchedness.”

“O, you are unhappy! I am sorry for you.”

“Have done with this, and tell me what has instigated
you to poison the ear of Mrs. Melbourne against me!”

“Dare you charge that meanness upon me?”

“You know what you have done!”

“I told Mrs. Melbourne you had shown an affection
for me.”

“Was that all?”

“All you did?”

“All you told her?”

“Will you say it is false?”

“That I had a love-affection for you, — that I was earnestly
interested in you?”

“Eh! earnestly, earnestly! Superficially? Partly, fancifully?
I see! I see!”

“Why, at this hour, and in this place, and under these
circumstances, can you harrow me so? Read that!” He
gave her Mrs. Melbourne's note.

She read it, and said, “Do not feel so bad about that.
Aunt Melbourne is a little notional.”

“If any other than a bad feeling is proper to the case, I
would dismiss a bad feeling; but I cannot dislodge the
conviction that you have acted very ungratefully.”

“Do you love me, Richard?”

“You bade me never say that I loved you.”

“But do you?”

“How can I answer you?”

“You can say that you do not. It will be some pleasure
for me to hear the word `love' on your lips, — to see it pass

them; even if it went reluctantly and slowly, — as if it was
a sweet spot to go through, — as if it loved to linger among
the impediments of feeling, — as if it loved to hear its own
sound. Say `do not' love; say `do' love; — naughty little
`love,' that hides behind the `not;' — yet it is `love,' — and
`love,' or `not love,' is the same. `Not love' is love with a
handle.”

“I detest you!” Richard said this in a passion, quite
wrought up. Miss Eyre coolly replied, “We are even, —
let us part.”

“Not until I know how you have implicated me with
Mrs. Melbourne!”

“You did not once kiss me? You cannot say that.
You have not that to think of. How you blush! Color
fades from your lips into your cheeks! — Well, well;
nothing should inhabit those lips but kisses; — all the girls
say so. You are biting your lips to bring the blood back!”

The wretch! Spurn her, — crush her! Insane wickedness,
intolerable absurdity! the reader is ready to exclaim;
and so, perhaps, was Richard. What business has she
here? Yet is not all villany absurd, unnatural? Could
we get at the springs of misconduct, in any case, should we
not be surprised?

The truth is, Miss Eyre had formed a strong and despotic
attachment for Richard. She had been resolved to
possess him. Her long silence and reserve was a mode of
ascertaining his inclinations. She heard of his engagement
with Melicent, and knew how often he was at the Governor's.
Her communication to Mrs. Melbourne had a first
object, to discover the nature of his connection with Melicent;
and, secondly, to dissolve it, and free him for herself;
and finally, if foiled herein, to be avenged upon him. At
this meeting at Whichcomb's, she maintained, with cardinal

steadiness, a single point, — the development of the actual
state and movement of his mind and heart.

To be avenged upon him, in the last resort, we say.
How could that be, if she loved him? ask our gentle, true-hearted
readers. We might refer them to sacred writ, and
Potiphar's wife. Joseph could not be more astonished at
the order for his arrest, than was Richard at the conduct of
Miss Eyre. We run no parallel between these two ladies,
further than to the point of love and vengeance. We have
never said Miss Eyre was ill-intentioned; — she was ill-regulated.
The wrong she did Richard was rather the wantonness
of passion than the deliberation of insult. As is
said, the rare and costly manuscripts used in forming the
Complutensian Polyglott were used for rockets, so it seemed
sometimes as if she tossed up the sacred and precious
feelings of Richard's heart merely for the pleasure of seeing
them explode; yet it is evident in this pastime her own
deepest sentiments were involved also. She scattered fire-brands
without seeming to think how hot they were. She
followed her ends with great clearness of heart, but with
utter blindness of eye; or, rather, with a distinct aim, but
confused method. She was more capricious in appearance
than in purpose. But she would sport with her victim,
before she put him to death. Richard seemed to feel that
his death was foreshadowed, while, at the same moment,
Miss Eyre was loth to administer the final stroke.

“Tell me what you have done!” Richard said this so
sternly and coldly, with look so sullen and menacing, and
tone so hard and inexorable, that Miss Eyre must have seen
the folly of dalliance.

She replied, “I will not tell you what I have done; — I
will tell you what I will do and be. I hate you; yet not

vitally, but as death hates, — as a bruised and broken heart
hates, — as a woman that can feel hates! —”

“Spare me this!” cried Richard, smiting his hand upon
his brow. “Anything but such a thing! any torture you
may inflict, but such a torture! Do not strew my path
with the mutilated fragments of a heart! do not doom my
vision to the sight of sensibility in ruins! Kill me in some
other way! —”

Miss Eyre leaned her head upon the arm of her chair,
and was heard to sob.

“Dear Plumy Alicia!” said Richard, approaching and
attempting to take her hand. She waved him off. “Go,”
said she; “your work is done, and mine is done!”

Richard took himself heavily from the house.