54. CHAPTER LIV.
TWO HEARTS.
St. John had a vigorous constitution, and his wound soon
ceased to make him suffer acutely. The doctor directed
entire quiescence for some time, however, and thus the young
man was confined to his room and his bed still.
It was a great favor, which he at last obtained, to be permitted
to rise, and lie, in his dressing gown, on a couch
in the drawing-room, and while Lindon was still turning
and tossing with fever, in his close quarters in town, St.
John was inhaling the breath of leaves and flowers.
Many friends flocked to cheer his hours of weariness, and
we need not say that the Vanely family were not remiss.
Tom Alston assumed his most foppish air to make him
laugh; Jack Hamilton told a hundred stories of fox hunting
and frolicking; Captain Waters related endless anecdotes
of his campaigns. With shoulders drooping, and
dreamy looking eyes, as he thrummed on his chair, the worthy
soldier recalled, for his companion's amusement, a thousand
tales and remembrances. He made his brilliant and
joyous youth rise again; he beat, or was beaten again by
the French; he fought all his battles over with sighs or
careless laughter.
But of all the friendly and sympathizing faces which gathered
round him, during those long hours of suffering and
weakness, there was one which contributed more powerfully
to the young man's recovery than all the rest.
We need scarcely say that this was the face of Bonnybel.
Claiming her privilege of cousin and old playmate, the
young lady, throwing aside all ceremony, came almost daily,
with her mother and sisters, to see the invalid, and St. John
experienced in her society a charm which seemed to make
him stronger day by day, as though by the influence of
magic.
Bonnybel was no longer the coquettish and mischievous
little fairy, such as we have seen her in former pages of this
history. She appeared suddenly to have changed her entire
character. She no longer laughed and jested at every thing
and nothing. All the little pouts, and “spites,” and ironies,
and angers, which had made her society so piquante, disappeared.
She became suddenly an earnest woman, full of
pity and sympathizing tenderness, and very soon a critical
observer might have seen, dawning in her eyes, and on
her tell-tale cheeks, the evidences of a warmer and more
profound emotion—the imperceptible light, and rosy dawn,
of a true woman's faithful love.
They spent hours and hours together, beneath the open
window, through which came the breath of vernal fields and
summer flowers, and Bonnybel seemed never weary gazing
at the fine landscape. From the lofty hill, the wooded banks
of the great river, studded with white mansions, embowered
in green foliage, stretched far away, and disappeared in the
mists of the horizon; the broad current glittered with the
snowy sails of sea-bound barks or those returning home from
distant lands; the forests, day by day, assumed a deeper
and more beautiful emerald; the summer came apace, completing
with its warmth and fuller radiance, the influence of
the fresh spring, and in the heart of the young lady, also, all
those vague emotions of the past came gradually to combine
and ripen into the warm summer of love.
It is out of our power to trace, with greater distinctness,
the successive steps by which the girl approached this supreme
point in the life of a woman. We would not, if we
could. Such topics should not be lightly handled. A poet
says:
“Two happier lovers never met
In dear and talk-charmed privacy.
The memories of happier hours
Are like the cordials pressed from flowers
And madden sweetly. I impart
Nought of the love talk I remember,
For May's young pleasures are best hid
From the cold prudence of December,
Which clips and chills all vernal wings;
And love's own sanctities forbid,
Now, as of old, such gossippings
In halls, of what befalls in bowers.”
We prefer to simply state the fact that the result of those
hours of quiet talk, or more expressive silence, was an affection,
on the part of the young lady, as warm and true as
that of her lover. Doubtless it commenced in her woman's
pity for suffering, and tender sympathy for him who suffered,
but ere long this sympathy was needless, for he grew
stronger day by day; still the feeling of the young lady
deepened.
No word had been spoken by either, but the language of
the eyes is superior to all words. All around them soon
perceived what they thought so wholly concealed, and by a
series of accidents, Mr. St. John's visitors were all called
away when Bonnybel came to see him. They would talk
alone for hours, the fresh breeze moving her bright curls,
or bringing back the color to his pale thin cheeks, and then
they would part with a long look, which needed no words
to express its meaning.
It was one evening when, having arisen from his sick
couch, and received permission to ride out, St. John went
with Bonnybel to Vanely, that he found the moment.
It was a lovely evening, and the sun was just setting, as
they drew near the old hall. In the east, a luminous halo
preceded the rising of the moon, and a single star, suspended,
like a lamp of fire, in the rosy atmosphere, delicately scintillated,
gathering clearer radiance as the purple margin of the
sunset grew more pale.
In a moment, the two hearts beat together; he understood
what had angered and pained him so much; she had
loved him and expected him to return; her suffering had
been greater than his own.
They reached the old hall, and now, when the pale, weak
young man assisted her from the saddle, she did not pout or
reprimand him.
The curious moon, looking down, saw a man holding
closely to his breast a woman—a woman who smiled through
her tears—that was all.
They had plighted their troth.
