 | CHAPTER XII. El Fureidîs |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
Evening had settled over the little village. The primitive
people, whose festivities, like their labors, subsided
at the going down of the sun, had scattered to their several
homes, and, weary with merry-making, had sought rest in
stillness, if not yet in slumber. Alone on her couch beside
the latticed window lay Ianthe, listening for the returning
footstep of her child. The casement was closed, to exclude
the chilly autumn night-air, and a light brazier of coals in
the centre of the apartment created an agreeable warmth,
and at the same time diffused the soft odor of some fragrant
incense,—one of those gentle perfumes grateful to Oriental
senses. On a bracket, in a remote corner, burned an alabaster
lamp; but the subdued light which it shed was feeble
in comparison with that of the clear moonbeams which
poured in at the window and illumined the face of the invalid,
the pallor of whose features, discerned in this silvery
light, was scarcely equalled in whiteness by the snowy
ermine which bordered her silken pelisse.
She had not listened long when a slight figure was reflected
on the opposite wall, a bounding step fancied rather
than heard, so lightly did it tread the triple-plied carpet, and
then, softly sinking on a heap of cushions beside her mother,
Havilah put up her rosy mouth for the accustomed kiss.
Noiselessly as she had come, her presence seemed to scatter
life and brightness through the room, which before
looked less cold as they were reflected on the gold tassels
of her cap, and as they brought out in clear radiance the rich
embroidery of her jacket. Her dancing step, too, betrayed
innocent glee, and the tale which her lips were eager to tell
was all written in her eyes. She had passed such a happy
day. The sun had shone so brightly, the bride had looked
so fair, the bridegroom so gay and proud, the flowers that
were scattered over the happy pair at the altar had been
so beautiful and sweet, the villagers had seemed so glad!
With her white arms crossed upon her mother's lap, and
her beaming face upturned to the moonlight, Havilah told
how opportunely their English friend had joined the bridal
escort, and how joyously his voice had rung in the congratulatory
shout. With eager accent she informed her
mother of the munificent sum which he had contributed
to swell Hendia's slender dowry, exclaiming at the same
time, with artless wonder, on the untold riches which their
guest must possess, since he could thus generously portion
a village bride. With girlish merriment, she described
the scene of wild confusion, at the moment when the young
men and maidens, according to custom, showered the wedded
couple with handfuls of corn and raisins, and her unchecked
laugh rang through the apartment, as she told
how Asaad had thrown high into the air the pomegranate,
whose possession was believed to impart the marriage contagion,—how
the young men had watched for its fall, ambitious
to secure the prize, but how the tall Englishman had
outwitted and vanquished them all, by bounding upward to
an astonishing height, and catching the precious fruit in his
hand before it had touched the ground.
Ianthe smiled at the significant character of this wonderful
feat on the part of the Englishman, smoothed back her
a moment, then said: “Some bright day will dawn erelong,
when the bridegroom will come hither to seek a bride;
whose skilful fingers shall we then employ to wreathe a
nuptial chaplet for my little Havilah?”
The little Havilah playfully shook her head, as if she
already felt the weight of the garland, and sought to displace
it from her brow, at the same time saying, with a
sweet mingling of archness and filial devotion, “No, no, the
mountain bird will not leave its mother's nest to fly away
with a stranger.”
“But the mother must forsake her fledgling,” said Ianthe,
gravely and solemnly. “Her wings are spread already, and
her spirit soon must soar. The eagle which has seen her
young happy with its mate looks not back, as she flies
upward to the sun.”
“When God takes mothers,” said Havilah, in a whisper,
her eyes at the same time filling with tears, “himself only
can fill their place.”
“True, my child,” rejoined her mother, tenderly; “but
God has his instruments of mercy; he sends in due season
his messengers of love, to bind up the wounds of his little
ones. Yes, Havilah,” she added, cautiously scanning the
girl's face as she spoke, “there may be a friend, ay, an
earthly friend, closer to one's heart than a mother.”
“No, never! never!” exclaimed Havilah, vehemently,
clasping her arms round her mother, and hiding her head
in her bosom.
“Did not Hendia leave the good Tyiby with smiles,”
questioned Ianthe, “and go joyously to the home of
Asaad? And will not my daughter, too, smile through
her tears on the bridal-day that gives her a stronger arm
to lean on than that of her invalid mother?”
“Does Mitéra indeed talk to me of a husband?” cried
Havilah, lifting up to the light a face which suddenly became
suffused with crimson, as she encountered the scrutinizing
gaze which Ianthe fixed upon her.
“When lovers plead, mothers cannot be silent,” said
Ianthe, meaningly; “and he that comes in honor to lay a
brave heart at a young girl's feet deserves an advocate and
a hearing.”
“Who comes? what heart? Ah, Mitéra is jesting with
her child,” said Havilah, a coy, tremulous smile creeping
over her features.
“Mitéra speaks truth; and she must no longer call herself
a child, whom the noble Englishman seeks to make his wife,”
said Ianthe, a certain degree of maternal pride betraying
itself in the tone with which she announced a worthy suitor,
and asserted her daughter's new dignity of womanhood.
She was startled at the effect of her words. The head
just now resting passively on her breast was raised with
an almost convulsive movement, the slight form, trembling
with agitation, slid from the arms which enfolded it, and
the face in which youthful joy had so lately been reflected
wore a mingled expression of dread and pain, as Havilah,
kneeling beside Ianthe's couch, clasped her hands fervently
together, and exclaimed, “What I! Havilah! that proud
stranger's wife? No, no, my mother, never!”
“Hush, hush, my child! the guest of many weeks must
not be termed a stranger; and if he is proud, how much
prouder may my mountain girl be to have won his love.”
“He is a stranger to my heart,” was the prompt reply.
“How, then, can I have won his love? Mitéra is deceived.”
“Mitéra is not deceived,” said Ianthe, speaking with grave
emphasis. “Mr. Meredith loves my Havilah, and, like a
hands. It does not become my daughter to answer rashly,
or repulse with childish haste the honorable man who has
the approval of both her parents to enforce his claims.”
The feverish glow subsided on Havilah's face, the impetuous
expression was subdued to one of meek humility at
this implied rebuke, and she listened in deferential silence
while her mother continued, accompanying her words with
graceful Oriental gesture: “My Havilah is a mountain sapling,
swayed by every breeze,”—and Ianthe's thin white
hand, as she spoke, was waved rapidly to and fro; “the
Englishman is the granite rock, which stems the dashing
torrent,”—and here the mother gave emphasis to her words
by laying her hand firmly and impressively on the young
girl's shoulder. “Were it not maidenly, were it not wise,
that the slight thing of a summer's growth should beware
how she refuse to plant the roots of her young life on so
grand, so sure a foundation?”
“The Englishman is manly, generous, and brave,” said
Havilah, musingly.
“He comes of a lordly race,” said Ianthe, eagerly catching
up and seconding her daughter's commendatory words;
for the mother's heart, her hopes, her wishes, were all with
Meredith. “I have heard it said, that nature boasts no
nobler sons than the men of his British isle, and he degrades
not his ancestral stock.”
“He is rich, and learned, and wise,” continued Havilah,
in a sort of pensive soliloquy, speaking in a low minor key,
which gave a touching plaintiveness to her words. “He is
respectful to the old, and bountiful to the poor, and gentle to
the mountain-girl, who would gladly repay his kindness, but
cannot.”
“Cannot, Havilah? Does my daughter count up her
worth of his heart, then thoughtlessly pierce it with an
arrow.”
“Havilah sighs over his virtues,” was the grieved reply;
“she praises him through grateful tears; and if an arrow of
her sending wounds his heart, it will rebound and strike her
own.”
Her eye was moist, her voice unsteady with emotion, ere
she finished speaking. Ianthe was puzzled, doubtful.
“Alas, my daughter!” she murmured. “Why then this
needless pain? Why cannot you return the Englishman's
love, and both be blest?”
“My mother,” said Havilah, with a solemn earnestness,
which gave dignity to her youthful features, “do you remember
the steep, flowery banks of the Barûk stream,
which rushes down our Lebanon cliffs, and pierces through
the heart of the distant valley, till it loses itself in the wild
Leontes? Do you remember how, in long parallel lines,
the opposite shores of the narrow glen go winding together
through the mountain pass, ever near, yet ever parted,—
sometimes almost meeting above the dividing torrent, yet
never melting into one?”
“I remember them well, my child; what then?”
“Like the deep ravine, the cold impassable gulf which
separates the twin banks of the Barûk, is the deep, dark barrier
which sunders my heart from the Englishman's.”
“You dream, my child,” exclaimed Ianthe, rising upon
one elbow, and gazing steadily at Havilah. “What possible
barrier can exist between the daughter of Augustine Trefoil
and his familiar and honored guest? Either your fancy
wanders, Havilah, or you wrong the Englishman.”
As Ianthe spoke, Havilah had risen from her kneeling
attitude, and with a slow, almost majestic movement, quite
figure to its full height, threw back her head, so that her
whole face was lit up by the moonlight, and, with the air of
an inspired prophetess, said fervently: “I wrong him not,
for I judge him not; but his pathway and mine lie apart.
His God is here,”—and she laid her forefinger on her forehead;
“mine, here,”—and she clasped her hands upon her
heart. “I might scatter his gold with lavish hand, might
strain my mind to comprehend his mental height, my earthly
heart might glory in his fame, but he could never be the
husband of my soul.”
Ianthe was awed, was overwhelmed, and could only ejaculate,
“My child! my little one! whence so much foresight,
so much knowledge? Who has taught you this?”
“A voice that whispers to me, here,” answered Havilah,
pressing her clasped hands, more fervently still, upon her
heart. “It tells me that, like the Barûk banks, the Englishman
and his Lebanon bride might dwell beside one another
in outward harmony; we might share earth's sunshine and
showers; the flowers on our bosoms might mingle their fragrance;
here and there, the surface of our lives might blend;
strangers might approach the brink, and have no suspicion
of the disturbing current between; but from the fountain
whence our race began down to the eternal ocean at its
close, the cold stream, the dark gulf, would divide us still.”
The fire of an earnest nature, the solemn conviction of a
truth, gave warmth to Havilah's tone and elevation to her
manner, as she uttered these words; but, as if in the pause
which ensued she recognized her unwonted temerity of
speech, she suffered her arms to droop at her sides, cast
down her eyes, on whose fringes the great tears were trembling,
and stood before her mother in all the humble docility
of childhood.
Ianthe leaned back upon her pillows, gazed absently upward
the two continued unbroken. Well might the mother pause
awhile to muse on the revelation made to her in her child.
Could this be she whose infantine graces had at once rejoiced
the heart, and caused it to tremble at her youth and
inexperience? Could this be she, whom but a moment before
her anxious parent had thought it fitting to remind of
her ripening womanhood? Could it be, indeed, that while
the aged, the prudent, and the wise had been deceived by
an exterior conformity to truth, on the part of their foreign
guest, this girl of seventeen had, by the unerring instinct of
her guileless soul, read deeper into the mysteries of his nature,
measured him by a loftier standard,—and now, rising
superior to every timid doubt, and scorning every earth-born
ambition, gave full and fearless utterance to the noblest
convictions of her being?
That Havilah's words fell as from prophetic lips was
evident from the fact that they carried instant assurance to
the heart of Ianthe, leaving her neither the power nor the
will to gainsay them. It was not without a pang, however,
that she yielded to the weight of a convincing truth, and
saw in it the destruction of her cherished hopes. Most
bitterly did the sense of disappointment force itself upon
her, as, after a few moments of self-communing, she turned
her mild eyes mournfully towards Havilah, and beheld her,
no longer nerved by the momentary inspiration which had
given her a dignity beyond her years, but standing in that
attitude of mute and childlike dependence and trust habitual
to her when waiting on her parent's words. All the mother's
tender concern and solicitude were aroused, as she gazed on
the girl's youthful, loving, confiding face. All the events of
Ianthe's own wedded experience passed before her in quick
review. The fruitless wanderings, the long years of poverty,
the untold privations, the mental anxiety, the broken health,
knew had been due to the recklessness and improvidence of
him who must soon be left the widowed parent and sole
guardian of Havilah. In the protection and love of their
English guest, the helpless, wasting invalid had hailed a
shield for her husband against the ills of fortune, and a
refuge from every earthly exposure which might threaten
her innocent child. Ianthe was a devout and humble Christian;
but the deep yearnings of her human heart prevailed,
and for a moment the wife and mother triumphed over the
saint, and she exclaimed, in a tone of desperate and final
appeal; “If the voice in your heart speaks truth, Havilah,
God and nature forbid the banns. But, O my precious
one! by all the love and duty you owe your mother, do not
listen to any false or suspicious whisper which bids you
spurn the rich offering laid at your feet this day. England
is a Christian land, her sons know no other faith; we have
never witnessed any meanness or deceit in our guest; he
bears himself generously and nobly towards all. M. Lapierre
trusts him, so does your father; why should Havilah,
the youngest among us, be the first, the only one, to
doubt?”
“He is true and loyal to men,” said Havilah; “would
that he were so to God!”
“God's holy word is ever in his hand,” rejoined Ianthe,
“and nature is to him an open book.”
“He has a scholar's cold faith in Scripture,” said Havilah,
“and an artist's worship of beauty, and a poet's dream
of truth; but who can trust the stream which has no living
fountain, the fruit which is hollow at the core, the spirit
which is not linked to the Highest? To the unbelieving
soul, beauty wears a taint, knowledge is but ignorance, truth
a lie; and what can he know of love, who has never drunk
from its sacred spring?”
“But he loves you, Havilah,” said her mother, half
reproachfully.
“O, love is a strange mystery of the soul,” exclaimed
Havilah; “he loves, perhaps, as he can love,—as the
breeze loves the flower, as the bird loves the sun; but not
as the holy ones love in heaven or on earth. O my mother!
I know his genius, admire his gifts, am grateful for his love;
but my spirit testifies not with his, and for him, alas! my
heart is cold.”
“I must leave you alone then, my darling,” said Ianthe,
mournfully. “I had trusted (O how vain are our earthly
trusts!) that this wealthy, this learned, this influential stranger
in El Fureidîs was the appointed instrument of Heaven
to enrich, to elevate, to protect my child. And must I depart
and leave her alone,—alone to bear a mother's loss,
alone to strengthen her bereaved father, and to soothe his
grief?”
“No, not alone,” responded Havilah, speaking not in a
tone of asseveration, but in that spirit of petition and entreaty
which rendered each utterance a prayer. “The
Englishman is rich, but He who cares for the lily and the
sparrow will suffer none of his children to want; the Englishman
has a mind which excites a simple girl to wonder
and to awe, but the wisdom of this world is but folly compared
with that great fountain of knowledge at which every
child may drink; the Englishman may boast of power and
of high descent, but He in whom I put my trust is the King
of kings.”
Ianthe's heart was calmed, fortified, subdued, as she read
in Havilah's face the evidence of a soul strong in the Lord's
own might; and, rising from the couch, she laid her hand in
solemn blessing on the young girl's head, saying: “It is
enough,—I am satisfied; the Englishman's suit shall be
of a human arm. Shall I doubt the arm of the
Lord?”
A long embrace succeeded, and a tender good-night; then,
leaving her mother to solitude and rest, Havilah ran to her
own apartment, threw herself on her cushioned divan, and,
the unnatural calmness she had hitherto maintained giving
way, now that all occasion for self-restraint was passed, she
indulged in a long fit of weeping.. Not that any secret sentiment
of partiality for Meredith warred with her sense of
duty, for she had spoken the simple truth in the interview
with her mother; but all the sympathies of her susceptible
nature were aroused, and, giving way to a flood of sorrowful
emotion, she wept for her parents' disappointment, wept at
her own seeming ingratitude, wept more bitterly than all for
the grief, the mortification, of him concerning whom she had
divined the truth, that for this, as for all the trials of life, he
knew no antidote or consolation save a fatalist's philosophy
and a stoic's pride.
Ianthe, meanwhile, the conflict in her spirit passed, lay on
her couch, calm, prayerful, and at peace. She was joined
erelong by M. Lapierre, who, in his double capacity of medical
and spiritual adviser, seldom failed to visit the invalid
at evening. To the venerable pastor she unburdened her
heart; and had one painful doubt, one lingering regret, still
disturbed the serene submission of her soul, it would have
been forever dispelled by the verdict of the holy man, who
listened attentively to her narrative, with the air of one to
whom a weighty question is for the first time presented,
gazed thoughtfully on the floor awhile, then, lifting his undimmed
eyes to the mother's face, gave solemn confirmation
to Havilah's decision, by affirming, in words from which, brief
as they were, there could be no appeal, “Ianthe, the child
is right.”
| CHAPTER XII. El Fureidîs | |