20. CHAPTER XX.
Though Mrs. Rogers delayed tea on Friday evening
on Parke's account, he did not arrive till the feast was
in débris, and the company withdrawn from the tea-table
to the parlor. He had been out with his horses, he said,
too late, though the weather was excuse enough for driving
that afternoon, so mild and soft for a winter's day.
Had anybody noticed the sunset, and the silver mist
that wrapped every thing in its vail, he asked. At Mrs.
Rogers's request, Philippa came back to the table to
keep him company while she was gone in the kitchen preparing
a hot short-cake for him, and drawing fresh tea.
“How pale you are, Parke!” said Philippa.
“Am I?” he said, without looking at her.
“Where did you go to-day?”
“Up by Millville; do you know whether father was
in the woods to-day?”
“I believe so.”
“I heard his dogs, I was sure.”
He folded his arms on the table and hid his face in
them, but raised it instantly and stared into the corner
of the room.
“I thought,” he continued, absently, “that they
sounded like bloodhounds.”
“But you never heard bloodhounds.”
“Have you?”
“Once.”
“Have you?” he repeated, without having heard her,
and instantly taking a knife from the table, with which
he struck an empty glass near him, he endeavored to
modulate the tinkling sound into a familiar air with an
appearance of profound attention; but his mind was
dwelling with rapt fidelity on a new and terrible joy in
his possession. The secret was no burden now, but the
source of a strange pride, which made him consider himself
apart from the rest of the world by the right it had
given him.
Philippa was moved by his paleness, lassitude, and
mysterious excitement; a protective, pitying feeling impelled
her to go to him, put her arm about his neck, and
kiss his cheek. As a city falls to ruin, with its pulse in
full play, in the embrace of an earthquake—so fell his
sin into the depths of his soul. He met her clear, strong,
upholding gaze, because he would meet it; because,
come what might to him, he never could fail to meet the
eye of any human being with an unflinching daring for
the truth. But a shadow of something prophetic fell on
him; the loss of a beautiful hope, which he might have
felt. To her it seemed as if her touch had made him a
statue, he was so motionless; every feature was set in
calmness, only his eyes were wildly dark. Her arm fell
from his neck, and she turned away, repenting of the first
caress she had ever given him.
Happily, Mrs. Rogers bustled in with the fresh tea.
She begged Philippa to attend to his wants, for she only
just wanted to take out the tea-cups—she shouldn't wash
them—and, with a pile in her hands, she disappeared
again. Philippa poured the tea, which he took silently
and drank slowly; but he ate nothing. When had he
heard from Theresa, she asked, to break the silence,
That very day he had received a letter, which he sorted
out of some papers, and gave her, with “There's nothing
in it.”
“When shall I visit her?” she asked.
“Before long; any time.”
“How long do you intend this meal shall last?” asked
Sam, thrusting his head in at the door. “I must smoke
a pipe.”
“Come in, old fellow,” said Parke; “I'll smoke with
you.”
Sam filled his pipe from a box on the mantel-shelf, and
was soon absorbed; and Parke, taking a cigar from his
case, lighted it, and fell to talking on the subject of
Sam's next voyage. So pertinent were his questions and
remarks relating to it, that Sam was drawn out completely,
and gave descriptions of sea-life, to which Parke
added information so entertaining that Philippa was oblivious
of the parlor, till recalled by an ill-humored reproof
from Sarah. He had made himself so pleasant,
that Sam, in a generous moment, accepted the excuse he
offered for going home without appearing before the visitors.
A plunge into the long, black night was what he
most desired—“a sleep, and a forgetting.”
It was hours, however, before he slept. His sagacity
stood in the way of repose. His relation with the world
—meaning Crest—must be changed, sooner or later. He
had lost Theresa. A barrier was raised between him
and Philippa which she would never cross. Of his
mother he did not think; he had been so trained that
the consequences of his wishes and will never struck him
as involving any thing of her but her compliance. But
—he had gained Charlotte.
That evening Charlotte Lang found the house deserted
on her return from her ride with Parke; her
mother and sister had gone to the evening meeting of
the Baptist society which Mrs. Lang had joined, and
which was in the progress of a revival. Charlotte did
not light a lamp, but put away her bonnet, folded her
shawl, and crept to bed in the dark. Did the angels of
Pity and Patience guard that bed? Or waited a demon
there, to behold the spectacle of dead chastity in a lovely
shrine? Who will summon either to pass judgment
upon a drama in which they were neither actors nor
spectators!
Ignorant, confiding, weak, poisoned with ancestral
blood, none shall judge thee, Charlotte—but God!
Her thoughts were intent upon Parke alone. To-day
he had been hers; to-morrow he would be hers. Mother,
and Clarice, and the people in Crest—he could keep
them all away. Half stifled in her exquisite hair, what
dreams came to her! She heard again the baying of
dogs along the woody road, the rustling of footsteps
among the leaves, the murmur of a sweet, muffled voice.
The gray dusk crept round her, and the silver mist, and
the breath of love: not a false, selfish, cruel love, but the
love for life, till death; sweet, kind, tender love; forgetting
all, meaning all,—but distrust, disgust, satiety.
