Chapter VII: Two Young Hearts

Thrown together as we were in that great and lonely house, meeting so often at meals and elsewhere, it was impossible for us to escape being mutually attracted; "for in youth," as some one says, "it seems so natural to love and be beloved, that we scarcely know how to value the first devotion of the entire and trusting heart;" and so it proved with one of us.

The secluded neighbourhood of Applewood,--the state of her aunt's health, together with that lady's eccentric and severe habits and strange views of life and of the world, caused her society to be little courted; thus, Amy saw few other visitors than Macfarisee, and other pious sinners, who occupied high places in the synagogue presided over by the Reverend Mr. Pawkie, and none of whom were famous for hiding their candles "under a bushel," preferring to set them on the very summit thereof; consequently, my sojourn at Applewood, whatever the purpose that sent me there, was rather an event in the lonely life of the young girl.

Since those days, I have told others--many others--whose names may never appear in this chequered narrative, that I loved them, and each avowal came more easy from my lips than the last; but it seemed to me as if the link was not so tender, the faith was not so deep, or the love so true, as those I bore for bonnie Amy Lee.

When she could steal from her aunt's room, we were always together, for Amy knitted bead-purses, made up significant bouquets from the conservatory, read novels, and when we interchanged _underlined_ passages from the poets, showed she had talents for flirtation equal to most young ladies. A week slipped away without any tidings arriving from my employers, and without the arrival of Colonel Rose from India, to raise the siege which has been so long and so successfully laid to his sister-in-law, to whom his deceased brother had so foolishly given the entire control of all he had acquired in the Carnatic, where, at the head of his sepoys, he had bombarded the nabob and looted the dingy natives to some purpose and to some profit.

The life I led was entirely new to me. I was daily associating with this charming young girl, at an age when first the female form begins to awaken new and undefined ideas of delight in the mind of a half-grown youth, and it was impossible for me not to feel all its influences.

In the early morning, when the sun rose above the hills, half veiled in clouds of purple and of gold, and when the battlemented castle, the old grey mansions, and churches of the distant city, seemed to float amid the silver mist that rose from the dewy hollows, we rambled together in the walks of the garden, or on the smooth green velvet lawn, when the first buoyant breeze came over the upland slope, and when the first beam of the tremulous sunshine lit up the dewy leaves; when the birds twitted from branch to branch, shaking off the dew-like diamond drops, and we felt our breasts expand, and our young hearts grow glad and joyous, we knew not why, though poor Amy Lee was often pale with the long vigils she spent by the sick-bed of her aunt. The active mind and real goodness of heart possessed by Amy lent a living light to her eyes and to her features, filling them with a beauty beyond what they might otherwise have possessed.

We were daily together in the sunny little breakfast-parlour, which opened into the brightly-flowered shelves of the conservatory; and then Amy, clad in the most becoming of frilled morning dresses, with her little white hands poured out my coffee, &c., and charmingly did the honours of our little table--and then, thereafter in wandering and in dreams, would pass the day, until evening, when--thank heaven!--the old dame upstairs was cosily tucked in for the night; and then we rambled through the long avenues and evergreen shrubberies, while the brilliant moon shed her silver rays athwart the tall lines of aged sycamores, around which the tendrils of the dark ivy clung; and when the diamond stars shone above in the purest of ether, and we dreamed on, and talked of a thousand things, or often were silent, for at times silence is more eloquent than words, while only the breeze stirred the foliage overhead, and all else was hushed save the beating of our hearts--amid circumstances so conducive to the growth of boyish love and to philandering, who the deuce could resist the passion? Certainly not a day-dreamer like Oliver Ellis.

A second week had nearly elapsed when I received a letter from Macfarisee, announcing, in his curt fashion, that the sooner I returned to town the better, with the papers he had left me to prepare--and to tell Miss Lee that Colonel Rose had arrived in London.

The papers! Until then I had forgotten all about them; and then there was the colonel--for reasons of my own, I felt quite as anxious about him as the worthy conveyancer Macfarisee could have done.

"And what is the colonel, Amy?" I asked, as we sat in a seat of the conservatory, with my arm round her waist, her cheek resting on my shoulder, and her thick curls half enveloping my face.

"An officer of Indian cavalry. I know nothing more."

"Coming home with a fortune--gout in his legs, and cotton in his ears; a blue coat with brass buttons--a yellow face and a bamboo cane."

"Why so?"

"All colonels who come from India appear so."

"Nay," said she, looking up with her droll eyes, "he is a handsome young dragoon."

"Young!"

"His portrait is in the parlour."

"Ah, I remember; but it must have been taken long ago."

"He was nearly twenty years younger than his brother, my uncle; and it has been arranged by my aunt and Mr. Macfarisee, that he takes me out to India with him when he returns."

"Wherefore to India, Amy?" I asked in a quavering voice, as my bubble seemed on the point of dissolving.

"Because they say I am alone here."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"Did they not add, that all European girls--especially pretty ones--make good marriages there?"

"Well," said Amy laughing, "I confess they did."

"I would kill your husband if I saw him!" said I, while a gesture of sadness and impatience escaped me.

"There--there now, don't be cross, dear Oliver, and I will say nothing to offend you again," said the playful girl, placing her soft little hands on each of my cheeks, and pressing her cherry lips to mine. "Don't speak so, pray."

"And this dreary task I have to do--to copy those lists of plate, pictures, and rubbish,--I shall never get on with them!" I exclaimed with impatience, as a loathing for business returned to me.

"Not unless you begin--but I shall be so glad to help you."

"Thanks, dearest Amy."

"Here are the steward's and house-keeper's books, which contain all the information you require, and there is my desk in the parlour--it is open; to work, then, at once, and in a few minutes I will rejoin you."

"So deluded and unsuspecting!" thought I, while seating myself at her desk, as she lightly hastened to attend her querulous patient, and I dipped my pen in the ink-stand, and dreamily turned over a sheet or two of paper, and saw before me--what?--the identical will which I supposed to have been committed to Amy's custody, and which assigned Applewood and all it contained to Macfarisee and the heirs of his body, and which Amy had never seen, as since that night she had never opened her desk.

Until then, in the delightful dream of the passed days, I had almost forgotten the will and all about it; and now, it would seem, that in my haste and confusion on the night I first came to Applewood, I had folded, sealed up, and addressed a sheet of _blank_ note paper, the exact size of the holograph will, while leaving that document open, among the writing materials in Miss Lee's desk. Here was a fortunate mistake.

For a moment I was bewildered by this startling discovery. My first impulse was to open the old envelope, and reseal it, as originally directed by the orders of Macfarisee, but I must have torn the envelope through his _initials_; my second impulse was to read over once again the contents of the will; then, as the whole web of hypocrisy and wrong unfolded itself more vividly before me, and the sweet face of Amy, on one hand, was contrasted with the odious idea of Macfarisee on the other, I twisted up the paper, to procure which he had spent years of prayer and hypocrisy, fawning and twaddle. I then tossed it into the fire, and in a moment it was consumed!