CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.
SET FREE.
Julia looked very much the same as she had done that evening when I came reluctantly to tell her that my heart was not in her keeping, but belonged to another. She wore the same kind of fresh, light muslin dress, with ribbons and lace about it, and she sat near the window, with a piece of needle-work in her hands; yet she was not sewing, and her hands lay listlessly on her lap. But, for this attitude of dejection, I could have imagined that it was the same day and the same hour, and that she was still ignorant of the change in my feelings toward her. If it had not been for our perverse fate, we should now be returning from our wedding-trip, and receiving the congratulations of our friends. A mingled feeling of sorrow, pity, and shame, prevented me from advancing into the room. She looked up to see who was standing in the doorway, and my appearance there evidently alarmed and distressed her.
"Martin!" she cried.
"May I come in and speak to you, Julia?" I asked.
"Is my aunt worse?" she inquired, hurriedly. "Are you come to fetch me to her?"
"No, no, Julia," I said; "my mother is as well as usual, I hope. But surely you will let me speak to you after all this time?"
"It is not a long time," she answered.
"Has it not been long to you?" I asked. "It seems years to me. All life has changed for me. I had no idea then of my mother's illness."
"Nor I," she said, sighing deeply.
"If I had known it," I continued, "all this might not have happened. Surely, the troubles I shall have to bear must plead with you for me!"
"Yes, Martin," she answered; "yes, I am very sorry for you."
She came forward and offered me her hand, but without looking into my face. I saw that she had been crying, for her eyes were red. In a tone of formal politeness she asked me if I would not sit down. I considered it best to remain standing, as an intimation that I should not trouble her with my presence for long.
"My mother loves you very dearly, Julia," I ventured to say, after a long pause, which she did not seem inclined to break. I had no time to lose, lest Kate Daltrey should come in, and it was a very difficult subject to approach.
"Not more than I love her," she said, warmly. "Aunt Dobrée has been as good to me as any mother could have been. I love her as dearly as my mother. Have you seen her since I was with her this afternoon?"
"No. I have just come from visiting a very curious patient, and have not been home yet."
I hoped Julia would catch at the word curious, and make some inquiries which would open a way for me; but she seemed not to hear it, and another silence fell upon us both. For the life of me I could not utter a syllable of what I had come to say.
"We were talking of you," she said at length, in a harried and thick voice. "Aunt is in great sorrow about you. It preys upon her day and night that you will be dreadfully alone when she is gone, and—and—Martin, she wishes to know before she dies that the girl in Sark will become your wife."
The word struck like a shot upon my ear and brain. What! had Julia and my mother been arranging between them my happiness and Olivia's safety that very afternoon? Such generosity was incredible. I could not believe I had heard aright.
"She has seen the girl," continued Julia, in the same husky tone, which she could not compel to be clear and calm; "and she is convinced she is no adventuress. Johanna says the same. They tell me it is unreasonable and selfish in me to doom you to the dreadful loneliness I feel. If Aunt Dobrée asked me to pluck out my right eye just now, I could not refuse. It is something like that, but I have promised to do it. I release you from every promise you ever made to me, Martin."
"Julia!" I cried, crossing to her and bending over her with more love and admiration than I had ever felt before; "this is very noble, very generous."
"No," she said, bursting into tears; "I am neither noble nor generous. I do it because I cannot help myself, with aunt's white face looking so imploringly at me. I do not give you up willingly to that girl in Sark. I hope I shall never see her or you for many, many years. Aunt says you will have no chance of marrying her till you are settled in a practice somewhere; but you are free to ask her to be your wife. Aunt wants you to have somebody to love you and care for you after she is gone, as I should have done."
"But you are generous to consent to it," I said again.
"So," she answered, wiping her eyes, and lifting up her head; "I thought I was generous; I thought I was a Christian, but it is not easy to be a Christian when one is mortified, and humbled, and wounded. I am a great disappointment to myself; quite as great as you are to me. I fancied myself very superior to what I am. I hope you may not be disappointed in that girl in Sark."
The latter words were not spoken in an amiable tone, but this was no time for criticising Julia. She had made a tremendous sacrifice, that was evident; and a whole sacrifice without any blemish is very rarely offered up nowadays, however it may have been in olden times. I could not look at her dejected face and gloomy expression without a keen sense of self-reproach.
"Julia," I said, "I shall never be quite happy—no, not with Olivia as my wife—unless you and I are friends. We have grown up together too much as brother and sister, for me to have you taken right out of my life without a feeling of great loss. It is I who would lose a right hand or a right eye in losing you. Some day we must be friends again as we used to be."
"It is not very likely," she answered; "but you had better go now, Martin. It is very painful to me for you to be here."
I could not stay any longer after that dismissal. Her hand was lying on her lap, and I stooped down and kissed it, seeing on it still the ring I had given her when we were first engaged. She did not look at me or bid me good-by; and I went out of the house, my veins tingling with shame and gladness. I met Captain Carey coming up the street, with a basket of fine grapes in his hand. He appeared very much amazed.
"Why, Martin!" he exclaimed; "can you have been to see Julia?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Reconciled?" he said, arching his eyebrows, which were still dark and bushy though his hair was grizzled.
"Not exactly," I replied, with a stiff smile, exceedingly difficult to force; "nothing of the sort indeed. Captain, when will you take me across to Sark?"
"Come, come! none of that, Martin," he said; "you're on honor, you know. You are pledged to poor Julia not to visit Sark again."
"She has just set me free," I answered; and out of the fulness of my heart I told him all that had just passed between us. His eyes glistened, though a film came across them which he had to wipe away.
"She is a noble girl," he ejaculated; "a fine, generous, noble girl. I really thought she'd break her heart over you at first, but she will come round again now. We will have a run over to Sark to-morrow."
I felt myself lifted into a third heaven of delight all that evening. My mother and I talked of no one but Olivia. The present rapture so completely eclipsed the coming sorrow, that I forgot how soon it would be upon me. I remember now that my mother neither by word nor sign suffered me to be reminded of her illness. She listened to my rhapsodies, smiling with her divine, pathetic smile. There is no love, no love at all, like that of a mother!