"Oh, Lu!" I said, "I cannot think what it would be to live, and he not a part of me! not for either of us to be in the world without the other!"
Then Lu's tears fell with mine, as she drew her fingers over my hair. She said she was happy, too; and to-day has been down and gathered every one, so that, when you see her, her white array will be wreathed with purple hearts-ease. But I didn't tell Lu quite the truth, you must know. I don't think I should die, except to my former self, if Rose ceased to love me. I should change. Oh, I should hate him! Hate is as intense as love.
Bless me! What time can it be? There are papa and Rose walking in the garden. I turned out my maid to find chance for all this talk; I must ring for her. There, there's my hair! silken coil after coil, full of broken lights, rippling below the knees, fine and fragrant. Who could have such hair but I? I am the last of the Willoughbys, a decayed race, and from such strong decay what blossom less gorgeous should spring?
October now. All the world swings at the top of its beauty; and those hills where we shall live, what robes of color fold them! Tawny filemot gilding the valleys, each seam and rut a scroll or arabesque, and all the year pouring out her heart's blood to flush the maples, the great impurpled granites warm with the sunshine they have drunk all summer! So I am to be married to-day, at noon. I like it best so; it is my hour. There is my veil, that regal Venice point. Fling it round you. No, you would look like a ghost in one,—Lu like a corpse. Dear me! That's the second time I've rung for Carmine. I dare say the hussy is trying on my gown. You think it strange I don't delay? Why, child, why tempt Providence? Once mine, always mine. He might wake up. No, no, I couldn't have meant that! It is not possible that I have merely led him into a region of richer dyes, lapped him in this vision of color, kindled his heart to such a flame, that it may light him towards further effort. Can you believe that he will slip from me and return to one in better harmony with him? Is any one? Will he ever find himself with that love lost, this love exhausted, only his art left him? Never! I am his crown. See me! how singularly, gloriously beautiful! For him only! all for him! I love him! I cannot, I will not lose him! I defy all! My heart's proud pulse assures me! I defy Fate! Hush! One,—two,—twelve o'clock. Carmine!
III.
Astra castra, numen lumen.
The click of her needles and the soft singing of the night-lamp are the only sounds breaking the stillness, the awful stillness, of this room. How the wind blows without! it must be whirling white gusty drifts through the split hills. If I were as free! Whistling round the gray gable, tearing the bleak boughs, crying faint, hoarse moans down the chimneys! A wild, sad gale! There is a lull, a long breathless lull, before it soughs up again. Oh, it is like a pain! Pain! Why do I think the word? Must I suffer any more? Am I crazed with opiates? or am I dying? They are in that drawer,—laudanum, morphine, hyoscyamus, and all the drowsy sirups,—little drops, but soaring like a fog, and wrapping the whole world in a dull ache, with no salient sting to catch a groan on. They are so small, they might be lost in this long, dark room; why not the pain too, the point of pain, I? A long, dark room; I at one end, she at the other; the curtains drawn away from me that I may breathe. Ah, I have been stifled so long! They look down on me, all those old dead and gone faces, those portraits on the wall,—look all from their frames at me, the last term of the race, the vanishing summit of their design. A fierce weapon thrust into the world for evil has that race been,—from the great gray Willoughby, threatening with his iron eyes there, to me, the sharp apex of its suffering. A fierce, glittering blade! Why I alone singled for this curse? Rank blossom, rank decay, they answer, but falsely. I lie here, through no fault of mine, blasted by disease, the dread with no relief. A hundred ancestors look from my walls, and see in me the centre of their lives, of all their little splendor, of their sins and follies; what slept in them wakes in me. Oh, let me sleep too!
How long could I live and lose nothing? I saw my face in the hand-glass this morning,—more lovely than health fashioned it;—transparent skin, bounding blood, with its fire burning behind the eye, on cheek, on lip,—a beauty that every pang has aggravated, heightened, sharpened, to a superb intensity, flushing, rapid, unearthly,—a brilliancy to be dreamed of. Like a great autumn-leaf I fall, for I am dying,—dying! Yes, death finds me more beautiful than life made me; but have I lost nothing? Great Heaven, I have lost all!
A fancy comes to me, that to-day was my birthday. I have forgotten to mark time; but if it was, I am thirty-two years old. I remember birthdays of a child,—loving, cordial days. No one remembers to-day. Why should they? But I ache for a little love. Thirty-two,—that is young to die! I am too fair, too rich, for death!—not his fit spoil! Is there no one to save me? no help? can I not escape? Ah, what a vain eagerness! what an idle hope! Fall back again, heart! Escape? I do not desire to. Come, come, kind rest! I am tired.
That cap-string has loosened now, and all this golden cataract of hair has rushed out over the piled pillows. It oppresses and terrifies me. If I could speak, it seems to me that I would ask Louise to come and bind it up. Won't she turn and see?