'Twas nought but my own perversity that hindered me from joining the glee, that severed me from all the happiness; but I chose rather to be miserable in my solitude, and I turned my back upon it, and went along and climbed the steps and sat on the broad garden-wall, and looked down into the clear, dark water ever slipping by, and took the fragrance of the night, and heard the chime of the chordant sailors as they heaved the anchor of some ship a furlong down the stream,—voices breathing out of the dusky distance, rich and deep. And looking at the little boat tethered there beneath, I mind that I bethought me then how likely 'twould be for one in too great haste to unlock the water-gate of the garden, climbing these very steps, and letting herself down by the branch of this old dipping willow here, how likely 'twould be for one, should the boat but slip from under, how likely 'twould be for one to sink in the two fathom of tide,—dress or scarf but tangling in the roots of the great tree reaching out hungrily through the dark, transparent depth below,—how likely to drown or e'er a hand could raise her! And I mind, when thinking of the cool, embracing flow, the drawing, desiring, tender current, the swift, soft, rushing death, I placed my own hand on the willow-branch, and drew back, stung as if by conscience that I trifled thus with a gift so sacred as life.
Then I went stealing up the alleys again, beginning to be half afraid, for they seemed to me full of something strange, unusual sound, rustling motion,—whether it were a waving bough, a dropping o'er-ripe pear, a footstep on adjacent walks. Nay, indeed, I saw now! I leaned against the beach-bole there, all wrapt in shade, and looked at them where they inadvertently stood in the full gleam of the lighted windows: 'twas Angus, and 'twas Effie. He spoke,—a low, earnest pleading,—I could not hear a word, or I had fled,—then he stooped, and his lips had touched her brow. Oh, had he but struck me! less had been the blow, less the smart!—the blow, though all along I had awaited it. Ah, I remembered another kiss, one that had sunk into my brain as a pearl would sink in the sea, that when my heart had been saddest I had but just to shut my eyes and feel again falling soft and warm on my lids, lingering, loving, interpenetrating my soul with its glow;—and this, oh, 't was like a blade cleaving that same brain with swift, sharp flash! I flew into the house, but Effie was almost there before me,—and on my way, falling, gliffered in the gloom, against something, I snatched me back with a dim feeling that 't was Angus, and yet Angus had followed Effie in. I slipped among the folk and sat down somewhere at length like as if stunned.
It was question of passing the time, that went round; for, though all their words fell dead on my ear at the moment, it was in charactery that afterward I could recall, reïllume, and read; and one was for games, and one for charades, and one for another thing;—and I sat silent and dazed through it all. Finally they fell to travestying scenes from history, each assuming a name and supporting it by his own wits, but it all passed before my dulled senses like the phantasmagoria of a troubled dream; and that tiring, there was a kind of dissolving views managed by artful ebb and flow of light, pictures at whose ending the Rose of May was lost in Francesca, who, waxing and waning in her turn, faded into Astarte, and went out In a shudder of darkness,—and the three were Effie. But ere the views were done, ere those three visions, when Effie ran away to dress her part, I after her and up into our room, vaguely, but as if needs must.
"I've good news for you," said she, without looking, and twisting her long, bright hair. "I was with Angus but now in the garden. He can bear it no longer, and he touched my brow with his lips that I promised to urge his cause; for he loves you, he loves you, Alice! Am I not kind to think of it now? Ah, if you knew all!"
She had already donned the gown of silvery silk and blonde, and was winding round her head the long web of lace loosened from my mother's broidery-frame. She turned and took me by the two shoulders, and looked into my face with eyes of azure flame.
"I am wild with gladness!" she said. "Kiss me, girl, quick! there's no time to spare. Kiss me on the cheek,—not the lip, not the lip,—he kissed me there! Kiss me the cheek,—one, and the other! So, brow, cheeks, mouth, and your kisses all have signed me with the sign of the cross. Oh, girl, I am wild with joy!"
She spoke swift and high, held me by the two shoulders with a clasp like steel, suddenly shook me loose, and was down and away.
I followed her again, as by habit,—but more slowly: I was trying to distil her words. I stood then in the door of a little ante-room opening into the drawing-room and looking on the courtyard, and gazed thence at those three pictures, as if it were all a delirament, till out of them Effie stepped in person, and danced, trilling to herself, through the groups, flashing, sparkling, flickering, and disappeared. Oh, but Mrs. Strathsay's eyes gleamed in a proud pleasure after her!
Hoofs were clattering again below in the yard, for Angus was to ride back with Mr. March. Some one came my way,—I shrank through the door-way, shivering from top to toe,—it was Angus searching for his cap; and it was so long since I had suffered him to exchange a word with me! I know not what change was wrought in my bewildered lineaments, what light was in my glance; but, seeing me, all that sedate sadness that weighed upon his manner fell aside, he hastily strode toward me, took my hands as he was wont, and drew me in, gazing the while down my dazzled, happy eyes till they fell.
"Ay, lass," said he then, laughing gleefully as any boy, and catching both of my hands again that I had drawn away. "I've a puzzle of my own to show thee,—a charade of two syllables,—a tiny thing, and yet it holds my world! See, the first!"