“I left off with a half-finished
sentence. Mrs. Harrington’s maid broke
in upon me at the moment with a message from the young
master, as she calls him. In a hollow among the
hills he has found a pond of water-lilies, and I must
hasten to see them unfold their snowy hearts to the
morning sun, after sleeping all night upon the lake.
“Will I go? Surely one
of those lotus flowers never thrilled a more grateful
response to the wave that sways it, than my heart gives
back to his wish will I go? Those
sleeping buds will not answer the sunbeams that kiss
them into another day of bloom, more gladly than I
take the happiness he offers. I have been restless
and sad all night, and my heart leaps to this new
prospect of pleasure, as a bird flutters forth from
the shadowy leaves where it has spent the dark hours.
“The lotus pond was like a fairy
lake, when we reached it; the banks were festooned
and garlanded with wild vines, prairie roses, and yellow
jessamines, overrunning whole hedgerows of swamp magnolias,
whose blended odor floated like a mist over the waters.
Here and there an oak, with long, hoary moss bearding
its limbs, lifted whole masses of this entangled foliage
into the air, and flung it back again in a thousand
garlands and blooming streamers, that rippled dreamily
in the waters of the lake. As we came up, an
oriole had lighted on one of these pendant branches,
and poured a flood of song over us as we passed down
to the boat, which lay in a pretty cove ready to receive
us.
“An old negro sat in the boat,
lazily waiting our approach, with his face bowed upon
his brawny bosom, and the sun striking through the
branches upon a head that seemed covered with crisp
frost, age had so completely whitened his hair.
A word from the young master roused the slumbering
old man; and, with a broad grin of delight, he proceeded
to arrange the crimson cushions, and trim his sails,
making haste to put forth on our cruise along the
shore, which was starred with opening lotus blossoms,
and green with their broad-floating leaves.
“It made my heart thrill with
a sort of pain, as our boat ploughed through this
exquisite sheet of blossoms for, as I have
said before, it has always seemed to me like uprooting
a tender thought when a flower is torn from its stem.
I said something like this, as Harrington laid a handful
of the open flowers in my lap. He looked at me
steadily for a moment muttered that it
was a strange fancy but plucked no more
water-lilies that day. After a time, when the
old man, thinking to please us, commenced to tear
them up by the roots, Harrington rebuked him for his
roughness, and bade him trim the boat for a sail across
the lake.
“I wonder why it is, that, when
we feel deepest, a disposition to silence always holds
the senses in thralldom. I did not speak half
a dozen words, as our boat sped like a bird across
the lake; and yet my heart was full of happiness,
for Harrington had his dark eyes fixed with a sort
of dreamy earnestness on my face all the time.
A consciousness so strange, and almost delirious,
seized upon me, that I could neither look up nor speak,
but bowed my head over the blossoms in my lap, whispering
to them what had never been uttered in words, and
never perhaps, may be.
“While we sat thus in mute happiness,
with nothing but the ripple of the boat to break the
exquisite joy of our silence, the oriole began to sing
again, and his mate answered back the song from across
the lake. I looked up, and met his eyes:
a flush came to his forehead, and I felt the warm
blood burning over my cheeks and forehead. His
lips parted, and for one instant he took my hand,
but only to drop it among the cold water-lilies again,
as if some distressing thought had aroused him to
painful consciousness. Why was this? how came
it that he relinquished my hand so abruptly?
Was he shocked with my upward glances did
he think my recognition of his thoughts unmaidenly?
“The orioles ceased to sing
just then, and a sullen cloud came sweeping over us,
which broke upon the pond in a sudden squall of wind.
Before the old man could reef his sail, it gave way,
and fluttered out, like the wounded wing of a bird,
bearing our boat with it. The first plunge cast
me forward at Harrington’s feet; he caught me
to his bosom, pressing me there with one arm, while
he drew in the sail with the other.
“The wind rose high, tearing
in a tornado across the pond; but, I am sure sure
as I am of the beating of my own heart, that Harrington
trembled from other causes than the danger we were
in. Twice he bent his lips to my face, but checked
himself with murmurs which the cruel wind carried
from me.
“I do not know how we reached
the shore, or why it was that we walked in such profound
silence homeward but this I do know, another
hour like that would have broken my heart with its
wealth of happiness.
“I could not sleep last night,
but lay quietly, with my hands folded softly over
my bosom as had been a childish habit, thinking over
that sail upon the lotus pond. The moonbeams
stole into my room, penetrating the roses that hung
around the casement, and bringing their odor softly
around my couch. This rendered my happiness complete.
“The morning found me wakeful,
but when it brightened into day, I closed my eyes,
and turned my head upon the pillow, ashamed that the
broad light should witness my happiness.
“How sudden this is. Mrs.
Harrington has been fading away for a month.
Her physician recommends change of climate, and in
ten days we all start for Madeira, or perhaps, Spain.
He goes with us, and I am content.
“On shipboard at last!
Here I sit in my little cabin and listen to the heaving
of the waves against the vessel, as it ploughs proudly
along, as if full of the consciousness of its own
strength, and defying the very elements to impede
its progress.
“The past ten days have been
one continued fever of excitement, and I have scarcely
opened my journal. This trip to Europe was finally
decided upon in such haste, that we have known hardly
a moment of rest.
“We were on board this morning
at ten o’clock, and two hours after, New York
lay stretched out behind us on the shore of its beautiful
bay, like some enchanted city asleep in the sunlight.
“All that was dear to me stood
by my side, so I had no sorrow at my departure, beyond
the natural feeling of regret that all must feel on
quitting their native land. I could not understand
Mrs. Harrington’s burst of grief, so unlike
her usual quiet demeanor. She has not seemed
much in favor of this voyage, although she made no
opposition when certain how greatly her husband desired
to go. There has been a strange unrest about
her for days, that I could not comprehend, but from
a few words she unthinkingly uttered this morning,
I imagine her to be haunted by one of those morbid
fancies, which at times seize upon the strongest mind,
in the eve of a long journey the idea that
she will never again behold the land she is leaving
behind.
“She has been laying down in
her cabin all day, for she suffers greatly, and I
spent several hours with her, but at sunset James called
me on deck. We stood side by side at the stern
of the ship, and saw the sun go down behind a mass
of clouds more gorgeous than I ever beheld. The
western sky seemed alive with molten flame great
billows of crimson rolled up against the amber waves
of light the sun had left behind, streaming down over
the waters, like a torrent of rainbows, until one
could scarce tell which was sea and which sky.
“We stood there until the latest
glories died, and then the moon stole slowly up, with
only one star beside her, like the one bright hope
of a human heart. We conversed but little.
My soul was too full of the home we had left, and
I knew, by the expression of Harrington’s face,
that he understood and shared my feelings. It
was late when I left him, and I cannot write more.
My hand is tremulous with the strange feelings which
thrill at my heart; the excitement of these last few
days has been too much for me, but in the quiet of
this new life I shall grow calm again, perhaps.
Just now something of Mrs. Harrington’s fears
seems to oppress me.
“A month has passed. Our
voyage is almost at an end, for to-morrow the captain
promises that we shall be safely anchored in the harbor
of Cadiz. The sun went down this evening in an
embankment of clouds, shedding pale, watery gleams
upon the sea, that threatened rough weather.
As the darkness came on, the clouds spread upward,
blackening the whole sky, and flashes of lightning
now and then tore through them, like fiery chain shot
through the smoke of a battle. There was consternation
on board, for we were nearing the coast, and a storm
like this threatened danger.
“I remained on deck till the
rising wind almost swept me over the bulwarks.
James Harrington was with me, and as the lightning
gleamed athwart his face, I saw that it was anxious
and very pale. He strove to appear unconcerned,
and went down to the cabin, with a strong effort at
cheerfulness, which neither deceived me, nor checked
the terrible fears of his poor mother. General
Harrington had retired to his state-room, where he
sat in moody silence, wrapped in a large travelling
cloak. When his invalid wife joined him, trembling
with nervous terror, he only folded his cloak the
tighter around himself, and muttered that she need
apprehend no danger.
“Young Mr. Harrington wrung
my hand with more of warmth than he had ever exhibited
before, when he bade me good night. He has gone
on deck, while I am cowering in my state-room, unable
to seek rest, and striving to write, though the storm
is howling louder and louder, and every lurch of the
ship flings the book from my lap.”