Broughton_Nancy.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
well forgive me!" he says, taking my cold and passive hand,
and speaking with an intense though composed mournfulness. " all,
have not done you much harm, have ?--that is no credit to me, know.
would have done, if could, but could not! may as well forgive
me, may not you? forgives!--at least"--(with a sigh of heavy and
apathetic despair)--"so they say!--would _you_ be less clement than ?"
am looking back at him, with a quiet fixedness. no longer feel the
slightest embarrassment in his presence; it no longer disquiets me, that
he should hold my hand.
"," say , speaking slowly, and still with my sunk and tear-dimmed
eyes calmly resting on the dull despair of his, "yes--if you wish--it is
all so long ago--and _she_ liked you!--yes!-- forgive you!"
.
" is enough."
so, as the days go by, the short and silent days, it comes to pass
that a sort of peace falls upon my soul; born of a slow yet deep
assurance that with it is well.
can do with probabilities in prosperity, when to most of us careless
ones it seems no great matter whether there be a or no? all the
world's wheels seem to roll smoothly, as if of themselves, and one can
speculate with a confused curiosity as to the nature of the great far
cause that moves them; but in grief--in the destitute bareness, the
famished hunger of soul, when "one is not," how one craves for
_certainties_! one yearns for the solid heaven of one's childhood;
the harping angels, the never-failing flowers; the pearl gates and
jeweled walls of 's great shining town!
may be gone; know not, but at least _one_ certainty remains--
guaranteed to us by no outside voice, but by the low yet plain tones
that each may listen to in his own heart. , with him who is pure and
just and meek, who hates a lie worse than the sharpness of death, and
loves others dearer than himself, it shall be well.
you ask where? or when? or how? cannot say. know not; only we
know that it shall be well.
, never shall reach 's clear child-faith; , to whom
was as real and certain as ; never shall attain to the steady
confidence of . can but grope dimly with outstretched hands;
sometimes in the outer blackness of a moonless, starless night;
sometimes, with strained eyes catching a glimpse of a glimmer in the
east, can but _feel_ after , as a plant in a dark place feels after
the light.
so the days go by, and as they do, as the first smart of my despair
softens itself into a slow and reverent acquiescence in the 's
will, my thoughts stray carefully, and needfully back over my past life:
they overleap the gulf of 's death and linger long and
wonderingly among the previous months.
a dazed astonishment recall that even then looked upon myself
as one most unprosperous, most sorrowful-hearted.
in 's name ailed me? did lack? jealousy of ,
such a living, stinging, biting thing _then_; how dead it is now!
always said was wrong; always!
his eyes, in the patient mournfulness of their reproachful appeal,
answer again in memory the shrewish violence of my accusation on the
night of the ball--the last embers of my jealousy die. does not love
me as he did; of that am still persuaded. is now, perhaps, there
always will be, a film, a shade between us.
my peevish tears, by my mean and sidelong reproaches, by my sulky
looks, have necessarily diminished, if not quite squandered the stock
of hearty, wholesome, honest love that on that day he so
diffidently laid at my feet. have already marred and blighted a year
and three-quarters of his life. recollect how much older, than me he
is, how much time have already wasted; a pang of remorse, sharp as my
knife, runs through my heart; a great and mighty yearning to go back to
him at once, to begin over again _at once, this very minute_ to begin
over again--overflows and floods my whole being. in the day as it
is--doubly unseemly and ungracious as the confession will seem now--
will tell him of that lie with which first sullied the cleanness of
our union. my face hidden on his broad breast, so that may not
see his eyes, will tell him--yes, will tell him. " will arise, and
go to him, and say, ' have sinned against and before thee.'"
go. am nearing : as reach the churchyard gate, stop
the carriage, and get out.
was always the one that, after any absence from home, used
first to run in search of. will go and seek her now.
is drawing toward dusk as pass, in my long black gown, up the
church-path, between the still and low-lying dead, to the quiet spot
where, with the tree-boughs waving over her, with the ivy hanging the
loose luxuriance of its garlands on the church-yard wall above her head,
our is taking her rest.
near the grave, see that am not its only visitor. one, a
man, is already there, leaning pensively on the railings that surround
it, with his eyes fixed on the dark and winterly earth, and on the
newly-planted, flagging flowers. is . he hears my approaching
steps, the swish of my draperies, he turns; and, by the serene and
lifted gravity of his eyes, see that he has been away in heaven with
. does not speak as come near; only he opens his arms
joyfully, and yet a little diffidently, too, and fly to then.
"!" cry, passionately, with a greedy yearning for human love
here--at this very spot, where so much of the love of my life lies in
death's austere silence at my feet--"love me a little--_ever so little_!
know am not very lovable, but you once liked me, did not you?--not
nearly so much as thought, know, but still _a little_!"
"_ little_!"
" am going to begin all over again!" go on, eagerly, speaking very
quickly, with my arms clasped about his neck, "quite all over again;
indeed am! shall be so different that you will not know me for the
same person, and if--if--" (beginning to falter and stumble)--"if you
still go on liking _her_ best, and thinking her prettier and pleasanter
to talk to--well, you cannot help it, it will not be your fault--and --
--will try not to mind!"
has taken my hands from about his neck, and is holding them warmly,
steadfastly clasped in his own.
"! child!" he cries, "shall _never_ undeceive you? are you still
harping on that old worn-out string?"
"__ it worn out?" ask, anxiously, staring up with my wet eyes
through the deep twilight into his. ", yes!" (going on quickly and
impulsively), "if you say so, will believe it--without another word
will believe it, but--" (with a sudden fall from my high tone, and lapse
into curiosity)--"you know you must have liked her a good deal once--you
know you were engaged to her."
"_ to her!_"
", _were not_ you?"
" never was engaged to any one in my life," he answers with solemn
asseveration; "odd as it may seem, never in my life had asked any
woman to marry me until asked you. had known from a child;
her father was the best and kindest friend ever any man had. he was
dying, he was uneasy in his mind about her, as she was not left well
off, and promised to do what could for her--one does not lightly
break such a promise, does one? was fond of her-- would do her any
good turn could, for old sake's sake, but _marry_ her--be _engaged_ to
her!--"
pauses expressively.
" ! thank !" cry , sobbing hysterically; "it has all come
right, then--!--!"--(burying my tear-stained face in his
breast)--" will tell you _now_--perhaps shall never feel so brave
again!--do not look at me--let me hide my face; want to get it over in
a hurry! you remember--" (sinking my voice to an indistinct and
struggling whisper)--"that night that you asked me about--about
_ _?"
", remember."
, his tone has changed. arms seem to be slackening their
close hold of me.
" not loose me!" cry , passionately; "hold me tight, or can _never_
tell you--how could you expect me? , that night--you know as well as
do-- _lied_."
" _did_?"
hard and quick he is breathing! am glad cannot see his face.
" _was_ there! _did_ cry! she _did_ see me--"
stop abruptly, choked by tears, by shame, by apprehension.
" on!" (spoken with panting shortness).
" met me there!" say, tremulously. " do not know whether he did it
on purpose or not, and said dreadful things! must tell you them?"
(shuddering)--"pah! it makes me sick--he said" (speaking with a
reluctant hurry)--"that he loved me, and that loved him, and that
_hated_ you, and it took me so by surprise--it was all so horrible, and
so different from what had planned, that cried--of course ought
not, but did-- _roared!_"
does not seem to me any thing ludicrous in this mode of
expression, neither apparently does there to him.
"?"
" do not think there is any thing more!" say , slowly and timidly
raising my eyes, to judge of the effect of my confession, "only that
was so _deadly, deadly_ ashamed; thought it was such a shameful thing
to happen to any one that made up my mind would never tell anybody,
and did not."
" is that _all_?" he cries, with an intense and breathless anxiety in
eyes and voice, "are you sure that that is _all_?"
"!" repeat , opening my eyes very wide in astonment; "do not you
think it is _enough_?"
" you sure," he cries, taking my face in his hands, and narrowly,
searchingly regarding it--"! child!--to-day let us have nothing--
_nothing_ but truth--are you sure that you did not a little regret that
it must be so--that you did not feel it a little hard to be forever tied
to my gray hairs--my eight-and-forty years?"
"!" cry , snatching away my hands, and putting them over my ears.
" will not listen to you!--what do care for your forty-eight years?--
you were a hundred--two hundred--what is it to me?--what do care--
love you! love you! love you-- my darling, how stupid you have been
not to see it all along!"
so it comes to pass that by 's grave we kiss again with
tears. now we are happy--stilly, inly happy, though , perhaps, am
never quite so boisterously gay as before the grave yawned for my
; and we walk along hand-in-hand down the slopes and up the hills
of life, with our eyes fixed, as far as the weakness of our human sight
will let us, on the one dread, yet good , whom through the veil of
his great deeds we dimly discern. wish that were not
nine-and-twenty years older than !