Books: Love Me Little, Love Me Long

C >> Charles Reade >> Love Me Little, Love Me Long

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He found the drawing-room empty. He rang the bell. "Where is Miss
Fountain?" John didn't know, but supposed she had gone to her room.

"You don't know? You never know anything. Send her maid to me."

The maid came and courtesied demurely at the door.

"Tell your mistress I want to speak to her directly--before she
undresses."

The maid went out, and soon returned to say that her mistress had
retired to rest; but that, if he pleased, she would rise, and just
make a demi-toilet, and come to him. This smooth and fair-sounding
proposal was not, I grieve to say, so graciously received as offered.
"Much obliged," snapped old Fountain. "Her _demi-toilette_ will
keep me another hour out of my bed, and I get no sleep after dinner
now _among you._ Tell her to-morrow at breakfast time will do."

CHAPTER IV.

DAVID DODD was so radiant and happy for a day or two that Eve had not
the heart to throw cold water on him again.

Three days elapsed, and no invitation to Font Abbey; on this his
happiness cooled of itself. But when day after day rolled by, and no
Font Abbey, he was dashed, uneasy, and, above all, perplexed. What
could be the reason? Had he, with his rough ways, offended her? Had
she been too dignified to resent it at the time? Was he never to go to
Font Abbey again? Eve's first feeling was unmixed satisfaction. We
have seen already that she expected no good from this rash attachment.
For a single moment her influence and reasons had seemed to wean David
from it; but his violent agitation and joy at two words of kindly
curiosity from Miss Fountain, and the instant unreasonable revival of
love and hope, showed the strange power she had acquired over him. It
made Eve tremble.

But now the Fountains were aiding her to cure this folly. She had read
them right, had described them to David aright. A wind of caprice had
carried him and her into Font Abbey; another such wind was carrying
them out. No event had happened. Mr. and Miss Fountain had been seen
more than once in the village of late. "They have dropped us, and
thank Heaven!" said Eve, in her idiomatic way.

She pitied David deeply, and was kinder and kinder to him now, to show
him she felt for him; but she never mentioned the Font Abbey people to
him either to praise or blame them, though it was all she could do to
suppress her satisfaction at the turn their insolent caprice had
taken.

That satisfaction was soon clouded. This time, instead of rousing
himself and his pride, David sank into a moody despondency; varied by
occasional fretfulness. His appetite went, and his bright color, and
his elastic step. This silent sadness was so new in him, such a
contrast to his natural temperature, large, genial, and ever cheerful,
that Eve could not bear it. "I must shake him out of this, at all
hazards," thought she: yet she put off the experiment, and put it off,
partly in hopes that David would speak first, partly because she saw
the wound she would probe was deep, and she winced beforehand for her
patient.

Meantime, prolonged doubt and suspense now goaded with their
intolerable stings the active spirit that chill misgivings had at
first benumbed. Spurred into action by these torments, David had
already watched several days in the neighborhood of Font Abbey,
determined to speak to Miss Fountain, and find out whether he had
given her offense; for this was still his uppermost idea. Having
failed in this attempt at an interview with her, he was now meditating
a more resolute course, and he paced the little gravel-walk at home
debating in himself the pros and cons. Raising his head suddenly, he
saw his sister walking slowly at the other end of the path. She was
coming toward him, but her eyes were bent thoughtfully on the ground.
David slipped behind some bushes, not to have his unhappiness and his
meditations interrupted. The lover and the lunatic have points in
common.

He had been there some time when a grave little voice spoke quietly to
him from the lawn. "David, I want to speak to you." David came out.

"Here am I."

"Oh, I knew where you were. Don't do that again, sir, please, or
you'll catch it."

"Oh, I didn't think you saw me," said David, somewhat confusedly.

"What has that to do with it, stupid? David," continued she, assuming
a benevolent, cheerful, and somewhat magnificent nonchalance, "I
sometimes wonder you don't come to me with your troubles. I might
advise you as well as here and there one. But perhaps you think now,
because I am naturally gay, I am not sensible. You mustn't go by that
altogether. Manner is very deceiving. The most foolishly conducted men
and women ever I met were as grave as judges, and as demure as cats
after cream. Bless you, there is folly in every heart. Your slow ones
bottle it up for use against the day wisdom shall be most needed. My
sort let it fizz out at their mouths in their daily talk, and keep
their good sense for great occasions, like the present."

"Have we drifted among the proverbs of Solomon?" inquired David,
dryly. "No need to make so many tacks, Eve. Haven't I seen your sense
and profited by it--I and one or two more? Who but you has steered the
house this ten years, and commanded the lubberly crew?"*

* The reader must not be misled by the familiar phraseology of these
two speakers to suppose that anything the least droll or humorous was
intended by either of them at any part of this singular dialogue.
Their hearts were sad and their faces grave.

"And then again, David, where the heart is concerned, young women are
naturally in advance of young men."

"God knows. He made them both. I don't."

"Why, all the world knows it. And then, besides, I am five years older
than you.

"So mother says; but I don't know how to believe it. No one would say
so to look at you."

"I'll tell you, David. Folk that have small features look a deal
younger than their years; and you know poor father used to say my face
was the pattern of a flat-iron. So nobody gives me my age; but I am
five good years older than you, only you needn't go and tell the town
crier."

"Well, Eve?"

"Well, then, put all these together, and now, why not come to me for
friendly advice and the voice of reason?"

"Reason! reason! there are other lights besides reason."

"Jack-o'-lantern, eh? and Will-o'-the-wisp."

"Eve, nobody can advise me that can't feel for me. Nobody can feel for
me that doesn't know my pain; and you don't know that, because you
were never in love."

"Oh, then, if I had ever been in love, you would listen."

"As I would to an angel from Heaven."

"And be advised by me."

"Why not? for then you'd be competent to advise; but now you haven't
an idea what you are talking about."

"What a pity! Don't you think it would be as well if you were not to
speak to me so sulky?"

"I ask your pardon; Eve. I did not mean to offend you."

"Davy, dear--for God's sake what is this chill that has come between
you and me? You are a man. Speak out like a man."

David turned his great calm, sorrowful eye full upon her.

"Well, then, Eve, if the truth must be told, I am disappointed in
you."

"Oh, David."

"A little. You are not the girl I took you for. You know which way my
fancy lies, yet you keep steering me in the teeth of it; then you see
how down-hearted I am this while, but not a word of comfort or hope
comes from you, and me almost dried up for want of one."

"Make one word of it, David--I am not a sister to you."

"I don't say that, but you might be kinder; you are against me just
when I want you with me the most."

"Now this is what I like," said Eve, cheerfully; "this is plain
speaking. So now it is my turn, my lad. Do you remember Balaam and his
ass?"

"Sure," said David; but, used as he was to Eve's transitions, he
couldn't help staring a little at being carried eastward ho so
suddenly.

"Then what did the ass say when she broke silence at last?"

"Well, you know, Eve; I take shame to say I don't remember her very
words, but the tune of them I do. Why, she sang out, 'Avast there! it
is first fault, so you needn't be so hasty with your thundering rope's
end."'

"There! You'd make a nice commentator. You haven't taken it up one
bit; you are as much in the dark as our parson. He preached on her the
very Sunday you came home, and it was all I could do to help whipping
up into the pulpit, and snatching away his book, and letting daylight
in on them."

David was scandalized at the very idea of such a breach of discipline.
"That is ridiculous," said he; "one can't have two skippers in a
church any more than in a ship, brig, or bark. But you can let
daylight in on me."

"I mean. To begin: the ass was in the right and Balaam in the wrong;
so what becomes of your 'first fault?' She was frugal of her words,
but every syllable was a needle; the worst is, some skins are so thick
our needles won't enter 'em. Says she, 'This seven years you have
known me; always true to the bridle and true to you. Did ever I
disobey you before? Then why go and fancy I do it without some great
cause that you can't see?' Then the man's eyes were open, and he saw
it was destruction his old friend had run back from, and galled his
foot to save his life; so of course he thanked her, and blessed her
then. Not he. He was too much of a man."

"Ay, ay, I see; but what is the moral? for I have no heart to expound
riddles."

"Oh, I'll tell you the moral sooner than you'll like, perhaps. The ass
is a type, David. In Holy Writ you know almost everything is a type.
When a thing means one thing and stands for another, that's a type."

"Ducks can swim--at least I've heard so. Now if you could tell me what
she is a type of?"

"What, the ass? Don't you know? Why, of women, to be sure--of us poor
creatures of burden, underrated and misunderstood all the world over.
And Balaam he stands for men, and for you at the head of them," cried
she, turning round with flashing eyes on David; "you have known me and
my true affection more than seven years, or seventeen. I carried you
in my arms when you were a year old and I was six. You were my little
curly-headed darling, and have been from that day to this. Did ever I
cross you, or be cold or unkind to you, till the other day?"

"No, Eve, no, no, no! Come sit beside me.

"Then shouldn't you have said, 'Don't slobber _me;_ I won't have
it; you and I are bad friends.' Oughtn't you to have said, 'Eve could
never give herself the pain of crossing me' (no, there isn't a man in
the world with gumption enough to say that--that is a woman's
thought); but at least you might have said, 'She sees rocks ahead that
I can't.' (Balaam couldn't see the drawn sword ahead, but there it
was.) it was for you to say, 'My sister Eve would not change from gay
to grave all at once, and from indulging me in everything to thwarting
me and vexing me, unless she saw some great danger threatening your
peace of mind, your career in life, your very reason, perhaps.'"

"I have been to blame, Eve; but speak out and let me know the worst.
You have heard something against her character? Speak plain out, for
Heaven's sake!"

"It is all very well of you to say speak plain out, but there are
things girls don't like to speak about to any man. But after what you
said, that you would listen to me if I--so it is my duty. You will see
my face red enough in about a minute. Two years ago I couldn't have
done this even for you. It is hard I must expose my own folly--my own
crime."

"Why, Eve, lass, how you tremble! Drop it now! drop it!"

"Hold your tongue!" said Eve, sharply, but in considerable agitation.
"It is too late now, after something you have said to me. If I didn't
speak out now, I should be like that bad man you told us of, who let
out the beacon light when the wind was blowing hard on shore. Listen,
David, and take my words to heart. The road you are on now I have been
upon, only I went much farther on it than you shall go." She resumed
after a short pause: "You remember Henry Dyke?"

"What, the young clergyman, who used to be always alongside you at our
last anchorage?"

"Yes. He was just such a man as Miss Fountain is a woman. He was but a
dish of skim-milk, yet he could poison my life."

Then Eve told the story of her heart. She described her lover as he
appeared to her in the early days of courtship, young, handsome, good,
noble in sentiment, and warm and tender in manner. Halcyon days--not a
speck to be seen on love's horizon.

Then she delineated the fine gradations by which the illusion faded,
too slowly and too late for her to withdraw the love she had conceived
for his person at that time when person and mind seemed alike
superior. She painted with the delicate touch of her sex the portrait
of a man and a scholar born to please all the world, and incapable of
condensing his affections; a pious flirt, no longer stimulated to
genuine ardor by doubts of success, but too kind-hearted to pain her
beyond measure when a little factitious warmth from time to time would
give her hours of happiness, keep her, on the whole, content, and,
above all, retain her his. Then she shifted the mirror to herself, the
fiery and faithful one, and showed David what centuries of torture a
good little creature like this Dyke, with its charming exterior, could
make a quick, and ardent, and devoted nature suffer in a year or two.
Came out in her narrative, link by link, the gentle delicious
complacency of the first period, the chill airs that soon ruffled it,
the glowing hopes, the misgivings that dashed them; then the
diminution of confidence, more complexing and exasperating than its
utter loss; the alternations of joy and doubt, the fever and the ague
of the wounded spirit; then the gusts of hatred followed by deeper
love; later still, the periodical irritation at hopes long deferred,
and still gleams of bliss between the paroxysms, so that now, as the
vulgar say in their tremendous Saxon, she "spent her time between
heaven and hell"; last of all, the sickness and recklessness of the
wornout and wearied heart over which melancholy or fury impended.

It was at this crisis when, as she could now see on a calm retrospect,
her mind was distempered, a new and terrible passion stepped upon the
scene--jealousy. A friend came and whispered her, "Mr. Dyke was
courting another woman at the same time, and that other woman was
rich."

"David, at that word a flash of lightning seemed to go through me, and
show me the man as he really was."

"The mean scoundrel, to sell himself for money!!"

"No, David, he would not have sold himself, with his eyes open, any
more than perhaps your Miss Fountain would; but what little heart he
had he could give to any girl that was not a fright. He was a
self-deceiver and a general lover, and such characters and their
affections sink by nature to where their interest lies. Iron is not
conscious, yet it creeps toward the loadstone. Well, while she was
with me I held up and managed to question her as coldly as I speak to
you now, but as soon as she left me I went off in violent hysterics."

"Poor Eve!"

"She had not been gone an hour when doesn't the Devil put it into
_his_ head to send me a long, affectionate letter, and in the
postscript he invited himself to supper the same afternoon. Then I got
up and dried my eyes, and I seemed to turn into stone with resolution.
'Come!' I said, 'but don't think you shall ever go back to her. Your
troubles and mine shall end to-night.'"

"Why, Eve, you turn pale with thinking of it. I fear you have had
worse thoughts pass through your mind than any man is worth."

"David, your blood was in my veins, and mine is in yours.

"If I didn't think so! The Lord deliver us from temptation! We don't
know ourselves nor those we love."

"He had driven me mad."

"Mad, indeed. What! had you the heart to see the man bleed to
death--the man you had loved--you, my little gentle Eve?"

"Oh no, no; no blood!" said Eve, with a shudder. "Laudanum!"

"Good God!"

"Oh, I see your thought. No, I was not like the men in the newspapers,
that kill the poor woman with a sure hand, and then give themselves a
scratch. It was to be one spoonful for him, but two for me. I can't
dwell on it" (and she hid her face in her hands); "it is too terrible
to remember how far I was misled. Who, think you, saved us both?"
David could not guess.

"A little angel--my good angel, that came home from sea that very
afternoon. When I saw your curly head, and your sweet, sunburned face
come in at the door, guess if I thought of putting death in the pot
after that? Ah! the love of our own flesh and blood, that is the
love--God and good angels can smile on it."

"Yes; but go on," said David, impatiently.

"It is ended, David. They say a woman's heart is a riddle, and perhaps
you will think so when I tell you that when he had brought me down to
this, and hadn't died for it, I turned as cold as ice to him that
minute, once and forever. I looked back at the precipice, and I hated
him. Ay, from that evening he was like the black dog to my eye. I used
to slip anywhere to hide out of his way--just as you did out of mine
but now."

"Can't you forget that? Well, to be sure. Well?"

"So then (now you may learn what these skim-milk cheeses are made of),
when he found he was my aversion, he fell in love with me again as hot
as ever; tried all he could think of to win me back; wrote a letter
every day; came to me every other day; and when he saw it was all over
for good between us he cried and bellowed till my hate all went, and
scorn came in its place. Next time we met he played quite another
part--the calm, heart-broken Christian; gave me his blessing; went
down on his knees, and prayed a beautiful prayer, that took me off my
guard and made me almost respect him; then went away, and quietly
married the girl with money; and six months after wrote to me he was
miserable, dated from the vicarage her parents had got him."

"Now, you know, if he wasn't a parson, d--n me if I'd turn in to-night
till I'd rope's-ended that lubber!"

"As if I'd let you dirty your hands with such rubbish! I sent the note
back to him with just one line, 'Such a fool as you are has no right
to be a villain.' There, David, there is your poor sister's life. Oh,
what I went through for that man! Often I said, is Heaven just, to let
a poor, faithful, loving girl, who has done no harm, be played with on
the hook, and tortured hot and cold, day after day, month after month,
year after year, as I was? But now I see why it was permitted; it was
for your sake, that you might profit by my sharp experience, and not
fling your heart away on frozen mud, as I did;" and, happy in this
feminine theory of Divine justice, Eve rested on her brother a look
that would have adorned a seraph, then took him gently round the neck
and laid her little cheek flat to his.

She felt as if she had just saved a beloved life.

Who can estimate the value of a happiness so momentary, yet so holy?

Presently looking up, she saw David's face illuminated. "What is it?"
she asked joyously; "you look pleased."

David was "pleased because now he was sure she could feel for him, and
would side with him."

"That I do; but, David, as it is all over between you and her--"

"All over? Am I dead then?"

Eve gasped with astonishment: "Why, what have I been telling you all
this for?"

"Who should you tell your trouble to but your own brother? Why,
Eve--ha! ha!--you don't really see any likeness between your case and
mine, do you? You are not so blind as to compare her with that
thundering muff?"

"They are brother and sister, as we are," was the reply. "Ever since I
saw you looked her way, my eye has hardly been off her, and she is
Henry Dyke in petticoats."

"I don't thank you for saying that. Well, and if she is, what has that
to do with it? I am not a woman. I am not forced to lie to waiting for
a wind, as the girls are. I am a man. I can work for the wish of my
heart, and, if it does not come to meet me, I can overhaul it." Eve
was a little staggered by this thrust, but she was not one to show an
antagonist any advantage he had obtained. "David," said she, coldly,
"it must come to one of two things; either she will send you about
your business in form, which is a needless affront for you and me
both, or she will hold you in hand, and play with you and drive you
_mad._ Take warning; remember what is in our blood. Father was as
well as you are, but agitation and vexation robbed him of his reason
for a while; and you and I are his children. Milk of roses creeps
along in that young lady's veins, but fire gallops in ours. Give her
up, David, as she has you. She has let you escape; don't fly back like
a moth to the candle! You shan't, however; I won't let you."

"Eve," said David, quietly, "you argue well, but you can't argue light
into dark, nor night into day. She is the sun to me. I have seen her
light; and now I can't live without it."

He added, more calmly: "It is her or none. I never saw a girl but this
that I wanted to see twice, and I never shall."

"But it is that which frightens me for you, David. Often I have wished
I could see you flirt a bit and harden your heart."

"And break some poor girl's."

"Oh, hang them! they always contrive to pass it on. What do I care for
girls! they are not my brother. But no, David, I can't believe you
will go against me and my judgment after the insult she has put on
you. No more about it, but just you choose between my respect and this
wild-goose chase."

"I choose both," said David, quietly. "Both you shan't have"; and,
with this, up bounced Eve, and stood before him bristling like a
cat-o'mountain. David tried to soothe her--to coax her--in vain; her
cheek was on fire, and her eyes like basilisks'. It was a picture to
see the pretty little fury stand so erect and threatening, great David
so humble and deprecating, yet so dogged. At last he took out his
knife; it was not one of your stabbing-knives, but the sort of
pruning-knife that no sailor went without in those days. "Now," said
he, sadly, "take and cut my head off--cut me to pieces, if you will--I
won't wince or complain; and then you will get your way; but while I
do live I shall love her, and I can't afford to lose her by sitting
twiddling my thumbs, waiting for luck. I'll try all I know to win her,
and if I lose her I won't blame her, but myself for not finding out
how to please her; and with that I'll live a bachelor all my days for
her, or else die, just as God wills--I shan't much care which."

"Oh, I know you, you obstinate toad," said Eve, clinching her teeth
and her little hand. Then she burst out furiously: "Are you quite
resolved?"

"Quite, dear Eve," said David, sadly--but somehow it was like a rock
speaking.

"Then there is my hand," said Eve, with an instant transition to
amiable cheerfulness that dazzled a body like a dark lantern flying
open. Used as David was to her, it stupefied him; he stared at her,
and was all abroad. "Well, what is the wonder now?" inquired Eve;
"there are but two of us. We must be together somehow or another must
we not? You won't be wise with me; well, then, I'll be a fool with
you. I'll help you with this girl."

"Oh, my dear Eve!"

"You won't gain much. Without me you hadn't the shadow of a chance,
and with me you haven't a chance, that is all the odds."

"I have! I have! you have taken away my breath with joy;" and David
was quite overcome with the turn Eve had taken in his favor.

"Oh, you need not thank me," said Eve, tossing her head with a
hypocrisy all her own. "It is not out of affection for you I do it,
you may be very sure of that; but it looks so ridiculous to see my
brother slipping out of my way behind a tree as soon as he sees me
coming--oh! oh! oh! oh!" And a violent burst of sobs and tears
revealed how that incident had rankled in this stoical little heart.

David, with the tear in his own eye, clasped her in his arms, and
kissed her and coaxed her and begged her again and again to forgive
him. This she did internally at the first word; but externally no;
pouted and sobbed till she had exacted her full tribute, then cleared
up with sudden alacrity and inquired his plans.

"I am going to call at Font Abbey, and find out whether I have
offended her."

Eve demurred, "That would never do. You would betray yourself and
there would be an end of you. How good I am not to let you go. No,
I'll call there. I shall quietly find out whether it is her doing that
we have not been invited so long, or whose it is. You stay where you
are. I won't be a minute."

When the minute was thirty-five, David came under her window and
called her. She popped her head out: "Well?"

"What are you doing?"

"Putting on my bonnet."

"Why, you have been an hour."

"You wouldn't have me go there a fright, would you?"

At last she came down and started for Font Abbey, and David was left
to count the minutes till her return. He paced the gravel sailor-wise,
taking six steps and then turning, instead of going in each direction
as far as he could. He longed and feared his sister's return. One
hour--two hours elapsed; still he walked a supposed deck on the little
lawn--six steps and then turn. At last he saw her coming in the
distance; he ran to meet her; but when he came up with her he did not
speak, but looked wistfully in her face, and tried hard to read it and
his fate.

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