“A year ago I was myself intensely miserable,because I thought I had made a mistake in entering the ministry:its uniform duties wearied me to death.I burnt for the more active life of the world—for the more exciting toils of a literary career—for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate’s surplice. I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds—my powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary.
“A missionary I resolved to be.From that moment my state of mind changed;the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty,leaving nothing of bondage but its galling soreness—which time only can heal.My father, indeed, imposed the determination,but since his death,I have not a legitimate obstacle to contend with;some affairs settled, a successor for Morton provided,an entanglement or two of the feelings broken through or cut asunder—a last conflict with human weakness, in which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed that I _will_ overcome—and I leave Europe for the East.”
He said this, in his peculiar, subdued,yet emphatic voice; looking,when he had ceased speaking, not at me,but at the setting sun, at which I looked too.Both he and I had our backs towards the path leading up the field to the wicket. We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the water running in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and scene; we might well then start when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed—
“Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo.Your dog is quicker to recognise his friends than you are,sir; he pricked his ears and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have your back towards me now.”
It was true. Though Mr.Rivers had started at the first of those musical accents,as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head,he stood yet, at the close of the sentence,in the same attitude in which the speaker had surprised him—his arm resting on the gate, his face directed towards the west. He turned at last, with measured deliberation. A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side. There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white—a youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in contour; and when, after bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and threw back a long veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of perfect beauty. Perfect beauty is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified, in this instance, the term. No charm was wanting, no defect was perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the white smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich, plenteous tresses—all advantages, in short, which, combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were fully hers. I wondered, as I looked at this fair creature: I admired her with my whole heart. Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, with a grand-dame’s bounty.
What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel?I naturally asked myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her;and, as naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance.He had already withdrawn his eye from the Peri,and was looking at a humble tuft of daisies which grew by the wicket.
“A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone,” he said, as he crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot.
“Oh, I only came home from S——” (she mentioned the name of a large town some twenty miles distant) “this afternoon. Papa told me you had opened your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this is she?” pointing to me.
“It is,” said St. John.
“Do you think you shall like Morton?” she asked of me, with a direct and naïve simplicity of tone and manner,pleasing, if child-like.
“I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so.”
“Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected?”
“Quite.”
“Do you like your house?”
“Very much.”
“Have I furnished it nicely?”
“Very nicely, indeed.”
“And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?”
“You have indeed. She is teachable and handy.” (This then, I thought, is Miss Oliver, the heiress;favoured, it seems, in the gifts of fortune,as well as in those of nature!What happy combination of the planets presided over her birth, I wonder?)
“I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes,” she added. “It will be a change for me to visit you now and then;and I like a change. Mr. Rivers,I have been _so_ gay during my stay at S——. Last night, or rather this morning,I was dancing till two o’clock. The ——th regiment are stationed there since the riots;and the officers are the most agreeable men in the world:they put all our young knife-grinders and scissor merchants to shame. ”
It seemed to me that Mr. St. John’s under lip protruded,and his upper lip curled a moment.His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed,and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square,as the laughing girl gave him this information.He lifted his gaze, too, from the daisies,and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a searching,a meaning gaze it was.She answered it with a second laugh,and laughter well became her youth, her roses,her dimples, her bright eyes.
As he stood, mute and grave,she again fell to caressing Carlo.“Poor Carlo loves me,” said she.“_He_ is not stern and distant to his friends;and if he could speak, he would not be silent.”
As she patted the dog’s head,bending with native grace before his young and austere master,I saw a glow rise to that master’s face.I saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire,and flicker with resistless emotion.Flushed and kindled thus,he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she for a woman.His chest heaved once, as if his large heart,weary of despotic constriction, had expanded,despite the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty.But he curbed it, I think,as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed.He responded neither by word nor movement to the gentle advances made him.
“Papa says you never come to see us now,” continued Miss Oliver, looking up.“You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall.He is alone this evening, and not very well:will you return with me and visit him?”
“It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver,” answered St. John.
“Not a seasonable hour!But I declare it is.It is just the hour when papa most wants company:when the works are closed and he has no business to occupy him.Now, Mr. Rivers, _do_ come. Why are you so very shy, and so very sombre?” She filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of her own.