Sandra Belloni (originally Emilia in England). Complete

“Well, and why are you here, my dear?” Mr. Pole was beginning to step to the right and the left of her uneasily.

“I have come—” she paused, with a curious quick speculating look between her eyes; “I have come to see you.”

“See me, my dear? You saw me this morning.”

“Yes; I wanted to see you alone.”

Emilia was having the first conflict with her simplicity; out of which it was not to issue clear, as in the foregone days. She was thinking of the character of the man she spoke to, studying him, that she might win him to succour the object she had in view. It was a quality going, and a quality coming; nor will we, if you please, lament a law of growth.

“Why, you can see me alone, any day, my dear,” said Mr. Pole; “for many a day, I hope.”

“You are more alone to me here. I cannot speak at Brookfield. Oh!”—and Emilia had to still her heart’s throbbing—“you do not want me to go to Italy, do you?”

“Want you to go? Not a bit. There is some talk of it, isn’t there? I don’t want you to go. Don’t you want to go.”

“No! no!” said Emilia, with decisive fervour.

“Don’t want to go?”

“No: to stay! I want to stay!”

“Eh? to stay?”

“To stay with you! Never to leave England, at least! I want to give up all that I may stay.”

“All?” repeated Mr. Pole, evidently marvelling as to what that sounding box might contain; and still more, perplexed to hear Emilia’s vehement—“Yes! all!” as if there were that in the mighty abnegation to make a reasonable listener doubtful.

“No. I really don’t want you to go,” he said. “In fact,” and the merchant’s hospitable nature was at war with something in his mind, “I like you, my dear; I like to have you about me. You’re cheerful; you’re agreeable; I like your smile; your voice, too. You’re a very pleasant companion. Only, you know, we may break up our house. If the girls get married, I must live somewhere in lodgings, and I couldn’t very well ask you to cook for me.”

“I can cook a little,” Emilia smiled. “I went into the kitchen, till Adela objected.”

“Yes, but it wouldn’t do, you know,” pursued Mr. Pole, with the seriousness of a man thrown out of his line of argument. “You can cook, eh? Got an idea of it? I always said you were a useful little woman. Do have a biscuit and some wine:—No? well, where was I?—That confounded boy. Brainty-top, top! that’s it Braintop. Was I talking of him, my dear? Oh no! about your getting married. For if you can cook, why not? Get a husband and then you won’t got to Italy. You ought to get one. Some young fellows don’t look for money.”

“I shall make money come, in time,” said Emilia; in the leaping ardour of whose eyes might be seen that what she had journeyed to speak was hot within her. “I know I shall be worth having. I shall win a name, I think—I do hope it!”

“Well, so Pericles says. He’s got a great notion of you. Perhaps he means it himself. He’s rich. Rash, I admit. But, as the chances go, he’s tremendously rich. He may mean it.”

“What?” asked Emilia.

“Marry you, you know.”

“Ah, what a torture!”

In that heat of her feelings she realized the horror of the words to her, with an intensity that made them seem to quiver like an arrow in her breast.

“You don’t like him?” said Mr. Pole.

“Not love him! not love him!”

“Yes, yes, but that comes after marriage. Often the case. Look here: don’t you go against your interests. You mustn’t be flighty. If Pericles speaks to you, have him. Clap your hands. Dozens of girls would, that I know.”

“But, oh!” interposed Emilia; “if he married me he would kiss me!”

Mr. Pole coughed and blinked. “Well!” he remarked, as one gravely cogitating; and with the native delicacy of a Briton turned it off in a playful, “So shall I now,” adding, “though I ain’t your husband.”

He stooped his head. Emilia put her hands on his shoulders, and submitted her face to him.

“There!” went Mr. Pole: “‘pon my honour, it does me good:—better than medicine! But you mustn’t give that dose to everybody, my dear. You don’t, of course. All right, all right—I’m quite satisfied. I was only thinking of you going to Italy, among those foreign rascals, who’ve no more respect for a girl than they have for a monkey—their brother. A set of swindlers! I took you for the wife of one when you came in, at first. And now, business is business. Let’s get it over. What have you come about? Glad to see you—understand that.”

Emilia lifted her eyes to his.

“You know I love you, sir.”

“I’m sure you’re a grateful little woman.”

She rose: “Oh! how can I speak it!”

An idea that his daughters had possibly sent her to herald one of the renowned physicians of London, concerning whom he was perpetually being plagued by them, or to lead him to one, flashed through Mr. Pole. He was not in a state to weigh the absolute value of such a suspicion, but it seemed probable; it explained an extraordinary proceeding; and, having conceived, his wrath took it up as a fact, and fought with it.

“Stop! If that’s what you’ve come for, we’ll bring matters to a crisis. You fancy me ill, don’t you, my dear?”

“You do not look well, sir.”

Emilia’s unhesitating reply confirmed his suspicion.

“I am well. I am, I say! And now, understand that, if that’s your business, I won’t go to the fellow, and I won’t see him here. They’ll make me out mad, next. He shall never have a guinea from me while I live. No, nor when I die. Not a farthing! Sit down, my dear, and wait for the biscuits. I wish to heaven they’d come. There’s brandy coming, too. Where’s Braintop?”

He took out his handkerchief to wipe his forehead, and jerked it like a bell-rope.

Emilia, in a singular bewilderment, sat eyeing a beam of sombre city sunlight on the dusty carpet. She could only suppose that the offending “he” was Wilfrid; but, why he should be so, she could not guess: and how to plead for him, divided her mind.

“Don’t blame him; be angry with me, if you are angry,” she began softly. “I know he thinks of you anxiously. I know he would do nothing to hurt you. No one is so kind as he is. Would you deprive him of money, because he offends you?”

“Deprive him of money,” repeated Mr. Pole, with ungrudging accentuation. “Well, I’ve heard about women, but I never knew one so anxious for a doctor to get his fee as you are.”

Emilia wonderingly fixed her sight on him an instant, and, quite unillumined, resumed: “Blame me, sir. But, I know you will be too kind. Oh! I love him. So, I must love you, and I would not give you pain. It is true he loves me. You will not see him, because he loves me?”

“The doctor?” muttered Mr. Pole. “The doctor?” he almost bellowed; and got sharp up from his chair, and looked at himself in the glass, blinking rapidly; and then turned to inspect Emilia.

Emilia drew him to her side again.

“Go on,” he said; and there became visible in his face a frightful effort to comprehend her, and get to the sense of her words.

And why it was so frightful as to be tragic, you will know presently.

He thought of the arrival of Braintop, freighted with brandy, as the only light in the mist, and breathing heavily from his nose, almost snorting the air he took in from a widened mouth, he sat and tried to listen to her words as well as for Braintop’s feet.

Emilia was growing too conscious of her halting eloquence, as the imminence of her happiness or misery hung balancing in doubtful scales before her.