Sandra Belloni (originally Emilia in England). Complete

“That’s well. I shall write to Marini to-morrow. You will soon find your voice if you will not fret for it. Touch Italy!”

“Yes; but you must be near me,” said Emilia.

Georgiana heard this, and could not conceive other than that Emilia was growing to be one of those cormorant creatures who feed alike on the homage of noble and ignoble. She was critical, too, of that very assured pose of Emilia’s head and firm planting of her feet as the girl paraded the room after the dances in which she could not join. Previous to this evening, Georgiana had seen nothing of the sort in her; but, on the contrary, a doubtful droop of the shoulders and an unwilling gaze, as of a soul submerged in internal hesitations. “I earnestly trust that this is a romantic folly of Merthyr’s, and no more,” thought Georgiana, who would have had that view concerning his love for Italy likewise, if recollection of her own share of adventure there had not softly interposed.

Tracy, Georgiana, Merthyr, and Emilia were in the carriage, well muffled up, with one window open to the white mist. Emilia was eager to thank her friend, if only for the physical relief from weariness and sluggishness which she was experiencing. She knew certainly that the dim light of a recovering confidence in herself was owing, all, to him, and burned to thank him. Once on the way their hands touched, and he felt a shy pressure from her fingers as they parted. Presently the carriage stopped abruptly, and listening they heard the coachman indulge his companion outside with the remark that they were a couple of fools, and were now regularly ‘dished.’

“I don’t see why that observation can’t go on wheels,” said Tracy.

Merthyr put out his head, and saw the obstruction of the mass of stone across the road. He alighted, and together with the footman, examined the place to see what the chance was of their getting the carriage past. After a space of waiting, Georgiana clutched the wraps about her throat and head, and impetuously followed her brother, as her habit had always been. Emilia sat upright, saying, “I must go too.” Tracy moaned a petition to her to rest and be comfortable while the Gods were propitious. He checked her with his arm, and tried to pacify her by giving a description of the scene. The coachman remained on his seat. Merthyr, Georgiana, and the footman were on the other side of the rock, measuring the place to see whether, by a partial ascent of the sloping rubble down which it had bowled, the carriage might be got along.

“Go; they have gone round; see whether we can give any help,” said Emilia to Tracy, who cried: “My goodness! what help can we give? This is an express situation where the Fates always appear in person and move us on. We’re sure to be moved, if we show proper faith in them. This is my attitude of invocation.” He curled his legs up on the seat, resting his head on an arm; but seeing Emilia preparing for a jump he started up, and immediately preceded her. Emilia looked out after him. She perceived a figure coming stealthily from the bank. It stopped, and again advanced, and now ran swiftly down. She drew back her head as it approached the open door of the carriage; but the next moment trembled forward, and was caught with a cat-like clutch upon Wilfrid’s breast.

“Emilia! my own for ever! I swore to die this night it I did not see you!”

“You love me, Wilfrid? love me?”

“Come with me now!”

“Now?”

“Away! with me! your lover!”

“Then you love me!

“I love you! Come!”

“Now? I cannot move.”

“I am out in the night without you.”

“Oh, my lover! Oh, Wilfrid!”

“Come to me!”

“My feet are dead!”

“It’s too late!”

A sturdy hulloa! sounding from the coachman made Merthyr’s ears alive. When he returned he found Emilia huddled up on the seat, alone, her face in her hands, and the touch of her hands like fire. He had to entreat her to descend, and in helping her to alight bore her whole weight, and supported her in a sad wonder, while the horses were led across the rubble, and the carriage was with difficulty, and some confusions, guided to clear its wheels of the obstructing mass. Emilia persisted in saying that nothing ailed her; and to the coachman, who could have told him something, and was willing to have done so (notwithstanding a gold fee for silence that stuck in his palm), Merthyr put no question.

As they were taking their seats in the carriage again, Georgiana said, “Where is your wreath, Sandra?”

The black-briony wreath was no longer on her head.

“Then, it wasn’t a dream!” gasped Emilia, feeling at her temples.

Georgiana at once fell into a scrutinizing coldness, and when Merthyr, who fancied the wreath might have fallen as he was lifting Emilia from the carriage, proposed to go and search the place for it, his sister laid her fingers on his arm, remarking, “You will not find it, dear;” and Emilia cried “Oh! no, no! it is not there;” and, with her hands pressed hard against her bosom, sat fixed and silent.

Out of this mood she issued with looks of such tenderness that one who watched her, speculating on her character as Merthyr did, could see that in some mysterious way she had been, during the few minutes that separated them, illumined upon the matter nearest her heart. Was it her own strength, inspired by some sublime force, that had sprung up suddenly to eject a worthless love? So he hoped in despite of whispering reason, till Georgiana spoke to him.

CHAPTER XLVII

When the force of Wilfrid’s embrace had died out from her body, Emilia conceived wilfully that she had seen an apparition, so strange, sudden, and wild had been his coming and going: but her whole body was a song to her. “He is not false: he is true.” So dimly, however, was the ‘he’ now fashioned in her brain, and so like a thing of the air had he descended on her, that she almost conceived the abstract idea, ‘Love is true,’ and possibly, though her senses did not touch on it to shape it, she had the reflection in her: “After all, power is mine to bring him to my side.” Almost it seemed to her that she had brought him from the grave. She sat hugging herself in the carriage, hating to hear words, and seeing a ball of fire away in the white mist. Georgiana looked at her no more; and when Tracy remarked that he had fancied having seen a fellow running up the bank, she said quietly, “Did you?”

“Robert must have seen him, too,” added Merthyr, and so the interloper was dismissed.

On reaching home, no sooner were they in the hall than Emilia called for her bedroom candle in a thin, querulous voice that made Tracy shout with laughter and love of her quaintness.

Emilia gave him her hand, and held up her mouth to kiss Georgiana, but no cheek was bent forward for the salute. The girl passed from among them, and then Merthyr said to his sister: “What is the matter?”

“Surely, Merthyr, you should not be at a loss,” she answered, in a somewhat unusual tone, that was half irony.

Merthyr studied her face. Alone with her, he said: “I could almost suppose that she has seen this man.”

Georgiana smiled sadly. “I have not seen him, dear; and she has not told me so.”

“You think it was so?”

“I can imagine it just possible.”

“What! while we were out and had left her! He must be mad!”

“Not necessarily mad, unless to be without principle is to be mad.”

“Mad, or graduating for a Spanish comedie d’intrigue,” said Merthyr. “What on earth can he mean by it? If he must see her, let him come here. But to dog a carriage at midnight, and to prefer to act startling surprises!—one can’t help thinking that he delights in being a stage-hero.”

Georgiana’s: “If he looks on her as a stage-heroine?” was unheeded, and he pursued: “She must leave England at once,” and stated certain arrangements that were immediately to be made.

“You will not give up this task you have imposed on yourself?” she said.

“To do what?”

She could have answered: “To make this unsatisfactory creature love you;” but her words were, “To civilize this little savage.”

Merthyr was bright in a moment: “I don’t give up till I see failure.”

“Is it not possible, dear, to be dangerously blind?” urged Georgiana.

“Keep to the particular case,” he returned; “and don’t tempt me into your woman’s snare of a generalization. It’s possible, of course, to be one-ideaed and obstinate. But I have not yet seen your savage guilty of a deceit. Her heart has been stirred, and her heart, as you may judge, has force enough to be constant, though none can deny that it has been roughly proved.”

“For which you like her better?” said Georgiana, herself brightening.

“For which I like her better,” he replied, and smiled, perfectly armed.

“Oh! is it because I am a woman that I do not understand this sort of friendship?” cried Georgiana. “And from you, Merthyr, to a girl such as she is! Me she satisfies less and less. You speak of force of heart, as if it were manifested in an abandonment of personal will.”

“No, my darling, but in the strong conception of a passion.”