Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (moboreader TXT) 📗

her young mistress, then at the floor; at her young mistress again, and afterwards at a rocket that was sailing athwart the sky. Her eyes, however, returned to those of Eve, and encouraged by the bright beam of happiness that was glowing in the countenance she so much loved, she ventured to say--

"If Mr. Powis were a more presuming gentleman than he is, ma'am--"

"You mean a less modest, Nanny," said Eve, perceiving that her nurse paused.

"Yes, ma'am--one that thought more of himself, and less of other people, is what I wish to say."

"And were this the case?"

"I might think he would find the heart to say what I know he feels."

"And did he find the heart to say what you know he feels, what does Ann Sidley think should be my answer?"

"Oh, ma'am, I know it would be just as it ought to be. I cannot repeat what ladies say on such occasions, but I know that it is what makes the hearts of the gentlemen leap for joy."

There are occasions in which woman can hardly dispense with the sympathy of woman. Eve loved her father most tenderly, had more than the usual confidence in him, for she had never known a mother; but had the present conversation been with him, notwithstanding all her reliance on his affection, her nature would have shrunk from pouring out her feelings as freely as she might have done with her other parent, had not death deprived her of such a blessing. Between our heroine and Ann Sidley, on the other hand, there existed a confidence of a nature so peculiar, as to require a word of explanation before we exhibit its effects. In all that related to physical wants, Ann had been a mother, or even more than a mother to Eve, and this alone had induced great personal dependence in the one, and a sort of supervisory care in the other, that had brought her to fancy she was responsible for the bodily health and well-doing of her charge. But this was not all. Nanny had been the repository of Eve's childish griefs, the confidant of her girlish secrets; and though the years of the latter soon caused her to be placed under the management of those who were better qualified to store her mind, this communication never ceased; the high-toned and educated young woman reverting with unabated affection, and a reliance that nothing could shake, to the long-tried tenderness of the being who had watched over her infancy. The effect of such an intimacy was often amusing; the one party bringing to the conferences, a mind filled with the knowledge suited to her sex and station, habits that had been formed in the best circles of christendom, and tastes that had been acquired in schools of high reputation; and the other, little more than her single- hearted love, a fidelity that ennobled her nature, and a simplicity that betokened perfect purity of thought Nor was this extraordinary confidence without its advantages to Eve; for, thrown so early among the artificial and calculating, it served to keep her own ingenuousness of character active, and prevented that cold, selfish, and unattractive sophistication, that mere women of fashion are apt to fall into, from their isolated and factitious mode of existence. When Eve, therefore, put the questions to her nurse, that have already been mentioned, it was more with a real wish to know how the latter would view a choice on which her own mind was so fully made up, than any silly trifling on a subject that engrossed so much of her best affections.

"But you have not told me, dear Nanny," she continued, "what you would have that answer be. Ought I, for instance, ever to quit my beloved father?"

"What necessity would there be for that, ma'am? Mr. Powis has no home of his own; and, for that matter, scarcely any country----"

"How can you know this, Nanny?" demanded Eve, with the jealous sensitiveness of a young love.

"Why, Miss Eve, his man says this much, and he has lived with him long enough to know it, if he had a home. Now, I seldom sleep without looking back at the day, and often have my thoughts turned to Sir George Temple more and Mr. Powis; and when I have remembered that the first had a house and a home, and that the last had neither, it has always seemed to me that he ought to be the one."

"And then, in all this matter, you have thought of convenience, and what might be agreeable to others, rather than of me."

"Miss Eve!"

"Nay, dearest Nanny, forgive me; I know your last thought, in every thing, is for yourself. But surely, the mere circumstance that he had no home ought not to be a sufficient reason for selecting any man, for a husband. With most women it would be an objection."

"I pretend to know very little of these feelings, Miss Eve. I have been wooed, I acknowledge; and once I do think I might have been tempted to marry, had it not been for a particular circumstance."

"You! You marry, Ann Sidley!" exclaimed Eve, to whom the bare idea seemed as odd and unnatural, as that her own father should forget her mother, and take a second wife. "This is altogether new, and I should be glad to know what the lucky circumstance was, which prevented what, to me, might have proved so great a calamity."

"Why, ma'am, I said to myself, what does a woman do, who marries? She vows to quit all else to go with her husband, and to love him before father and mother, and all other living beings on earth--is it not so, Miss Eve?"

"I believe it is so, indeed, Nanny--nay, I am quite certain it is so," Eve answered, the colour deepening on her cheek, as she gave this opinion to her old nurse, with the inward consciousness that she had just experienced some of the happiest moments of her life, through the admission of a passion that thus overshadowed all the natural affections. "It is, truly? as you say."

"Well, ma'am, I investigated my feelings, I believe they call it, and after a proper trial, I found that I loved you so much better than any one else, that I could not, in conscience, make the vows."

"Dearest Nanny! my kind, good, faithful old nurse! let me hold you in my arms: and, I, selfish, thoughtless, heartless girl, would forget the circumstance that would be most likely to keep us together, for the remainder of our lives! Hist! there is a tap at the door It is Mrs. Bloomfield; I know her light step. Admit her, my kind Ann, and leave us together."

The bright searching eye of Mrs. Bloomfield was riveted on her young friend, as she advanced into the room; and her smile, usually so gay and sometimes ironical, was now thoughtful and kind.

"Well, Miss Effingham," she cried, in a manner that her looks contradicted, "am I to condole with you," or to congratulate?--For a more sudden, or miraculous change did I never before witness in a young lady, though whether it be for the better or the worse----These are ominous words, too--for 'better or worse, for richer or poorer'----"

"You are in fine spirits this evening, my dear Mrs. Bloomfield, and appear to have entered into the gaieties of the Fun of Fire, with all your--"

"Might, will be a homely, but an expressive word. Your Templeton Fun of Fire is fiery fun, for it has cost us something like a general conflagration. Mrs. Hawker has been near a downfall, like your great namesake, by a serpent's coming too near her dress; one barn, I hear, has actually been in a blaze, and Sir George Templemore's heart is in cinders. Mr. John Effingham has been telling me that he should not have been a bachelor, had there been two Mrs. Bloomfields in the world, and Mr. Powis looks like a rafter dugout of Herculaneum, nothing but coal."

"And what occasions this pleasantry?" asked Eve, so composed in manner that her friend was momentarily deceived.

Mrs. Bloomfield took a seat on the sofa, by the side of our heroine, and regarding her steadily for near a minute, she continued--

"Hypocrisy and Eve Effingham can have little in common, and my ears must have deceived me."

"Your ears, dear Mrs. Bloomfield!"

"My ears, dear Miss Effingham. I very well know the character of an eaves-dropper, but if gentlemen will make passionate declarations in the walk of a garden, with nothing but a little shrubbery between his ardent declarations and the curiosity of those who may happen to be passing, they must expect to be overheard."

Eve's colour had gradually increased as her friend proceeded; and when the other ceased speaking, as bright a bloom glowed on her countenance, as had shone there when she first entered the room.

"May I ask the meaning of all this?" she said, with an effort to appear calm.

"Certainly, my dear; and you shall also know the feelings that prompt it, as well as the meaning," returned Mrs. Bloomfield, kindly taking Eve's hand in a way to show that she did not mean to trifle further on a subject that was of so much moment to her young friend. "Mr. John Effingham and myself were star-gazing at a point where two walks approach each other, just as you and Mr. Powis were passing in the adjoining path. Without absolutely stepping our ears, it was quite impossible not to hear a portion of your conversation. We both tried to behave honourably; for I coughed, and your kinsman actually hemmed, but we were unheeded."

"Coughed and hemmed!" repeated Eve, in greater confusion than ever. "There must be some mistake, dear Mrs. Bloomfield, as I remember to have heard no such signals."

"Quite likely, my love, for there was a time when I too had ears for only one voice; but you can have affidavits to the fact, à la mode de New England , if you require them. Do not mistake my motive, nevertheless, Miss Effingham, which is any thing but vulgar curiosity"--here Mrs. Bloomfield looked so kind and friendly, that Eve took both her hands and pressed them to her heart--"you are motherless; without even a single female connexion of a suitable age to consult with on such an occasion, and fathers after all are but men----"

"Mine is as kind, and delicate, and tender, as any woman can be, Mrs. Bloomfield."

"I believe it all, though he may not be quite as quick-sighted, in an affair of this nature.--Am I at liberty to speak to you as if I were an elder sister?"

"Speak, Mrs. Bloomfield, as frankly as you please, but leave me the mistress of my answers."

"It is, then, as I suspected," said Mrs. Bloomfield, in a sort of musing manner; "the men have been won over, and this young creature has absolutely been left without a protector in the most important moment of her life!"

"Mrs. Bloomfield!--What does this mean?--What can it mean?"

"It means merely general principles, child; that your father and cousin have been parties concerned, instead of vigilant sentinels; and, with all their pretended care, that you have been left to grope your way in the darkness of female uncertainty, with one of the most pleasing young men in the country constantly before you, to help the obscurity."

It is a dreadful moment, when we are taught to doubt the worth of those we love;