The Chain of Destiny - Bram Stoker (the little red hen read aloud .TXT) 📗
- Author: Bram Stoker
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acts and words, but still I hoped and longed for something more.
Those days of my long-continued weakness were to me sweet,
sweet days. I used to watch her for hours as she sat opposite to
me reading or working, and my eyes would fill with tears as I
thought how hard it would be to die and leave her behind me. So
strong was the flame of my love that I believed, in spite of my
religious teaching, that, should I die, I would leave the better
part of my being behind me. I used to think in a vague imaginative
way, that was no less powerful because it was undefined, of what
speeches I would make to her—if I were well. How I would talk to
her in nobler language than that in which I would now allow my
thoughts to mould themselves. How, as I talked, my passion, and
honesty, and purity would make me so eloquent that she would
love to hear me speak. How I would wander with her through the
sunny-gladed woods that stretched away before me through the
open window, and sit by her feet on a mossy bank beside some
purling brook that rippled gaily over the stones, gazing into the
depths of her eyes, where my future life was pictured in one long
sheen of light. How I would whisper in her ear sweet words that
would make me tremble to speak them, and her tremble to hear.
How she would bend to me and show me her love by letting me tell
her mine without reproof. And then would come, like the shadow
of a sudden rain-cloud over an April landscape, the bitter,
bitter thought that all this longing was but a dream, and that
when the time had come when such things might have been, I would,
most likely, be sleeping under the green turf. And she might,
perhaps, be weeping in the silence of her chamber sad, sad tears
for her blighted love and for me. Then my thoughts would become
less selfish, and I would try to imagine the bitter blow of my
death—if she loved me—for I knew that a woman loves not by the
value of what she loves, but by the strength of her affection and
admiration for her own ideal, which she thinks she sees bodied
forth in some man. But these thoughts had always the proviso that
the dreams of happiness were prophetic. Alas! I had altogether
lost faith in dreams. Still, I could not but feel that even if I
had never frightened Miss Fothering by telling my vision, she
might, nevertheless, have been terrified by the effect of the
moonlight upon the flowers of the pampass tufts, and that, under
Providence, I was the instrument of saving her from a shock even
greater than that which she did experience, for help might not have
come to her so soon. This thought always gave me hope. Whenever I
thought of her sorrow for my death, I would find my eyes filled
with a sudden rush of tears which would shut out from my waking
vision the object of my thoughts and fears. Then she would come
over to me and place her cool hand on my forehead, and whisper
sweet words of comfort and hope in my ears. As I would feel her
warm breath upon my cheek and wafting my hair from my brow, I
would lose all sense of pain and sorrow and care, and live only
in the brightness of the present. At such times I would cry
silently from very happiness, for I was sadly weak, and even
trifling things touched me deeply. Many a stray memory of some
tender word heard or some gentle deed done, or of some sorrow or
distress, would set me thinking for hours and stir all the tender
feelings of my nature.
Slowly—very slowly—I began to get stronger, but for many days
more I was almost completely helpless. With returning strength
came the strengthening of my passion—for passion my love for Diana
had become. She had been so woven into my thoughts that my love
for her was a part of my being, and I felt that away from her my
future life would be but a bare existence and no more. But strange
to say, with increasing strength and passion came increasing
diffidence. I felt in her presence so bashful and timorous that
I hardly dared to look at her, and could not speak save to answer
an occasional question. I had ceased to dream entirely, for such
day-dreams as I used to have seemed now wild and almost sacrilegious
to my sur-excited imagination. But when she was not looking at me
I would be happy in merely seeing her or hearing her speak. I could
tell the moment she left the house or entered it, and her footfall
was the music sweetest to my ears—except her voice. Sometimes she
would catch sight of my bashful looks at her, and then, at my
conscious blushing, a bright smile would flit over her face. It
was sweet and womanly, but sometimes I would think that it was no
more than her pity finding expression. She was always in my thoughts
and these doubts and fears constantly assailed me, so that I could
feel that the brooding over the subject—a matter which I was
powerless to prevent—was doing me an injury; perhaps seriously
retarding my recovery.
One day I felt very sad. There had a bitter sense of loneliness
come over me which was unusual. It was a good sign of returning
health, for it was like the waking from a dream to a world of fact,
with all its troubles and cares. There was a sense of coldness and
loneliness in the world, and I felt that I had lost something
without gaining anything in return—I had, in fact, lost somewhat
of my sense of dependence, which is a consequence of prostration,
but had not yet regained my strength. I sat opposite a window
itself in shade, but looking over a garden that in the summer had
been bright with flowers, and sweet with their odours, but which,
now, was lit up only in patches by the quiet mellow gleams of the
autumn sun, and brightened by a few stray flowers that had survived
the first frosts.
As I sat I could not help thinking of what my future would be.
I felt that I was getting strong, and the possibilities of my life
seemed very real to me. How I longed for courage to ask Diana to
be my wife! Any certainty would be better than the suspense I now
constantly endured. I had but little hope that she would accept
me, for she seemed to care less for me now than in the early days
of my illness. As I grew stronger she seemed to hold somewhat
aloof from me; and as my fears and doubts grew more and more, I
could hardly bear to think of my joy should she accept me, or of
my despair should she refuse. Either emotion seemed too great to
be borne.
To-day when she entered the room my fears were vastly
increased. She seemed much stronger than usual, for a glow,
as of health, ruddied her cheeks, and she seemed so lovely
that I could not conceive that such a woman would ever
condescend to be my wife. There was an unusual constraint
in her manner as she came and spoke to me, and flitted round
me, doing in her own graceful way all the thousand little
offices that only a woman’s hand can do for an invalid. She
turned to me two or three times, as if she was about to speak;
but turned away again, each time silent, and with a blush. I
could see that her heart was beating violently. At length she
spoke.
“Frank.”
Oh! what a wild throb went through me as I heard my name from
her lips for the first time. The blood rushed to my head, so that
for a moment I was quite faint. Her cool hand on my forehead
revived me.
“Frank, will you let me speak to you for a few minutes as
honestly as I would wish to speak, and as freely?”
“Go on.”
“You will promise me not to think me unwomanly or forward,
for indeed I act from the best motives—promise me?”
This was said slowly with much hesitation, and a convulsive
heaving of the chest.
“I promise.”
“We can see that you are not getting as strong as you ought, and
the doctor says that there is some idea too much in your mind—that
you brood over it, and that it is retarding your recovery. Mrs.
Trevor and I have been talking about it. We have been comparing
notes, and I think we have found out what your idea is. Now, Frank,
you must not pale and red like that, or I will have to leave off.”
“I will be calm—indeed, I will. Go on.”
“We both thought that it might do you good to talk to you
freely, and we want to know if our idea is correct. Mrs. Trevor
thought it better that I should speak to you than she should.”
“What is the idea?”
Hitherto, although she had manifested considerable emotion,
her voice had been full and clear, but she answered this last
question very faintly, and with much hesitation.
“You are attached to me, and you are afraid I—I don’t love you.”
Here her voice was checked by a rush of tears, and she turned
her head away.
“Diana,” said I, “dear Diana,” and I held out my arms with what
strength I had.
The colour rushed over her face and neck, and then she turned,
and with a convulsive sigh laid her head upon my shoulder. One
weak arm fell round her waist, and my other hand rested on her
head. I said nothing. I could not speak, but I felt the beating of
her heart against mine, and thought that if I died then I must be
happy for ever, if there be memory in the other world.
For a long, long, blissful time she kept her place, and
gradually our hearts ceased to beat so violently, and we
became calm.
Such was the confession of our love. No plighted faith, no
passionate vows, but the silence and the thrill of sympathy
through our hearts were sweeter than words could be.
Diana raised her head and looked fearlessly but appealingly
into my eyes as she asked me—
“Oh, Frank, did I do right to speak? Could it have been better
if I had waited?”
She saw my wishes in my eyes, and bent down her head to me. I
kissed her on the forehead and fervently prayed, “Thank God that
all was as it has been. May He bless my own darling wife for ever
and ever.”
“Amen,” said a sweet, tender voice.
We both looked up without shame, for we knew the tones of my
second mother. Her face, streaming with tears of joy, was lit up
by a sudden ray of sunlight through the casement.
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