CHAPTER XIII.
"Aurelia," said I one afternoon,"there is some one coming up the path. Go and see who it is."
"Why it is Richard Dana," replied she, and hastening out she clasped both his hands and said with a beaming smile, "What Mr. Dana, so you have come to see us at last? Come in and give an account of yourself, and let us know why you never come up here since I came home. Father says you used to be in and out all day before I was here."
"Yes, that is just it" he began.
"Indeed? I am so sorry you find my company so disagreeable. For even to please you I cannot undertake to go back again to America."
Dana looked at her reproachfully. "How can you tease me so? When I do come here my one wish is never to go away—Good morning Sir;" this to me.
"Good morning, Dana; glad to see you. What business has brought you up here to-day? For it is always business nowadays when we catch a glimpse of you."
"No Sir, it's not exactly business this time. I thought I should like to see how you and—and Gell—were getting on."
"Well it is always a pleasure to see you here, the oftener the better. I shall be busy for ten minutes though; will you excuse me for so long, and take a turn round the garden with Aurelia?"
I saw that he wished to be alone with her, and guessed his errand. They had better have it out together.
"How lovely these roses are looking," said Aurelia, after they had walked some minutes in silence. "I brought them with me from home, and have managed to keep them alive in spite of circumstances. I do love roses."
"Queen of the rose-bud garden of girls,
Queen lily and rose in one;"
"Whom are you quoting?"
"Oh some old fellow who lived a century ago—I forget his name. Will you give me a bud?"
"What, one of my precious rosebuds? Well I can't refuse you, but there is hardly anyone else in the world for whom I would cut one."
Dana's eye brightened.
"Which will you have? This dark velvet one, or that lovely Marshal Niel?"
"The dark one, please."
"What makes you like that best? Most people think the Marshal beats all the rest."
"Must I say?—Well, because it reminds me most of you."
Aurelia laughed. "So you have come here to pay me pretty compliments? Well, go on, I daresay I can stand them for ten minutes without having my head turned."
"Indeed no," said Dana quickly, "I can pay compliments to other girls, who seem to like and expect them, but with you I feel obliged to speak the simple truth. And now least of all do I mean to pay compliments. I am much too serious for any such trifling. I want to ask your advice on a very important matter."
She looked at him, and saw what would come.
"Of course I will give you any advice or help I can, but are you sure you are coming to the right quarter for that?"
"Yes, surely, to the only quarter. Aurelia, I have held my tongue all this time, but must speak at last. You know what I would say. From the day I met you on board the ship you had brought all alone from America, from the moment I brought you on shore and handed you to your father, I have been a different man. I have thought of you every hour of my existence. I have dreamed of you each night. I have lost interest in my profession, in my studies, in everything else in the world. No man could love you with a deeper love than I do, and I feel I cannot any longer refrain from telling you, so that at least you may know that my life is bound up in yours, and that nothing can break the chain. And now I want to ask you, Is there any hope for me?"
"Mr. Dana," said Aurelia gravely, "is this quite fair? You know how I admire you, nay I will say what affection I feel for you, more than I feel for anyone in the world but my father—and my betrothed husband."
"Ah!" groaned Richard.
"But you know as well as I do that I was engaged to him years ago, and do you really expect me to play the jilt and throw him over when after so long a separation we are once more united?"
"It is not exactly that, Aurelia, I quite recognise your honourable feeling, but the question is, does he now love you as ardently as I do? And do you love him in such a way that you feel the world would be blank without him? For that is how I love you, and if you could feel that you liked me as well as you like him, not all the engagements in the world would prevent me from doing my very utmost to win you, as without you I well know my life will he wasted, or shipwrecked."
"Richard," said Aurelia solemnly, "suppose that I had been engaged to you, and you loved me as warmly as you say, and some other man came and tried his best to steal my heart away from you, what should you do?"
"I should kill him," said Dana fiercely; "no man in the world should drag you away from me if you had once promised yourself to me."
"But is this not exactly what you are trying to do? Has not William been true to me all these years, as I to him? And has any one, even you my rescuer, the right to come between us now?"
"Love cannot be bound," pleaded Dana. "If you are only true to him from a feeling of honour, which I know you would entertain, I do ask you most solemnly to think of the desperate cruelty to me if you marry a man to whom you are bound by an old promise, and reject one who without any promises made or received would throw his life and soul at your feet. I believe if you were free from this bond, which can have no force after four years' separation, you would choose me, and not Gell, who does not—who cannot love you half as much."
"Oh Richard," cried she, "it is you that are cruel. William does love me as much and more than you do. You don't know the depth of his feeling. If I were to be carried off to America again to-morrow and never see him again he would still be true to me to the last day of his life. While you, deep in love as you think yourself, after a couple of years would marry some nice good girl, and persuade yourself you had never been in love before."
Dana made a gesture of impatience.
"You would: I know you better than you know yourself. See, William's love has borne an absence of four years; you have not known me as many months. Would you respect me if I were to throw him over? You know you would not."
"But all that, Aurelia, is not quite the point. Supposing he does love you as much as I do, do you love him in the same way! Do you feel you could only be happy with him, and not equally or more so with me? Will you answer me that?"
"You are pressing me hard, Richard, but the truest kindness is to tell you the truth. I do love William Gell, far, far more than I could ever love you. I do feel that my heart's life is wrapt up in him, and that if he died I should be a widow-maid all my days for his sake. And yet I love you too, Richard, you are my dear and only brother, and nothing shall ever make me love you less than that." And with moist eyes and kind looks she gave him her hand.
Dana bent and kissed it, and they walked on hand in hand like children.
"You have catechised me closely," said Aurelia at length, "and had it been anyone else I should have refused to answer such questions. But I would treat you as frankly and openly as a sister should. Trust me as I trust you, and never suffer doubts or suspicion to come between us. I cannot give you my heart, that was lost before I met you, but do not reject what I can give."
At this moment we came out of the house, Gell leaning on my arm, and met the pair walking hand in hand up the garden path. William knew his sweetheart's truth too well to feel as much as a passing shadow of jealousy at what might have proved a trial to many an easy-going lover. "What plots have you two been hatching together?" asked he with a pleasant smile.
"High treason Sir," replied Aurelia, "we propose to blow up the king lords and commons at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon. You may come and help, if you will."
"What's this?" asked I. "In the name of King James I. his crown and dignity, I demand to know."
"Then ask some of your Majesty's faithful subjects; it is useless to expect the truth from traitors. Unless you propose to hale me to the Tower and put me on the rack."
"I doubt whether you would get much out of her even that way," said Dana. And it is of no use asking me, for I don't know what this is all about."
"Traitors both!" cried I. "We give ye till to-morrow to repent and make confession, failing which ye shall be delivered into the hands of justice. Executioner, see that the axe's edge be keen against to-morrow's dawn, for thou'lt have to deal with two false traitors upon Tower Hill, I wis."
"Your Grace shall be obeyed," Gell answered, and we ceased our fooling and parted with Dana at the gate. The next day great preparations were made. At three the company began to arrive, and we found that Aurelia had invited all the young children, and a selection of their parents, to a great party in our garden. Happy they always were, but never more so than when within the influence of my dear girl's smile, which seemed to have a magical power of drying tears and appeasing quarrels.
When they were tired of games and had had their tea—a precious commodity only used on festal occasions—Aurelia sat down among them and told them her story. In simple language she told them what they already dimly knew—how they had been driven from their homes by an enemy never encountered before; how she had been lost, how Gell had searched for her, and how nearly they had met; how for years she had lived alone with none to speak to, and how at length she had sailed in a great ship over the sea for six months till she had found her father and her lover safe at last. "And now, dear children, comes the happiest part of my whole story, for I am going to marry Mr. Gell on this day week, and I want you all to come to the wedding."
So it was done. In the wide square which formed our market, and in the presence of our whole population, Aurelia was united to her faithful lover amid the acclamations of our little world.
And what became of Dana? He had a second talk with Aurelia, and another with me, the result of which was that after bravely staying through the marriage ceremony he set sail shortly after with two of our ships, his own vessel the Roanoke, and the one which brought home my daughter, which was re-christened the Aurelia, on a grand voyage of discovery. He took with him some thirty of his old crew, and about a hundred of our youngsters, who were anxious to see the world, and set out to discover Europe, as Columbus started to discover America. He was to visit England, Germany, the Mediterranean, and see if in any of these quarters there were relics left of the human race. If he should find Europe deserted he was to proceed to Africa, Asia, Australia,—every part of the globe if he pleased, to find whether the earth was wholly depopulated or no. I set no limit of time or place to his voyage, and did not expect to see him or his crew again at the earliest for some years.
Busy indeed were the preparations for this expedition. Dana showed his excellent power of organizing and admirable tact in the multifarious duties that fell to his lot. At last all was ready, and one beautiful summer's evening we all proceeded to the water's edge to bid farewell to our parting lads. We were sending our best and bravest, as in all time our race has sent them over seas, knowing that some would never return to us again, and that of ourselves who remained at home those who did return would find many passed away. But we sent them, and we did rightly; and though on the beach the sobs of the mothers drowned the shouts of the men on the decks of the two noble ships, yet even as the sound of the rising anchor-chain died into silence, there rose alike from beach and deck a mighty cheer which told us that the same stout hearts that bore our forefathers over the Northern sea were to be found among their sons even in this latest day, and that English blood could yet adventure somewhat in the cause of discovery, humanity, and progress.
It is now five years since they set sail, and no sign of them has been given. Some of us think they are wrecked, destroyed, or castaways; while others surmise that they have settled in one of the old countries of Europe and are there raising a new colony. It seems clear that they have found none of the kingdoms of the old world in their former condition, or long ere this some cruiser would have found her way hither to trade or to bring us news of the outer world. But for my part I am sure that sooner or later we shall have news of our brave sailors, and that one fine morning we shall see the Aurelia and the Roanoke steaming proudly into harbour amid the cheers of a welcoming crowd. May I live to witness that welcome!
I have little more to add. William and Aurelia live with me, and I feel an old fellow when I take my little grandchildren on my knee and tell them stories of the old half-forgotten world. The girls were generally very severe upon Aurelia for rejecting a handsome brave young lover like Dana in favour of a grave student such as Gell, and have not forgiven her for being the cause of sending their beau out of the island. But the elder women and the men, who have more romance in them, appreciate and admire the constancy of those two whom nothing could separate, and the story of their loves promises to be the favourite myth of future generations of Jeffersonians. Now that my story is told I feel that I have dwelt too much on matters that are of personal interest to myself, but as my memory has dictated, so have I written it down, and will not now alter. The community thrives and multiplies. Whenever I am called away I feel that I shall leave a competent successor in my son-in-law, and shall depart in a spirit of thankfulness for the part I have been permitted to take in saving the Wreck of a World from destruction, and of earnest prayer to the Author of all, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established among us, for all generations.
The End.
London: DIGBY & LONG, 18, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.