Eveena

“ It is, I suppose, hardly natural to man to feel actual unkindness towards a young and beautiful girl who has given no personal offence. Having once admitted, the justice of Eveena's plea, and feeling that she would be more pained by the omission than by the fulfilment of the forms which courtesy and common kindness imperatively demanded, I kissed Eunané's brow and spoke a few words to her, with as much of tenderness as I could feel or affect for Eveena's rival, after what had passed to endear Eveena more than ever. ”

“ That may not seem strange to you; but Eveena knows all I know, and I could scarcely keep Eveena away. So loving each other, we do not fear to die, because we believe, we know, that that in us which thinks, and feels, and loves will live; that in death we lay aside the body as we lay aside our worn-out clothing. If I thought otherwise, Eunané, I could not bear this parting. ”

“ I owe you much, Clasfempta, and still more perhaps to Eveena. My life is not so precious that I should not be ready to give it at need for either of you; and if I should lose Eunané, I would prefer not to live to remember my loss. ”

“ I know you better now. It is for women to strike with five fingers" (in unmeasured passion) ; "only, don't tell Eveena. Besides," she murmured, colouring, with drooping eyelids, "I had rather be beaten by you than caressed by another."
"Eunané, child, you might well say you don't understand me. I could not have listened to your talk if I had meant to use it against you; and with you I have no cause to be displeased. Nay" (as she looked up in surprise) , "I know you have not used Eveena kindly, but I heard from yourself that you had repented. ”

“ But, to my alarm, when we reached the foot of the ladder, Eveena was nowhere to be seen. Calling her and receiving no reply, calling again and hearing what sounded like her voice, but in a faint tone and coming I knew not whither, I ran round the platform to seek her. I could see nothing of her; but at one point, just where the projecting edge of the platform overhung the precipice below, I recognised her bird fluttering its wings and screaming as if in pain or terror. The Regent was calling me in a somewhat imperious tone, but of course received neither answer nor attention. ”

“ Baby as she thinks and I call you, Eveena, you are fast unteaching me the lesson which, before you were born and ever since, the women of the Earth have done their utmost to impress indelibly upon my mind—the lesson that woman is but a less lovable, more petulant, more deeply and incurably spoilt child. Your mother's reproach is an exact inversion of the truth. No one could have acted with more utter unselfishness, more devoted kindness, more exquisite delicacy than you have shown in this miserable matter. ”

“ When I recovered my own senses, and had contrived to restore Eveena's, my unwilling assistant had disappeared.
It was an hour before Eveena seemed in a condition to be removed, and perhaps I was not very urgent to hurry her away. I had done no more than any man, the lowest and meanest on Earth, must have done under the circumstances. I can scarcely enter into the feelings of the fellow-man who, in my position, could have recognised a choice but between saving and perishing with the helpless creature entrusted to his charge. ”

“ There was in Eveena's language and demeanour a timidity—a sort of tentative fearful venturing as on dangerous ground, feeling her way, as it were, in almost every sentence—which could not be wholly attributed to the shyness of a very young and very suddenly wedded bride. There was enough and to spare of this shyness; but more of the sheer physical or nervous fear of a child suddenly left in hands whose reputed severity has thoroughly frightened her; not daring to give offence by silence, but afraid at each word to give yet more fatal offence in speaking. ”

“ The moral gulf between the two worlds is wider than the material. Utterly unselfish and trustful, Eveena was almost pained to be reminded that the service she so extravagantly overprized was rendered to her sex rather than herself; while yet more deeply gratified, though still half incredulous, by the commonplace that preferred love to life. I had yet to learn, however, that Eveena's nature was as utterly strange in her own world as the ideas in which she was educated would seem in mine.
I left her for a few minutes to dress for the first time in the costume which Esmo's care had provided. ”

“ The Regent, with a companion, was already seated, and as soon as we reached the gate, Eveena appeared. She was enveloped from head to foot in a cloak of something like swans-down covering her whole figure, loose, like the ordinary outer garments of both sexes, and gathered in at the waist by a narrow zone of silver, with a sort of clasp of some bright green jewel; and a veil of white satin-looking material covered the whole head and face, and fell half-way to the waist. ”

“ Sorest tries the household band.
Closer favourite's kisses cling,
Favourite's fingers sharper sting.'"
"Very likely," replied Eunané. "I cannot understand any more than you can why Eveena screens instead of punishing us; why she endures what a word to him would put down under her sandal; but she does. Does she cast no shadow because it never darkens his presence to us? And after all, her mind is not a deeper darkness to me than his. He enjoys life as no man here does; but what he enjoys most is a good chance of losing it; while those who find it so tedious guard it like watch-dragons. ”

“ But Eveena evidently caught both the sound and the meaning, and I was glad that they should convey to her a confidence which seemed to myself no better founded than her alarms. To me its only value lay in the friendly relation it established with one I had begun greatly to like. I relied on my own strength and nerve for all that human exertion could do in such peril as we might encounter; and, in a case in which these might fail me, I doubted whether even the one tie that has binding force on Mars would avail me much. ”

“ Too weak now to reason, or to resist the impression enforced upon her mind by minds always far more powerful than her own in its brightest hours, she turned instinctively from the thought of blackness, senselessness eternal, to that of a Father whose hand could uphold, of the wings that can leap the grave. Her left hand clasped in mine, her right in Eveena's,— looking most in my face, because weakness leant on strength even more than love appealed to love—Eunané spent the remaining hours of that night in calm contentment and peace. ”

“ But Eunané's agitation was so violent and persistent, despite all Eveena's soothing, that I was at last seriously apprehensive of its effect upon the latter. The moment we were alone Eveena said—
"I have never seen illness, but if Eunané is not ill, and very ill, all I have gathered in my father's household from such books as he has allowed me, and from his own conversation, deceives me wholly; and yet no illness of which I have ever heard in the slightest degree resembles this."
"I take it to be," I said, "what on Earth women call hysteria and men temper." ”

“ Eveena glanced over it and coloured painfully, the tears gathering in her eyes.
"That," she said, pointing to the first cipher, "is my mother's signature."
"Then," I said, "it is meant for you, not for me."
"Nay," she answered. "Do you think I could take advantage of your not knowing the character?"—and she read words quite as incomprehensible to me as the writing itself.
"Can a star mislead the blind? I should veil myself in crimson if I have trained a bird to snatch sugar from full hands. Must even your womanhood reverse the clasps of your childhood?" ”

“ Nestling among the cushions at my knee, her head resting on my breast, Eveena said—
"And now, forgive my presumption in counselling you, and my reminding you of what is painful to both. But what to us is as the course of the clock, is strange as the stars to you. You must see—them, and must order all household arrangements; and" (glancing at a dial fixed in the wall) "the black is driving down the green." ”

“ But, angered at a hint which placed Eveena on their own level, I forgot how far the speaker's experience and inexperience alike palliated the impertinence. That the insinuation shocked none of those around me was evident. Theirs were not the looks of women, however young and thoughtless, startled by an affront to their sex; but of children amazed at a child's folly in provoking capricious and irresponsible power. The angry quickness with which I turned to Eunané received a double, though doubly unintentional, rebuke, equally illustrative of Martial ideas and usages. ”

“ Eveena whispered me that she must not share our meal in presence of these strangers; an intimation which somewhat blunted the keen appetite I always derived from a journey through the Martial atmosphere. Checked as it was, however, that appetite seemed a new astonishment to our attendants; the need of food among their race being proportionate to their inferior size and strength. When we rose, I asked Ergimo what was to become of Eveena, as the officers were evidently waiting to conduct me into the presence of their Sovereign, where it would not be appropriate for her to appear. ”

“ This mark of royal favour astounded and dismayed me more than Eveena herself. If she had entertained the wish, she would hardly have acknowledged to herself the hope, that she might remain permanently the sole partner of my home. But so sudden, speedy, and wholesale an intrusion thereon she certainly had not expected. Even in Mars, a first bride generally enjoys for some time a monopoly of her husband's society, if she cannot be said to enchain his affection. ”

“ Eveena and Eunané were as well aware of this as herself; the right of beauty to a special price seemed to them as obvious as in Western Europe seems the right of rank to exorbitant settlements; but they felt it as impossible to argue the point as a solicitor would find it unsafe to expound to a gentleman the different cost of honouring Mademoiselle with his hand and being honoured with that of Milady. Velna's remonstrances were suppressed; she rose, and, accompanied by Eveena and Eunané, approached a desk in one corner of the room, occupied by a lady past middle life. ”

“ But, more than that, my conscience would not permit me to call on the law to punish a household treason, where household authority is so strong and so arbitrary as here. Assassination is the weapon of the oppressed and helpless; and it is not for me so to be judge in my own cause as to pronounce that Eivé has had no provocation."
"Shame upon her!" said Eveena indignantly. "No one under your roof ever had or could have reason to raise a hand, I do not say against your life, but to give you a moment's pain. ”

“ That you might not laugh at my authority, and 'find a dragon in the esve's nest,' she would have had me treat her as guilty."
"But I deserved it. A girl has no right to break the seal in the master's absence," interposed Eveena, much more distressed than gratified by the vindication to which she was so well entitled.
"Let your tongue sleep, Eveena. So [with a kiss] I blot your first miscalculation, Eunané. Earth [the Evening Star of Mars] light your dreams."
It was with visible reluctance that Eveena followed me into the chamber we had last left ”

“ I said, 'If you weary of your flower-bird you must strike with the hammer;' and if you could do so, do you think I should not feel for your hand to hold it to the last?"
"Hush, Eveena! how can I bear such words? You might forgive me for any outrage to you: I doubt your easily forgetting cruelty to another. I have not a heart like yours. As I never failed a friend, so I never yet forgave a foe. ”

“ I must release the Regent and depend upon his obedience, or forfeit the chance of saving her, as in a few more moments she would certainly swoon and fall.
"Throw yourself upon me, and sit firm, if you value your life," I cried, and I relaxed my hold on his arm, stretching both hands to grasp Eveena. I felt the man's weight on my body, and with both arms extended to the uttermost hanging over the edge, I caught firm bold of the girl's shoulders. Even now, with any girl of her age on earth, and for aught I know with many Martial damsels, the case would have been hopeless. ”

“ I could not bear it, and at last took my resolve and dismissed Velna, forbidding her to return till summoned.
"Ah!" said Eunané, "you send her away that she may not see the last.
Is it so near?"
"No, darling!" I replied (she, like Eveena, had learnt the meaning of one or two expressions of human affection in my own tongue) , "but I have that to say which I would not willingly say in her presence. You dread death not as a short terrible pain, and for you it will not be so, not as a short sleep, but as eternal senselessness and nothingness. ”

“ A voice on my left murmured in a low tone the formula, which I repeated, Eveena accompanying my words in an almost inaudible whisper—
"Whatsoe'er within the Shrine
Eyes may see or soul divine,
Swear we secret as the deep,
Silent as the Urn to keep.
By the Light we claim to share,
By the Fount of Light, we swear." ”

“ CHAPTER XIX - A COMPLETE ESTABLISHMENT. Before I slept Eveena had convinced me, much to my own discomfiture, how very limited must be any authority that could be delegated to her. In such a household there could be no second head or deputy, and an attempt to devolve any effective charge on her would only involve her in trouble and odium. Even at the breakfast, spread as usual in the centre of the peristyle, she entreated that we should present ourselves separately. Eunané appeared to have performed very dexterously the novel duty assigned to her. ”