Fleta

“ Nay, but is that likely—if, as you suppose, Melchior is Sir Henry de Clare—if, as you suppose, it is he who is now trying to find out and carry off Fleta—is it probable that you will gain any information from him? I have an idea that Fleta is the little girl said to have died, who was the child of his elder brother. Why so? What interest could Melchior have in stealing his own niece? That I cannot tell. Why did Nattée give me the necklace? I cannot tell; she would hardly betray her husband. At all events, there is a mystery, and it can only be unravelled by being pulled at ”

“ Fleda hesitated; he held her fast. "No. Anything is better than that."
"Then, in God's name, what must I do?"
"You must settle that with Mona. You mustn't break faith. Anything is better than that. You must at any rate be utterly sure. She must love you—how can she help it? I wouldn't give you up!" said Fleda. She spoke in broken bits, panting out her words. "The great thing is to keep faith. Where is a man if he doesn't? If he doesn't he may be so cruel. So cruel, so cruel, so cruel!" Fleda repeated. ”

“ Fledra pressed Ann's arm.
"And don't you remember, Dear, that almost immediately he was helped?"
"You had a doctor," said Fledra slowly.
"Yes, for a doctor is God's agent for the good of mankind; but we had faith, too. And in something like this—Is your trouble illness?"
"Only here," answered Flea, laying her hand upon her heart.
Ann could not force Flea's confidence; so she said:
"Then if it is impossible to confide in Horace, or in me, will you pray tonight, fully believing that you will be answered? You must remember how much Jesus loved you to come down to suffer and die for you." ”

“ Fleda wondered an instant if this were not practically a demand for penal submission—for a surrender that, in its complete humility, would be a long expiation. But there was none of the latent chill of the vindictive in the way Mrs. Gereth pursued: "We can always, as time goes on, talk of them together."
"Of the old things?" Fleda had selected a third-class compartment: she stood a moment looking into it and at a fat woman with a basket who had already taken possession. "Always?" she said, turning again to her companion. "Never!" ”

“ As a barren woman loves a child, so I loved you. I loved you for the sake of your mother. I gave her to the Ry, who was the better man, that she might be great and well placed. So it is I would have you be ruler over us, and I would serve you as I served your father until I, also, fall asleep.”
“It is too late,” Fleda answered, and there was great emotion in her voice now. “I am no longer a Romany. I am my father’s daughter, but I have not been a Romany since I was ill in England. I will not go back; I shall go with the man I love, to be his wife, here, in the Gorgio world. ”

“ Fleda's nervous system was of the finest too, but, in short, she was as like a bird as possible. Perfect health, which yet a slight thing was enough to shake to the foundation; joyous spirits, which a look could quell; happy energies, which a harsh hand might easily crush for ever. Well for little Fleda that so tender a plant was permitted to unfold in so nicely tempered an atmosphere. A cold wind would soon have killed it. Besides all this, there were charming studies to be gone through every day with Hugh some for aunt Lucy to hear, some for masters and mistresses. ”

“ With a face as pale and cold as the western sky, the desolation of this last parting and a tragic renunciation giving her a deathly beauty, Fleda stood beside the man who must hereafter be, to her, father, people, and all else. Shuddering with the pain of this hour, yet resolved to begin the new life here and now, as the old life faded before her eyes, she turned to him, and, with the passing of the last Romany over the crest of the hill, she said bravely:
“I want to help you do the big things. They will be yours. The world is all for you yet.”
Ingolby shook his head. ”

“ Fleda had to recognize that her advantage had become too real. "It's too beautiful, the way you care for him; it's music in my ears. Nothing else but such a passion could make you say such things; that's the way I should have been too, my dear. Why didn't you tell me sooner? I'd have gone right in for you; I never would have moved a candlestick. Don't stay with me if it torments you; don't, if you suffer, be where you see the old rubbish. ”

“ Fleda's face had grown dark with her wonder, but her friend's empty hands offered no balm to the pain in it. "It was that if it was anything. Nothing else meets the misery of it. Then there was quick work. Before he could turn round he was married."
Fleda, as if she had been holding her breath, gave the sigh of a listening child. "At that place you spoke of in town?"
"At the Registrar's, like a pair of low atheists."
The girl hesitated. "What do people say of that? I mean the 'world.'"
"Nothing, because nobody knows. They're to be married on the 17th, at Waterbath church. ”

“ It was a time of great delight to Fleda, that is, as soon as Mr. Carleton had made her feel at home in England; and somehow he had contrived to do that and to scatter some clouds of remembrance that seemed to gather about her, before they had reached the end of their first day's journey. To be out of the ship was itself a comfort, and to be alone with kind friends was much more. With great joy Fleda put her cousin Charlton and Mr. Thorn at once out of sight and out of mind ”

“ The presence of its master seemed everywhere it was like him, and Fleda pressed on to see yet livelier marks of his character and fancy beyond. By degrees the wood began to thin on one side then at once the glade opened into a bright little lawn, rich with roses in full bloom. Fleda was stopped short at the sudden vision of loveliness. There was the least possible appearance of design no dry beds were to be seen the luxuriant clumps of Provence and white roses, with the varieties of the latter seemed to have chosen their own places, only to have chosen them very happily. ”

“ Fleda found beautiful that this theory should have survived the incident of the other day; found exquisite that whereas she was conscious, through faint reverberations, that for her kind little circle at large, whom it didn't concern, her tendency had begun to define itself as parasitical, this strong young man, who had a right to judge and even a reason to loathe her, didn't judge and didn't loathe, let her down gently, treated her as if she pleased him, and in fact evidently liked her to be just where she was. ”

“ Fleda was secretly very much pleased. She thought she would a great deal rather go with Mr. Carleton in the little wagon than in the stage-coach with the rest of the people. Privately she did not at all admire Mr. Thorn or her cousin Rossitur. They amused her though; and feeling very much better and stronger in body, and at least quiet in mind, she sat in tolerable comfort on her sofa, looking and listening to the people who were gaily talking around her. ”

“ But it was not, as she thought, uncle Orrin that was standing by her side, and looking up as she finished speaking Fleda saw with a start that it was Mr. Carleton. There was such a degree of life and pleasantness in his eyes that, in spite of the start, her own quite brightened.
"That is a pleasure one may always command," he said, answering part of her speech.
"Ay, provided one has one's mind always under command," said Fleda. "It is possible to sit down to a feast with a want of appetite." ”

“ Fleda was determined that if she had the chill of her exposed and investigated state she would also have the convenience of it, and that if Mrs. Gereth popped in and out of the chamber of her soul she would at least return the freedom. "I shall quite hate, you know, in a day or two, every object that surrounds you—become blind to all the beauty and rarity that I formerly delighted in. ”

“ Nor even in Fletcher’s Ordella, worthy as the part is throughout even of the precious and exquisite praise of Lamb, is there any such cunning touch of tenderness or delicate perfume of pathos as in the parts of Bellario and Aspatia. These have in them a bitter sweetness, a subtle pungency of mortal sorrow and tears of divine delight, beyond the reach of Fletcher. His highest studies of female character have dignity, energy, devotion of the heroic type; but they never touch us to the quick, never waken in us any finer and more profound sense than that of applause and admiration. ”

“ Pritchard," said Fleda, smiling up at her.
"I wish you had somebody to take care of you, Miss Fleda, that wouldn't let you tire yourself. It's a sin to throw your strength away so--and you don't care for looks nor nothing else when it's for other people. ”

“ Carleton I--"
"I dare say I have seen somebody as good," said Fleda quietly.
"My dear Fleda!" said Constance, a little scornfully this time,--"you haven't the least idea what you are talking about! I tell you he is an Englishman--he's of one of the best families in England,--not such as you ever see here but once in an age,--he's rich enough to count Mr. Thorn over I don't know how many times."
"I don't like anybody the better for being an Englishman," said Fleda; "and it must be a small man whose purse will hold his measure." ”

“ The distance mentioned being somewhere about one-eighth of New York's longest diameter, Fleda answered that it was quite as far.
"I s'pose there's plenty o' mighty rich folks there, aint there?"
"Plenty, I believe," said Fleda.
"I should hate to live in it awfully," was the old woman's conclusion.
"I should admire to travel in many countries," said Miss Lucy, for the first time seeming to intend her words particularly for Fleda's ear. "I think nothing makes people more genteel. I have observed it frequently." ”

“ Fletcher, "I am not working for fame, my lord."
"No!" flashed Lord Mordaunt; "creatures of clay—of clay! Prettily coloured, but a breath of the fire that burneth in the little plain vessels would crack you in a day."
He gave a flourishing bow, and walked off towards the Stadhuis.
"An Eccentric," remarked Mr. Fletcher, looking after him.
"I fear so. He will put himself into a passion at a word; but he would pledge his whole fortune for you if you were in need of it," answered the Earl. "How suddenly dark it is; let us, sir, go home." ”

“ From a lonely spot by the river, Fleda watched the westering gleam until it vanished, her soul alive to the melancholy beauty of it all. Not a human being seemed to be within the restricted circle of her vision. ”

“ Fleda had whispered to him in such awe, not only because he was her father, but because he was so much a man among men, a giant, with a great, lumbering mind, slow to conceive, but moving in a large, impressive way when once conception came. ”

“ No wonder if the energies which owed much of their strength to love's nerving, should at last give out, and Fleda's evening be passed in wearied slumbers. No wonder if many a day was given up to the forced quietude of a headache, the more grievous to Fleda because she knew that her aunt and Hugh always found the day dark that was not lightened by her sunbeam. How brightly it shone out the moment the cloud of pain was removed, winning the shadow from their faces and a smile to their lips, though solitude always saw her own settle into a gravity as fixed as it was soft. ”

“ She paused to give Fleda the full benefit of this remarkable statement; then she exclaimed: "Any one but a jackass would have tucked you under his arm and marched you off to the Registrar!"
Fleda wondered; with her free imagination she could wonder even while her cheek stung from a slap. "To the Registrar?"
"That would have been the sane, sound, immediate course to adopt. With a grain of gumption you'd both instantly have felt it. I should have found a way to take you, you know, if I'd been what Owen is supposed to be. I should have got the business over first ”

“ Mrs. Gereth watched Fleda and considered. "You haven't any idea if they are waiting for the things?"
"How should I have? I'm not in their counsels."
"I dare say they are—or that Mona is." Mrs. Gereth reflected again; she had a bright idea. "If I don't give in I'll be hanged if she'll not break off."
"She'll never, never break off," said Fleda. ”

“ Fleda winced. "I've told you what I believe about that. She'll make scenes and conditions; she'll worry him. But she'll hold him fast; she'll never give him up."
Mrs. Gereth turned it over. "Well, I'll keep them, to try her," she finally pronounced; at which Fleda felt quite sick, as if she had given everything and got nothing.
XII
"I must in common decency let him know that I've talked of the matter with you," she said to her hostess that evening. "What answer do you wish me to write to him?" ”

“ Fleda had, besides, without knowing it, the eye of a painter. In the lonely hill-side, the odd-shaped little mill, with its accompaniments of wood and water, and the great logs of timber lying about the ground in all directions and varieties of position, there was a picturesque charm for her, where the country people saw nothing but business and a place fit for it. Their hands grew hard where her mind was refining. Where they made dollars and cents, she was growing rich in stores of thought and associations of beauty. ”

“ What struck Fleda most in it was the high pride of her friend's taste, a fine arrogance, a sense of style which, however amused and amusing, never compromised nor stooped. She felt indeed, as this lady had intimated to her that she would, both a respect and a compassion that she had not known before; the vision of the coming surrender filled her with an equal pain. To give it all up, to die to it—that thought ached in her breast. She herself could imagine clinging there with a closeness separate from dignity. To have created such a place was to have had dignity enough ”