_ CHAPTER LVI. REDIVIVUS
Ellen Bennet, like May Newt, was a child no longer--hardly yet a woman, or only a very young one. Rosy cheeks, and clustering hair, and blue eyes, showed only that it was May--June almost, perhaps--instead of gusty March or gleaming April.
"Ellen," said Gabriel, in a low voice--while his mother, who was busily sewing, conversed in a murmuring undertone with her husband, who sat upon the sofa, slowly swinging his slippered foot--"Ellen, Lawrence Newt didn't say that he should ask Edward to his dinner on my birthday."
Ellen's cheeks answered--not her lips, nor her eyes, which were bent upon a purse she was netting.
"But I think he will," added Gabriel. "I think I have mistaken Lawrence Newt if he does not."
"He is usually very thoughtful," whispered Ellen, as she netted busily.
"Ellen, how handsome Edward is!" said Gabriel, with enthusiasm.
The young woman said nothing.
"And how good!" added Gabriel.
"He is," she answered, scarcely audibly. Then she said she had left something up stairs. How many things are discovered by young women, under certain circumstances, to have been left up stairs! Ellen rose and left the room.
"I was saying to your father, Gabriel," said his mother, raising her voice, and still sewing, "that Edward comes here a great deal."
"Yes, mother; and I am glad of it. He has very few friends in the city."
"He looks like a Spaniard," said Mr. Bennet, slowly, dwelling upon every word. "How rich that lustrous tropical complexion is! Its duskiness is mysterious. The young man's eyes are like summer moonlight."
Mr. Bennet's own eyes half closed as he spoke, as if he were dreaming of gorgeous summer nights and the murmur of distant music.
Gabriel and his mother were instinctively silent. The click of her needle was the only sound.
"Oh yes, yes--that is--I mean, my dear, he does come here very often. I do go off on such foolish fancies!" remarked Mr. Bennet, at length.
"He comes very often when you are not at home, Gabriel," said Mrs. Bennet, after a kind glance at her husband, and still sewing.
"Yes, mother."
"Then it isn't only to see you?"
"No, mother."
"And often when your father and I return from an evening stroll in the streets we find him here."
"Yes, mother."
"It isn't to see us altogether, then?"
"No, mother."
Mrs. Bennet turned her work, and in so doing glanced for a moment at her son. His eyes were upon her face, but he seemed to have said all he had to say.
"I always feel," said Mr. Bennet, in a tone and with an expression as if he were looking at something very far away, "as if King Arthur must have lived in the tropics. There is that sort of weird, warm atmosphere in the romance. Where is Ellen? Shall we read some more in this little edition of the old story?"
He laid his hand, as he spoke, upon a small copy of old Malory's Romance of Arthur. It was a kind of reading of which he was especially fond, and to which the rest were always willing and glad to listen.
"Call Ellen," said he to Gabriel; "and now then for King Arthur!"
As he spoke the door-bell rang. The next moment a young man, apparently of Gabriel's age, entered the room. His large melancholy black eyes, the massive black curls upon his head, the transparent olive complexion, a natural elegance of form and of movement--all corresponded with what Mr. Bennet had been saying. It was evidently Edward.
"Good-evening, Little Malacca!" cried Gabriel, gayly, as he rose and put out his hand.
"Good-evening, Gabriel!" he answered, in a soft, ringing voice; then bowed and spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.
"Gabriel doesn't forget old school-days," said the new-comer to Mrs. Bennet.
"No, he has often told us of his friendship with Little Malacca," returned the lady calmly, as she resumed her work.
"And how little I thought I was to see him when I came to Mr. Newt's store," said the young man.
"Where did you first know Mr. Lawrence Newt?" asked Mrs. Bennet.
"I don't remember when I didn't know him, Madam," replied Edward.
"Happy fellow!" said Gabriel.
Meanwhile Miss Ellen had probably found the mysterious something which she had left up stairs; for she entered the room, and bowed very calmly upon seeing Edward, and, seating herself upon the side of the table farthest from him, was presently industriously netting. As for Edward, he had snapped a sentence in the middle as he rose and bowed to her, and could not possibly fit the two ends together when he sat down again, and so lost it.
Gradually, as the evening wore on, the conversation threatened to divide itself into
tetes-a-tete; for Gabriel suddenly discovered that he had an article upon Hemp to read in the Encyclopedia which he had recently purchased, and was already profoundly immersed in it, while Mr. and Mrs. Bennet resumed their murmuring talk, and the chair of the youth with the large black eyes, somehow--nobody saw how or when--slipped round until it was upon the same side of the table with that of Ellen, who was busily netting.
Mrs. Bennet was conscious that the chair had gone round, and the swimming eyes of her husband lingered with pleasure upon the mass of black curls bent toward the golden hair which was bowed over that intricate purse. Ellen was sitting under that portrait of the lady, with the flashing, passionate eyes, who seemed to bear a family likeness to Mrs. Bennet.
The more closely he looked at the handsome youth and the lovely girl the more curious Mr. Bennet's eyes became. He watched the two with such intentness that his wife several times looked up at him surprised when she received no answer to her remarks. Evidently something had impressed Mr. Bennet exceedingly.
His wife bent her head a little nearer to his.
"My dear, did you never see a pair of lovers before?"
He turned his dreaming eyes at that, smiled, and pressed his lips silently to the face which was so near his own that if it had been there for the express purpose of being caressed it could hardly have been nearer.
Then slipping his arm around her waist, Mr. Bennet drew his wife toward him and pointed with his head, but so imperceptibly that only she perceived it, toward the young people, as if he saw something more than a pair of lovers. The fond woman's eyes followed her husband's. Gradually they became as intently fixed as his. They seemed to be curiously comparing the face of the young man who sat at their daughter's side with the face of the portrait that hung above her head. Mrs. Bennet grew perceptibly paler as she looked. The unconscious Edward and Ellen murmured softly together. She did not look at him, but she felt the light of his great eyes falling upon her, and she was not unhappy.
"My dear," began Mr. Bennet in a low tone, still studying the face and the portrait.
"Hush!" said his wife, softly, laying her head upon his shoulder; "I see it all, I am sure of it."
Gabriel turned at this moment from his Encyclopedia. He looked intently for some time at the group by the table, as if studying all their thoughts, and then said, gravely, in a loud, clear voice, so that Ellen dropped a stitch, Edward stopped whispering, and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet sat erect,
"Exactly. I knew how it was. It says distinctly, 'This plant is supposed to be a native of India; but it has long been naturalized and extensively cultivated elsewhere, particularly in Russia, where it forms an article of primary importance.'" _