Home as Found, James Fenimore Cooper [bookreader txt] 📗

heart

ever entertain a doubt of the worth of any living being on which It

had set its affections?"

 

"Of itself, often, and they say self-love lies at the bottom of all

our actions."

 

"You are the last person to hold this doctrine, beloved, for those

who live most in your confidence declare that all traces of self are

lost in your very nature."

 

"Most in my confidence! My father--- my dear, kind father, has then

been betraying his besetting weakness, by extolling the gift he has

made."

 

"Your kind, excellent father, knows too well the total want of

necessity for any such thing. If the truth must be confessed, I have

been passing a quarter of an hour with worthy Ann Sidley."

 

"Nanny--dear old Nanny!--and you have been weak enough, traitor, to

listen to the eulogiums of a nurse on her child!"

 

"All praise of thee, my blessed Eve, is grateful to my ears, and who

can speak more understandingly of those domestic qualities which lie

at the root of domestic bliss, than those who have seen you in your

most intimate life, from childhood down to the moment when you have

assumed the duties of a wife?"

 

"Paul, Paul, thou art beside thyself; too much learning hath made

thee mad!"

 

"I am not mad, most beloved and beautiful Eve, but blessed to a

degree that might indeed upset a stronger reason."

 

"We will now talk of other things," said Eve, raising his hand to her

lips in respectful affection, and looking gratefully up into his fond

and eloquent eyes; "I hope the feeling of which you so lately spoke

has subsided, and that you no longer feel yourself a stranger in the

dwelling of your own family."

 

"Now that I can claim a right through you, I confess that my

conscience is getting to be easier on this point. Have you been yet

told of the arrangement that the older heads meditate in reference to

our future means?"

 

"I would not listen to my dear father when he wished to introduce the

subject, for I found that it was a project that made distinctions

between Paul Effingham and Eve Effingham, two that I wish,

henceforth, to consider as one in all things."

 

"In this, darling, you may do yourself injustice as well as me. But

perhaps you may not wish _me_ to speak on the subject, neither."

 

"What would my lord?"

 

"Then listen, and the tale is soon told. We are each other's natural

heirs. Of the name and blood of Effingham, neither has a relative

nearer than the other, for, though but cousins in the third degree,

our family is so small as to render the husband, in this case, the

natural heir of the wife, and the wife the natural heir of the

husband. Now your father proposes that his estates be valued, and

that my father settle on you a sum of equal amount, which his wealth,

will fully enable him to do, and that I become the possessor in

reversion, of the lands that would otherwise have been yours."

 

"You possess me, my heart, my affections, my duty; of what account is

money after this!"

 

"I perceive that you are so much and so truly woman, Eve, that we

must arrange all this without consulting you at all."

 

"Can I be in safer hands? A father that has always been too indulgent

of my unreasonable wishes--a second parent that has only contributed

too much to spoil me in the same thoughtless manner--and a----"

 

"Husband," added Paul, perceiving that Eve hesitated at pronouncing

to his face a name so novel though so endearing, "who will strive to

do more than either in the same way."

 

"Husband," she added, looking up into his face with a smile innocent

as that of an infant, while the crimson tinge covered her forehead,

"if the formidable word must be uttered, who is doing all he can to

increase a self-esteem that is already so much greater than it ought

to be."

 

A light tap at the door caused Eve to start and look embarrassed,

like one detected in a fault, and Paul to release the hand that he

had continued to hold during the brief dialogue.

 

"Sir--ma'am"--said the timid, meek voice of Ann Sidley, as she held

the door ajar, without presuming to look into the room; "Miss Eve--

Mr. Powis."

 

"Enter, my good Nanny," said Eve, recovering her self-composure in a

moment, the presence of her nurse always appearing to her as no more

than a duplication of herself. "What is your wish?"

 

"I hope I am not unreasonable, but I knew that Mr. Effingham was

alone with you, here, and I wished--that is, ma'am,--Miss Eve--Sir--"

 

"Speak your wishes, my good old nurse--am I not your own child, and

is not this your own child's"--again Eve hesitated, blushed, and

smiled, ere she pronounced the formidable word--"husband."

 

"Yes, ma'am; and God be praised that it is so. I dreamt, it is now

four years, Miss Eve; we were then travelling among the Denmarkers,

and I dreamt that you were married to a great prince--"

 

"But your dream has not come true, my good Nanny, and you see by this

fact that it is not always safe to trust in dreams."

 

"Ma'am, I do not esteem princes by the kingdoms and crowns, but by

their qualities--and if Mr. Powis be not a prince, who is?"

 

"That, indeed, changes the matter," said the gratified young wife;

"and I believe, after all, dear Nanny, that I must become a convert

to your theory of dreams."

 

"While I must always deny it, good Mrs Sidley, if this is a specimen

of its truth," said Paul, laughing. "But, perhaps this prince proved

unworthy of Miss Eve, after all?"

 

"Not he, sir; he made her a most kind and affectionate husband; not

humouring all her idle wishes, if Miss Eve could have had such

wishes, but cherishing her, and counselling her, and protecting her,

showing as much tenderness for her as her own father, and as much

love for her as I had myself."

 

"In which case, my worthy nurse, he proved an invaluable husband,"

said Eve, with glistening eyes--"and I trust, too, that he was

considerate and friendly to you?"

 

"He took me by the hand, the morning after the marriage, and said,

Faithful Ann Sidley, you have nursed and attended my beloved when a

child, and as a young lady; and I now entreat you will continue to

wait on and serve her as a wife to your dying day. He did, indeed,

ma'am; and I think I can now hear the very words he spoke so kindly.

The dream, so far, has come good."

 

"My faithful Ann," said Paul, smiling, and taking the hand of the

nurse, "you have been all that is good and true to my best beloved,

as a child, and as a young lady; and now I earnestly entreat you to

continue to wait on her, and to serve her as _my_ wife, to your

dying day."

 

Nanny clapped her hands with a scream of delight, and bursting into

tears, she exclaimed, as she hurried from the room,

 

"It has all come true--it has all come true!"

 

A pause of several minutes succeeded this burst of superstitious but

natural feeling.

 

"All who live near you appear to think you the common centre of their

affections," Paul resumed; when his swelling heart permitted him to

speak.

 

"We have hitherto been a family of love--God grant it may always

continue so."

 

Another delicious silence, which lasted still longer than the other,

followed. Eve then looked up into her husband's face with a gentle

curiosity, and observed--

 

"You have told me a great deal, Powis--explained all but one little

thing, that, at the time, caused me great pain. Why did Ducie, when

you were about to quit the Montauk together, so unceremoniously stop

you, as you were about to get into the boat first; is the etiquette

of a man-of-war so rigid as to justify so much rudeness, I had almost

called it--?"

 

"The etiquette of a vessel of war is rigid certainly, and wisely so.

But what you fancied rudeness, was in truth a compliment. Among us

sailors, it is the inferior who goes first _into_ a boat, and

who _quits_ it last."

 

"So much, then, for forming a judgment, ignorantly! I believe it is

always safer to have no opinion, than to form one without a perfect

knowledge of all the accompanying circumstances."

 

"Let us adhere to this safe rule through life, dearest, and we may

find its benefits. An absolute confidence, caution in drawing

conclusions, and a just reliance on each other, may keep us as happy

to the end of our married life, as we are at this blessed moment,

when it is commencing under auspices so favourable as to seem almost

providential."

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Publication Date: 05-06-2015

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