Doubly false

That night, while Cora Lander was working out her evil plans and Virginia had fallen asleep, with tears in her eyes, thinking of her loneliness, Brian Nolan and the hunchbacked girl sat in a little upper room of the hotel, talking together in that sad, hopeless way which is most likely to follow a great misfortune. The light was dim, for Brian, with that sensitive delicacy with which a refined nature strives to throw a veil over deep feeling, had turned down the gas, and in this semi-obscurity held his sister close in his arms.

“Don’t cry so, darling, don’t. It breaks my heart to feel you shake and sob in this way,” said the boy, trembling, himself, as he spoke.

“I was thinking how many of us went on board that ship, Brian. Now you and I are left alone! all are gone! all are gone!”

“I know! I know!” answered the boy. “Oh! my poor mother! my grand, strong father!”

The boy shook and trembled as he spoke, and the girl clung to him more tightly, sobbing with half-suppressed bursts of grief.

“He looked so grand—just as Abraham must have stood when his boy lay on the altar. When I mounted the bulwark, I knew it was death; people were sinking all around the ship—”

“Don’t, Brian! don’t, or my heart will break!”

“Poor sister! poor Ellen! I am sorry! But these things are always in my mind. Only a few days ago I prayed God to take me where they have gone. I was all alone—hungry, oh, so hungry!”

“Poor Brian! I never was that since we left the boat. She has fed me as if I had been a bird that she loved.”

“God bless her sweet face! But tell me how it all happened. I know that she swam to the boat with you hanging about her neck, but that is months ago. Where have you been ever since?”

“We floated about for three days, cold and hungry, till some of the strong men prayed to die; but she was patient, and tried to make them hope for the best. It would have made you cry to hear her comforting that other proud girl when she gave way and would sit moaning and wringing her hands like a crazy thing. My lady was calm and still as an angel. Some of the men had tossed some bread and a keg of water into the boat before she put off, and that kept us from quite starving. My lady only ate half that was given to her and would have divided the rest between her cousin and me. I would not touch it—no, no, I would have starved to death first—but Cora, that hard, beautiful Cora, devoured it all without a single thank. Oh, Brian, my lady is so good!”

“I know it, darling; she looks good. But you were taken up at last.”

“Yes, Brian, a ship bound for South America hove in sight. Oh! what joy came upon us! Then it was, brother that my young lady gave up and burst into tears. Her white face was so beautiful then. She snatched me close to her bosom and kissed me, thanking God with every kiss. I clung to her; I laughed—I cried—I shivered with joy. The other girl stood up in the boat and beckoned the great ship with both her hands. She was eager as a hawk, but never spoke one word of thanks or seemed to care whether the rest were saved or not. Why, brother, the tough old seaman were on their knees with great tears rolling down their cheeks, sobbing like babies and blessing the ship, as if she had been a living thing that could feel their thankfulness; but her face was one white glow. She looked ready to trample us all down just to get into the ship one minute before us. Once the boat gave a lurch and almost flung her overboard. Then she caught hold of my young lady with both hands and sunk down on her knees, but not to pray. ‘Those horrid men wanted to kill her,’ she said, ‘and tried to throw her into the sea, just when life was so sweet and she was so near being safe.’”

“And you, my poor little sister, were taken on board with the rest and treated kindly?” questioned the lad, kissing that eloquent face with tender sympathy.

“Me? oh yes, everybody was kind to me, you know, for I never left her side, and she was like an angel among them. I wish you could have seen her talking to the men who were very downhearted after the first few days; for they had not a cent left in the world.”

“And you, my sister, had nothing?”

“Oh yes, I had everything, for I had her! She took great care of me, and loved me dearly; and I—oh, Brian, I am afraid it’s a sin to worship anything as I worship her.”

“No, no, Ellen; such feelings as you and I have for those who saved us are not wrong. It would be wicked if we did not almost worship these people.”

“Well, I do; I do—my lady had rings on her fingers worth a good deal of money, and the other one had just as many, so there was no want when they set us on shore. But she pined and grieved for her father. I never saw anybody so troubled and so still. The other was always brooding, brooding, brooding—I didn’t like her—I never shall like her, Brian. When she touches me only with her dress I start as if a snake were creeping by.”

“Ellen, dear, this will never do. It is the old trouble coming back. I can remember, when you were a little child, these fits of dislike coming over you.”

“But they were always true, Brian; I never shudder so at the sight of a good man or woman. When the snake fear comes on, I know that it is to warn me.”

“All this is because you are what people call sensitive, Ellen, and that will never do for a poor girl who has her way to make in the world,” said Brian, tenderly.

“But how can one help such feelings if God has given them? You might as well attempt to straighten this poor back as ask me not to shrink when anything bad comes near me. I feel it in the air. It troubles me like a fever. It seems as if nightshade and henbane were growing all around me. But goodness—oh! that is so different. When my young lady comes near I grow strong, and seem to stand up straight like other people. The air is full of bloom—roses and lilies seem breathing through the light. I long to fall down on my knees and thank God for something.”

“Ah, Ellen, my poor sister, all this makes you unhappy.”

“No, no; I am very, very happy sometimes.”

“But not generally.”

“How can I be, and they all gone?” answered the poor girl, plaintively. “Still, when I think how grandly he died—”

“Don’t! don’t let us talk of that!” cried the lad, with an outburst of passionate grief.

Ellen lifted up her mouth and kissed him.

“No, dear, I won’t—only it is a comfort to me sometimes.”

“Oh, Ellen, if he had but lived!”

“Yes, dear; but God wanted our father. Grand angels like him do not often enter Heaven, I dare say.”

Brian held her in his arms, and, bending his face, was about to kiss her forehead.

“Not there,” she said, with sweet solemnity. “Don’t touch my forehead. He kissed it—so did she—all the salt waters of the ocean could not wash those two kisses out. Her poor lips trembled, but his fell upon my forehead like a seal. Was it to make me gentle and sweet, like her—or great and strong, like him, I wonder?”

Brian looked down upon his sister and smiled through all his sadness. The idea of strength, connected with a creature like that, struck him as almost ludicrous. She smiled also, but with a sort of confidence.

“If I were tall, and large, and grand in my person, you would believe in me.”

“I believe in you now, dear; people can be loving and good without being very powerful.”

Ellen shook her head, and her fine eyes shone with sudden light.

“But if she were in trouble, they would find me powerful, feeble as I am. Sometimes I think she will want me, and then I am so thankful for the education our father gave us. It is ignorance that makes a soul weak, I think. They would not believe, Brian, that you and I have been brought up a gentleman’s children.”

“But he was a gentleman.”

“Hush, dear, he told us to forget that.”

“I know, I know.”

“And I want to forget it. Let that proud girl think me ignorant and low-bred; let my lady think so too, or they might both suppose me unfit for a servant, and that I must be, if anything. You and I will take our places low down without fretting about it, Brian. They don’t want education, but faithfulness. Brian, there is something wrong about Miss Cora, I am positive. But the gentleman, who is he?”

“I do not know, Ellen, only when I was hungry he fed me; when I was tired to death he gave me a bed to rest in.”

“Bless him for that!” said Ellen, with deep feeling. “He laid his hand on my head and looked into my eyes just as he used to look.”

“And did the snakes creep then?” inquired Brian, with a faint laugh.

“No, no, Brian; but there was something that troubled me. I wanted to throw both arms around his neck and cry.”

“That was gratitude. That is the way I felt when he first spoke to me.”

“No, it is not gratitude, brother; I think it is pity, sorrow—a wish to help about something.”

“But how could you help him?” asked Brian.

“I don’t know, but it will come clear yet.”

“I love him dearly,” said Brian, with tears in his eyes. “Ellen, I would die for him.”

“Brian, that girl knows him; I saw it in her eyes.”

“Perhaps; but what then? He has been a great traveller.”

“But my young lady did not know him.”

“I wish she had; he is splendid, like herself,” said Brian.

“Isn’t she lovely?” Ellen broke forth. “And he too, Brian?”

“Well, sister?”

“His eyes are like father’s.”

“Ellen!”

“Dark and large—gray when he thinks, black when he talks.”

“You have such strange fancies, sister. It is because his looks is always in your mind—that look when he blessed us.”

“It is burned into my heart,” said Ellen, in a low voice. “I see it everywhere.”

“Even in the eyes of my benefactor,” replied Brian, with a faint smile. He liked this fancy in his sister, and provoked her to express it again.

“It is in his eyes,” she answered, in solemn earnest. “Not always; but I saw it once when you told him who I was. He looked at me then with such tender pity. Brian, I love that man.”

“So do I, with all my heart and soul.”

“I pity him too,” said Ellen; “more than he pitied me. But why?”

“Because your heart is so kind, little sister,” said Brian, pressing her to him.

“No, it is not that. He is rich, handsome, grand. Why should any one pity him?”

She spoke thoughtfully and as if questioning her own mind. Brian sat with his arms around her, and softly smoothed the beautiful hair back from her head, which lay upon his shoulder. She had a fair complexion and a grand cast of countenance, delicate and yet powerful. The forehead was not remarkably high, but broad and almost massive. When she spoke earnestly it expanded over two large eyes, bright with a deep illumination. When she was wounded or perplexed, two faint lines defined themselves between the brows, which would have been rather heavy had her hair taken a deeper brown. This was not a beautiful face, perhaps, but it was one to enter a true soul and picture itself there forever.

“What will they do with us? Where is your friend going?” she said, clinging to him. “Will they separate us?”

A faint shudder passed over her frame as she asked the question, and she laid her face, which seemed chilled, close to his.

“I do not know where he is going,” answered the lad.

“She will stay here, or up the river a little way. If your friend lived in New York we could see each other very often,” Ellen continued.

“Perhaps he will—I hope he will!”

“I will pray for that,” said Ellen, whispering softly to herself.

Her head fell more heavily on his shoulder. This trustful whisper set her soul at rest. She was very weary and feeble yet from previous suffering. He saw the broad white lids droop slowly over her eyes and a smile crept around her mouth.

“How tired she is, poor soul,” thought the brother, looking down upon her face. “I love to feel her so near me! How sweetly she sleeps—how still it is—Ellen, dear, dear Ellen!”

His head sunk downwards, his cheek touched her hair. Her soft breath floated across his lips—his eyes grew heavy and he began to dream of wandering off in the fields hand in hand with a baby sister who insisted on filling her tiny apron with the blue violets and golden cowslips which grew along the path they had taken. Near them a little woodland stream laughed, and rippled, and dimpled around the roots of some crooked old hawthorn trees, which loomed up through his dreams, white with blossoms. Above these towered a clump of elms, cumbered with innumerable rooks’ nests, which they lifted into the sunshine and half concealed amid a green abundance of foliage. How pleasant and still it was—how softly the waters sung under the bending rushes—how meek and pretty that little sister looked with those blue and golden flowers in her lap.

What was that? Had one of the elm trees broken from its base and thundered to the earth? How dark it was—where was his little sister?

“Ellen! Ellen!” he cried out, in bewilderment.

“Here I am, Brian. Don’t be frightened, it is only some one at the door.”

“How long did I sleep, Ellen?”

“Oh, a long time; it was a sweet sleep; I was dreaming of the Hawthorn hollow, where all those violets grew.”

“And I—”

“Yes, I was sure that you dreamed of something pleasant—but they are knocking again. Yes, yes; Brian will come down in a minute. He hears you.”

Brian kissed Ellen tenderly and turned to go.

“I am happy now,” he said, “quite happy. God himself has brought us together, little sister. We cannot lose each other again. Good-night. He is wanting me.”

“Good-night, Brian. How sweet it will be to wake in the morning and know I have a brother.”