Constance Woolson - Jupiter Lights

Tall Miss Sabrina seemed to understand; she put one arm round their guest. Cicely, thus deserted, laughed. Then she went to her grandfather, put her arm in his, and they left the room together. When the door had closed after them, Eve raised her eyes. “He is the image of Jack!” she said.

“Yes, I know it,” answered Miss Sabrina. “And I knew how it would affect you, my dear. But I think it is a comfort that he does look like him; don’t you? And now you must not talk any more about going away, but stay here with us and love him.”

“Stay!” said Eve. She rose, and made a motion as if she were going to give the child to her companion. But little Jack put up his hand again, and stroked her cheek; he was crooning meanwhile to himself composedly a little song of his own invention; it was evident that he would never be afraid of her again. Eve kissed him. “Do you think she would give him to me?” she asked, hungrily. “She cannot care for him – not as I do.”

Miss Sabrina drew herself up (in the excess of her sympathy, as well as near-sightedness, she had been leaning so far forward that her flat breast had rested almost on her knees). “Give up her child – her own child? My niece? I think not; I certainly think not.” She took off her glasses and put them in her pocket decisively.

“Then I shall take him from her. And you must help me. What will she care in a month from now – a year? She has already forgotten his father.”

Miss Sabrina was still angry. But she herself had not liked her niece’s second marriage. “The simplest way would be to stay here for the present,” she said, temporizing.

“Stay here? Now? How can you ask it?”

Tears rose in the elder lady’s eyes; she began to wipe them away clandestinely one by one with her long taper finger. “It’s a desolate place now, I know; but it’s very peaceful. The garden is pretty. And we hoped that you wouldn’t mind. We even hoped that you would like it a little – the child being here. We would do all we could. Of course I know it isn’t much.”

These murmured words in the melancholy voice seemed to rouse in Eve Bruce an even more stormy passion than before. She went to Miss Sabrina and took hold of her shoulder. “Do you think I can stand seeing him ,” she demanded – “here – in Jack’s place? If I could, I would go to-night.” Turning away, she broke into tearless sobs. “Oh Jack – Jack – ”

Light dawned at last in Sabrina Abercrombie’s mind. “You mean Mr. Morrison?” she said, hurriedly rising. “You didn’t know, then? Cicely didn’t tell you?”

“She told me that she had married again; nothing more. Six months ago. She let me come here – you let me come here – without knowing it.”

“Oh, I thought you knew it,” said Miss Sabrina, in distress. “I did not like the marriage myself, Miss Bruce; I assure you I did not. I was very fond of John, and it seemed too sudden. If she had only waited the year – and two years would have been so much more appropriate. I go there very often – to John’s grave – indeed I do; it is as dear to me as the graves of my own family, and I keep the grass cut very carefully; I will show you. You remember when I wrote you that second time? I feared it then, though I was not sure, and I tried to prepare you a little by saying that the baby was now your chief interest, naturally. And he wasn’t going to be married,” she added, becoming suddenly incoherent, and taking hold of her throat with little rubs of her thumb and forefinger as Eve’s angry eyes met hers; “at least, not that we knew. I did not say more, because I was not sure, Miss Bruce. But after it had really happened, I supposed of course that Cicely wrote to you.”

“She!”

“But Mr. Morrison is not here; he is not here, and never has been. She met him in Savannah, and married him there; it was at a cousin’s. But she only stayed with him for a few months, and we fear that it is not a very happy marriage. He is in South America at present, and you know how far away that is. I haven’t the least idea when he is coming back.”

The door at the end of the room opened. Cicely’s little figure appeared on the threshold. Miss Sabrina, who seemed to know who it was by intuition, as she could see nothing at that distance, immediately began to whisper. “Of course we don’t know that it is an unhappy marriage; but as she came back to us so soon, it struck us so – it made that impression; wouldn’t it have made the same upon you? She must have suffered extremely, and so we ought to be doubly kind to her.” And she laid her hand with a warning pressure on Eve’s arm.

“I am not likely to be unkind as long as there is the slightest hope of getting this child away from her,” answered Eve. “For she is the mother, isn’t she? She couldn’t very well have palmed off some other baby on you, for Jack himself was here then, I know. Oh, you needn’t be afraid, I shall defer to her, yield to her, grovel to her!” She bent her head and kissed the baby’s curls. But her tone was so bitter that poor Miss Sabrina shrank away.

Cicely had called to them, “Supper is ready.” She remained where she was at the end of the long room, holding the door open with her hand.

THE father of John and Eva Bruce was an officer in the United States army. His wife had died when Eve was born. Captain Bruce brought up his children as well as he could; he would not separate himself from them, and so he carried them about with him to the various military stations to which he was ordered. When his boy was sixteen, an opportunity presented itself to him: an old friend, Thomas Ashley, who was established, and well established, in London, offered to take the lad, finish his education, and then put him into the house, as he called it, the house being the place of business of the wealthy English-American shipping firm to which he had the good-fortune to belong.

Captain Bruce did not hesitate. Jack was sent across the seas. Eve, who was then ten years old, wept desperately over the parting. Six years later she too went to England. Her father had died, and, young as she was, her determination to go to her brother was so strong that nothing could stand against it. During the six years of separation Jack had returned to America twice to see his father and sister; the tie between the three had not been broken by absence, but only made stronger. The girl had lived a concentrated life, therefore an isolated one. She had had her own way on almost all occasions. It was said of her, “Any one can see that she has been brought up by a man!” In reality there were two men; for Jack had seemed to her a man when he was only twelve years old. Her father gone, her resolve to go to Jack was, as has been said, so strong that nothing could stand against it. But in truth there was little to oppose to it, and few to oppose her; no one, indeed, who could set up anything like the force of will which she was exhibiting on the other side. She had no near relatives; as for her father’s old friends, she rode over them.

“You’ll have to let her go; she puts out her mouth so!” said Mrs. Mason, the colonel’s wife, at last. The remark, as to its form, was incoherent; but everybody at the post understood her. At sixteen, then, Eve Bruce was sent to England. As soon as she was able she took a portion of the property which came to her from her mother, to make a comfortable home for Jack. For Jack had only his salary, and it was not a large one. He had made himself acceptable in the house, and in due time he was to have a small share of the profits; but the due time was not yet, and would not be for some years. His father’s old friend, who had been his friend also, as well as his sponsor in the firm, had died. But his widow, who liked the young American – she was an American herself, though long expatriated – continued to extend to him much kindness; and, when his sister came over, she included her in the invitations. Eve did not care much for these opportunities, nor for the other opportunities that followed in their train; occasionally she went to a dinner; but she found her best pleasure in being with her brother alone. They remained in London all the year round, save for six weeks in August and September. Eve could have paid many a visit in the country during the autumn and winter; but their small, ugly house near Hans Place was more beautiful in her eyes, Jack being there, than the most picturesque cottage with a lawn and rose garden, or even than an ivy-grown mansion in a deer-haunted park.