CHAPTER XX
"For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Environed with a wilderness of sea,
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever, when some curious surge
Will, in his brinish bowels, swallow him."
SHAKESPEARE
When I opened my eyes again, my head was leaning on Alice's shoulder, and Henry was springling water on my face. We were just arriving at the inn; and, half supported, half carried by Henry and Mr. Middleton, who met us at the door, I reached my own room.
At first I had no distinct recollection of what had occurred, but gradually the whole of it came back to my mind. Dreadful is that return of memory, after nature has for a while suspended the consciousness of pain. I turned with a feeling that was almost like aversion from my aunt and from Alice, who were bathing my head and hands with eau de Cologne, and offering me sal volatile and water to drink. There seemed a want of sympathy in their very kindness. I almost felt to dislike them for their ignorance of what I was enduring, and for talking of past fatigue and present rest, while I was suffering so acutely.
"I should like to be alone, and to try and sleep."
"Should you, my love? Then we will go, and leave your maid in the next room, in case you should want anything."
For a few minutes I lay in silence, feeling cold and wretched, the throbbing in my head and the ticking of the clock in the passage seeming to keep time. The faint echo of some distant cries reached my ears, and I could distinguish the words of "Middleton for ever!" I trembled and hid my face in my pillow. What would they cry out next? They shouted louder still; and my maid came in on tiptoe, and when I turned round and looked at her, she said, "I thought they would have woke you, Ma'am. They are hallooing so, because Mr. Middleton is coming home; and they are cheering him all the way."
Coming home! He, Edward! To me! The husband of her who… Oh, had he heard those words? had he noticed them? Would he repeat them? and as he did, would a sudden light flash on his brain, and the whole truth burst upon him at once? There had been a scuffle in that gallery. What was it? I must know; I must hear; I must speak to Henry.
"More shouting! more hallooing!"
"Mr. Middleton is coming in, Ma'am."
"Lock the door, and say I am asleep."
"What were you pleased to say, Ma'am?"
"Nothing, nothing. Do I look very ill?"
"Not very ill, Ma'am."
Edward came, and in a kind manner said, "My own love, I am so vexed to hear that you have been poorly. You ought not to have come. How are you now?"
"Better, dearest."
"Your aunt says you are not to talk; so now be quite still, and try to go to sleep. I am going to dinner, where I shall have to speak again. Did you like my speech this morning?"
I seized his hand, kissed it over and over again, and then pressed it upon my eyes, as I answered; "Perfect, – perfect as yourself."
He drew me fondly to him; and I whispered in his ear, "Come to Elmsley now. Do not leave me; I am weak; I am ill. Give up this dinner; I shall be miserable if you go to it. Take me back to Elmsley now, immediately."
"My dear love, what are you talking about? You know the thing is impossible. You can go when you like with your aunt; I shall come in the evening."
"That will not do, Edward. I entreat, I implore you not to leave me. Have I no influence with you? Have those detestable politics already so engrossed you, that my wishes, my entreaties, are vain?"
"For Heaven's sake, Ellen, do not be so foolish! Again in tears! Again a scene! This is really past endurance."
He walked up and down the room, while I stood by the chimney, and with clasped hands and streaming eyes repeated, "Scold me; reproach me; but do not leave me! Do, do, I implore you, come with me at once to Elmsley."
At this moment my maid came in, and put a letter into Edward's hands. The direction was exactly in the same round, peculiar characters, in which the threatening words that had been twice addressed to me were written. I felt myself turning as pale as death, and then the blood rushed to my head with violence. I darted upon the letter, and in a second I had snatched it out of Edward's hand and thrown it into the fire. He looked at me for an instant in silent astonishment; and, partly to implore forgiveness, partly because I trembled so that I could not stand, I fell on my knees, and hid my face in my hands.
"What is the meaning of this, Ellen? Explain yourself immediately. Speak if you do not wish me to leave you in anger," he added, with his hand on the handle of the door.
"Oh, for God's sake, for mercy's sake, do not go now! do not leave me in this way!"
"Then speak!" he rejoined almost fiercely; "give some explanation of an act which I cannot understand or forgive."
"I thought – I fancied – that that letter came from some woman; – a woman who has watched you, followed you. Forgive me, Edward; I was jealous – I was mad! Oh, have pity upon me and do not drive me quite mad!"
As I said these words, I held my hand to my head, and staggered towards the bed. Edward lifted me up, placed me upon it, and kissing my forehead, said, "God help you, poor child!"
I threw my arms round his neck, and clung to him.
When he disengaged himself, and left me, I felt as if it might be for the last time; other voices, other letters might reach him; and then all my previous conduct would rise up in judgment against me. What he might once have thrown aside as the scrawl of a madman, would now appear to him in the form of an explanation. I rang the bell with violence; and when my maid came, I desired her to find Henry and send him to me immediately.
"Shall I go and tell him in the drawing-room, Ma'am?"
"No; I will go there myself."
I put on my bonnet and shawl, and answered all inquiries by assurances that I was well again, and ready to drive back to Elmsley. The carriages were ordered; and calling Henry to the window, I asked him in a low voice if he had anything to tell me; if he knew anything more. He put his finger on his lip and turned away. An instant afterwards he asked me aloud if I would give up my place in the close carriage to Alice, who had a slight cold, and go with him in his. I nodded assent; and when my uncle said, as I thought sternly, "This is a very foolish plan, Ellen; you had better come with us;" I cried out that the air would do me good; and, springing in by Henry's side, drove off to Elmsley.
"What have you heard? What have you found out?"
"In the first place, tell me, have you had a scene with Edward since you came home? Has he questioned you about anything?"
"How do you mean? About what?"
"Perhaps he will take no notice; but you must be prepared with an answer if he should; and we had better talk it over together. It makes me miserable to give you pain; but you must not be taken by surprise: a letter has been sent to him, and is in his hands now, whether he has read it or not as yet."
"Who sent it? Who spoke in the gallery?"
"I believe it was Robert Harding; but I cannot be sure of it. The moment after we brought you home, I tried to find out. All I could gather was that one of the servants struck the speaker, whoever he was; that he returned the blow, and that a scuffle ensued; the police interfered, and the man slipped away. I returned to the inn; and as I was standing by the window half an hour afterwards, I saw Harding walking down the street; I went down-stairs and asked your servant at the door if he knew that man, or had ever seen him before. He told me that he had just given him a letter for Edward, which he had requested should be delivered to him immediately. It must have been Harding who spoke in the gallery, and whom I saw in the street. Mrs. Tracy denied the other day all knowledge of his being in England; but I can swear to him. I asked your servant for the letter, which he must have thought strange enough, and I do not know what I could have done had he produced it; but as it was, he had given it an instant before to your maid to take up-stairs, and I have been in cruel anxiety ever since."
"That letter is destroyed."
"How? What do you mean?"
"I snatched it out of Edward's hand and burnt it. It is almost a relief to find from what this has saved me, for it was at a dreadful cost, as Edward was fearfully incensed. But, for Heaven's sake, Henry, tell me what are we to do now? Harding will write again; there is no security, no hope. This cannot last."
"Something must certainly be done, and I must find out this Harding. I am enraged with old Tracy, for having betrayed it all to him; but money, perhaps… Have you much at your disposal, Ellen?"
"Some, not a great deal; but I can get more, perhaps. Oh, Heavens! is it come to this: must I buy the silence of a set of wretches, as if I had indeed been a vile criminal? And what have I done after all? Good God! what have I done? Nothing that I might not proclaim to the world, with regret and sorrow indeed, but without shame or remorse."
"You should in that case have proclaimed it sooner. It is too late now."
"So you say, and so you have made me act. If it had not been for you, if I had never known you, if you had never crossed my path, I should not be the miserable creature I am now. But I am driven to extremities; sorrow and shame compass me about on every side. I can never look Edward, you, or the world in the face again, |till you release me from the fatal oath which you extorted from me in an hour of weakness and of despair."
"It is from your own weakness, from your rash and foolish despair, that in spite of yourself I will guard you."
"Oh, Heaven, deliver me from such guardianship as yours! God save me from your counsels, and rescue me from your power!"
"Go, then, go, and tell your husband that you killed your cousin by mistake. Tell him that you were on the point of marrying me by mistake; that you married him by mistake; and have deceived him and me, and every one you have had to do with, all by mistake. Go and break the most solemn engagement, which you called upon God to witness; heap fresh guilt and fresh remorse on your head; but, if Edward should not give credit to your story, and should hint at separation, remember that there is a man in the world who loves you in spite of all your scorn and your violence, and who would kneel at your feet if the rest of the world contemned and deserted you."
"Another word of this kind, Henry, and I never speak to you again."
"You forget yourself, Ellen. Poor weak woman, what could you do without me? Look at this letter, which in your difficulties you once wrote to me, when you dared not marry Edward without my consent. It never leaves me; there, in my bosom, I keep it as a charm to recall softer thoughts and better feelings when an evil spirit takes possession of me, and urges me to drive you to desperation. Have mercy on yourself, and on me, Ellen. Your present position is far more awful than it then was; but if you will be patient and trust in me, all may yet be well. I will find this Harding out, and take some means to stop his mouth. Think of all you would forego, if in one rash moment I suffered you to disclose the truth to Edward. I solemnly swear to you, that I speak the truth, when I assert that from what I know of him and of his character, and something of his past history too, I am certain that he would part from you if these circumstances were to come to his knowledge. And do you know, Ellen, what I save you from? No, you do not know what it is to part. You do not know what it is to give up love, and hope, and joy; never to see the face which to see is in itself happiness; not to hear the voice which to hear is to be blest; and to feel that there is life before us, life to be gone through, and no light to gild it, no music in our souls, no hopes nor even fears; and oh, how wretched is that state where even fear would seem a blessing! No, no, do not part from him you love; never feel what I have felt; but feel for me sometimes: and when you wake to-morrow, and remember that but for me your eyes would not be gladdened by the sight of your husband, treasure up that thought against the next time that harsh words and cutting reproaches are rising to your lips against one who seeks to save you from the anguish he himself endures."
I returned the pressure of Henry's hand, and we drove on in silence for some time. He had as usual subdued and reconciled me to a return to the ordinary state of things between us. He went on to advise me strongly, and apparently with great good sense, not to oppose a speedy return to London, and to promote, instead of discouraging, the interest which Edward took in politics. "Your spirits are naturally unequal," he said; "and you have often causes for worry and anxiety. It is easy enough to command one's self for an hour or two in the course of the day; and the very joy which you will feel in Edward's society during those intervals which he will devote to you, will enable you to keep from him those alternations which must affect him in a disagreeable manner. It is impossible to say what stories this Harding may have spread in the neighbourhood, and till they have died away you will feel much more comfortable in London, where Edward will have constant occupation, and you yourself resources of all sorts for interest and amusement. A quiet life may be a good thing for those who have no cares or troubles; but when, to use a common expression, one has anything on one's mind, it is the worst possible plan of existence: it is equally difficult to shake it off one's self, or to conceal it from others, without the aid of external excitements."
In this manner Henry talked on till we reached Elmsley.
Late that evening Edward returned. He had made another excellent speech; and in order to prevent any allusion to my conduct in the morning, I questioned him about politics, and listened with apparent interest to explanations about divers party questions, and details relative to the measures expected during the next session.
During a pause, however, he said to me in a low voice, "I have made inquiries about the letter which you destroyed in so rash a manner this morning. Your groundless jealousy entirely misled you. It was left for me by a man whom nobody knew, and must have been some petition I suppose. I ought not to have forgiven you so easily, for it was unjustifiable to destroy a letter in that way from some absurd suspicion; but you owned your folly so frankly that it disarmed me."
I sighed deeply, but made no answer.
The next morning, at breakfast, Edward asked Henry if he knew how the row had begun, which took place in the gallery during the conclusion of his speech.
"Some one called you names, I believe," Henry carelessly answered; "and one of our people resented it. That was all."
"Do you know who it was that took up my cause in that way?" said Edward.
"Old James, the coachman, I believe," answered Henry.
Old James had known me from a baby – had taught me to ride; he had always been much attached to me, and I could easily understand his anger at the horrible imputation cast upon me; but I trembled from head to foot at the idea that in his very indignation he would spread the report, and, above all, that if Edward spoke to him he would repeat it. I did not feel courage to speak to him myself on the subject, and, therefore, as usual, I turned to Henry for assistance. I whispered to him a few words, and he immediately left the room.
"What have you sent Henry about?" my uncle asked.
The question was a simple one, but at the moment I could not find an answer to it; and as Alice fixed her large calm eyes upon me, I coloured and stammered out something unintelligible about ordering the horses. She looked at me steadily for an instant, and then taking up her knitting she worked on in silence. I was copying out some music, and for a quarter of an hour there was no other sound in the room but the scratching of my pen and the rustling of Mr. Middleton's and Edward's newspapers. When Henry returned I felt to colour again, and breathed more freely when he took up a third newspaper and sat down by the fire. After a few minutes were elapsed I went to the pianoforte and began playing. Henry got up and joined me.
"All is right," he said, "about James, but the sooner you leave this place the better. There are all sorts of stories about. They will soon die a natural death; but your absence would be very desirable."
"Heaven knows I do not wish to stay here. But how can I make
Edward and my uncle go?"
"I will try to persuade my sister, what is, in fact, true, that, if they are going abroad for this winter, they ought to be setting out now. You will naturally accompany them to London; indeed, you can make a point of it with Edward; and then, once in London, you can easily contrive to stay there. As Parliament meets at the beginning of November, your coming back here would probably be out of the question."
"Edward will wish to shoot next month."
"Then go to Hillscombe; – anywhere but here."
"Have you seen that man?"
"Not yet; I shall ride to Bridman this afternoon and find him out."
"What is he doing there?"
"I don't know; but James tells me he has been staying at the inn there for the last three weeks."
"Oh, that I were gone from hence! That I had the wings of a dove to flee away and be at rest! Henry, shall I ever know again what it is to be at rest?"
"Rest would not do for you. You have too keen a spirit, too strong a will, and too much genius to know what rest is. A good thing in its way I grant; but neither for you nor me was it ever decreed. We can be intensely happy, we can be intensely miserable. We tremble in the midst of joy, for we feel that it is too exquisite to last. In anguish we hope on, for we cannot conceive life without something to brighten its dull course; and we would rather die than live without a fear, a hope, an emotion of any sort."
As he said these words he fixed his eyes on his wife, who was still apparently absorbed in her work at some distance from us.
She got up at this moment and came towards us. She had a letter in her hand, which she held out to Henry, and at the same time she said distinctly and slowly, "This letter was found at the bottom of our carriage. It was brought to me, and I return it to you."
The delicate colour of her cheek was slightly heightened, but her voice was perfectly calm, and she walked slowly out of the room. It was my letter to Henry, the only one I had ever written to him. He had shown it to me the day before, and now she had seen it, at least, she must have recognised the handwriting. Henry bit his lip, tore up the paper into fragments, and threw them into the fire.
He returned to me, and said in a low voice, "Would that my love, my guilty love for you, could die away like those fragments in the flame. But, Ellen, it is too late; we have sown the whirlwind, and we must reap the storm."
When I came down to luncheon, I hardly dared to look towards Alice. Never had I feared anything so much as to meet those calm and gentle eyes. She came up to me as we were leaving the dining-room, and with her sweet voice asked me if I would drive with her. I gave a hasty assent, although I dreaded beyond expression to find myself alone with her, and I was much relieved when my uncle volunteered to accompany us.
It was a fine October afternoon, and as we were driving out of the gates of the park, Mr. Middleton turned to Alice and asked her if she knew the drive by Shirley Common, and back by the Woods of Bridman.
"No," she said; "I have often walked through Bridman Woods; but I do not know the drive you mention."
"Then we will take it to-day. Drive to Shirley Common, stop when you come to Euston Gate, and come back through Bridman Woods and home by the village."
There seemed in truth to be some fatality pursuing me. I could not take a common drive without some fresh cause for anxiety; and as we proceeded in the appointed direction, I thought of the day when I had so much annoyed Henry by persisting in visiting Bridman Cottage. As we drove along the terrace where I had seen Alice for the first time, I saw her eyes fixed on the broken fountain, and her lips moved as if she was repeating something to herself. She suddenly turned to my uncle, and asked him if he would put her down at the corner of the terrace and wait for her a few minutes, while she went to look at the house where she had once lived.
"I want to see Bridman Cottage myself," answered my uncle. "I have had the offer of a tenant, and shall be glad to go over it."
He desired the coachman to drive there. As we passed the inn, I saw Henry's horse standing in the yard. I instantly turned Mr. Middleton's attention to an old oak on the other side of the road, and this circumstance escaped unobserved. When we reached the cottage, the door was opened by an old woman who had had the care of it since Mrs. Tracy had given it up. She threw open the shutters, and the slanting rays of the evening sun shone, through the casement on the dusty brick floor. When we followed her into the back parlour, she opened the door into the little garden, the neat and gay appearance of which contrasted with the dirty and forlorn aspect of the cottage. A spade and a rake were lying on the grass-plot in front of it. Mr. Middleton inquired of the old woman how she managed to keep the garden in so good a state, and who she got to work in it.
"Why, Sir, if you had come some four weeks ago, you would have hardly said the same, for it's nothing as I can do myself; and my son as comes home from a Saturday to a Monday, it's not much that he can do either; but last month a man from London, what lives at the Crown, he came here and asked me to show him the house, and when he see'd the garden and the condition it was in, he asked me to let him set to work in it and put it to rights; and a deal he has done in it to be sure for the time. He got Madge, the washerwoman, to come over one day and tell him how it all was when them people as lived in it last were here. And a power of work he did to put up that arbour there, as she told him it was afore the neighbour's boys had got in and pulled it to pieces."
"But what is that man doing here? What is he?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Sir; he does jobs for the carpenter sometimes, and turns a penny may be that way."
"You should not let people into the house whom you know nothing about."
"Lord, Sir! what harm can he do? There's nothing to take in the place, and sure he has made the garden look gay to what it did."
Mr. Middleton went to look at the cow-shed; and the old woman, turning to Alice and myself, continued, "Madge says as how he has written a name with them flowers out in that corner; but I can't say I reads it myself – it's a queer sort of print enough."
We both moved in that direction, and saw at the same time, under the wall, traced in the delicate lilac flowers of the Virginian Stock, the name of Alice. She looked steadily on the spot for a few seconds, and then turning to the woman, asked her the name of the man whom she had spoken of.
"Robert Harding, Ma'am."
Alice only said, "Poor fellow! I understand it all."
She turned away and walked into the house. I leant against the wall, and remained buried in thought till my uncle returned. He was in a hurry to go, and desired me to look for Alice. Not finding her in the rooms below, I went up the narrow staircase, opened the door of what had once been her bed-room, and looked into the closet within. There was the view of the church, such as she had once shown it me from that window: she was on her knees, and her head was resting on her hands; the sound of a deep sigh caught my ear. I looked at her kneeling in that bare and empty room where I had seen her once before with her books and her flowers, her sweet and pleasant thoughts, her bright and quiet smiles. I looked on this picture and on that, and something whispered to my soul, "Who has done this?" and conscience answered, "Thou, even thou." I heard my uncle's impatient step below, and I said, "Alice, will you come?" She rose from her knees, and there was in her face that peace which passeth all understanding. She looked into mine and, doubtless, saw in it the storms which swept over my soul, for her meek eyes looked kindly upon me. She drew from her bosom a small wooden cross, which hung by a black ribbon round her neck; she held it to her lips and then to mine, and said, "Borne for us, and by us."
Dinner was half over that day before Henry came in; his face was flushed, and his brow clouded. He answered roughly and abruptly his sister's questions as to the cause of his lateness; drank a great deal of wine, and maintained a gloomy and sullen silence. Partly from a kind of utter discouragement, partly from the fear of giving pain to Alice, instead of eagerly watching for an opportunity of speaking to him after dinner, and learning the result of his interview with Harding, I avoided Henry, and even left the drawing-room; and going up to my own turret sitting-room, I raked up the embers of the fire, and sat before it in gloomy contemplation. At the end of about half an hour, Henry burst into the room, and, as I looked at him in astonishment, he exclaimed bitterly, "Pray be so good as to dispense with forms for once, and receive me graciously if you can, for my patience is exhausted, and I would recommend you not to trifle with me. Do you imagine," he continued, with increasing violence, "that I am to submit to the most painful and humiliating interviews, and at my return to be treated as a footman whom you have sent on an errand? If you hate me, conceal it at least. Act the hypocrite once more, and to good purpose, for I am weary of the part you play, and make me play."
"Leave me, leave me this moment; and O that I might never set eyes on you again."
"So you said once before; and did I not tell you then, that all was not over between us? Are you not bound to me by a tie so powerful that nothing can sever it? Has not your heart softened to me in spite of all I have ever done or said to make you hate me? And is it not because you know, you feel, that, whatever I may do and say in ungovernable anger, I love you ardently, passionately, unspeakably – "
"For God's sake, for mercy's sake, go! that is Edward's voice in the hall – he is coming."
Henry rushed to the door and locked it; at the same moment the handle was seized and turned outside. I grew very pale, but sprang forward to open it; before I had reached it, Henry had seized my hands, and in a whisper he said, "As you value your future peace, do not open it."
"I would die at his feet rather than not let him in."
I disengaged myself from Henry's grasp, and flung open the door; but whoever had been there was gone, and I heard the one that led into the hall slammed with violence. I returned into the room burning with shame and indignation; and throwing myself down on the chair before the fire, I hid my face in my hands and refused to listen to Henry.
"Calm yourself, I entreat you," said Henry; "after this it will not do to appear again with red and swollen eyes. Besides, I must speak to you – I must tell you about Harding."
I got up with the courage of despair, and the recklessness of a nature that was growing hardened, and listened in silence to his recital of the scene he had had with that wild man, who seemed careless of all ties and considerations, save the one feeling which overruled all others in his strange nature – his unconquerable and hopeless attachment to Alice.
"I have borne much for your sake, to-day, Ellen; it is well for us both that I have more self-command than you have. That coarse and vulgar lout knows my secrets as well as yours; he almost threw into my face the money I offered him. He almost called me a villain, and I was forced to bear with it all, and even to let him depart with nothing but a silent curse, when he said 'Make Alice happy, and I will hold my tongue, and only thank God that though I'm a blackguard, I'm no thief; and though I've knocked down many a man, I've never killed a child; but if you bring tears into her eyes, and break her heart, my name is not Robert Harding, or there are no clubs or knives in the world, if I do not give you a taste of mine.' Now you know why I came home with the spirit of a demon and the temper of a fiend, and vented upon you the tortures I had been enduring. Oh, Ellen, we cannot bear this life much longer; if you could but – "
"Ellen! Ellen! where are you? The Brandons are arrived, and have been asking for you over and over again. Mr. Middleton and Edward wish you to come down directly."
I rushed down the steps of the turret stairs, at the bottom of which my aunt was standing, and went with her into the library, and had to talk and to smile, and to be told that I looked a little pale and tired, and to be asked by Edward if I knew where Henry was, and to deny all knowledge of it, and to feel as if myself and all about me were acting a heartless play, with fevered cheeks and breaking hearts.