Lucy Cleeve.
Lingering under the light of the sweet May moon, arm within arm, their
voices hushed, their tread slow, went two individuals, whom few,
looking upon them, could have failed to mistake for anything but
lovers. Lovers they were, in heart, in mind, in thought: with as pure
and passionate and ardent a love as ever was felt on this earth. And
yet, no word, to tell of it, had ever been spoken between them.
It was one of those cases where love, all unpremeditated, had grown
up, swiftly, surely, silently. Had either of them known that they were
drifting into it, they might have had sufficient prudence to separate
forthwith, before the danger grew into certainty. For he, the obscure
and nearly portionless young soldier, had the sense to see that he
would be regarded as no fit match for the daughter of Colonel and the
Honourable Mrs. Cleeve; both of high lineage and inordinately proud of
it into the bargain; and she, Lucy Cleeve, knew that, for all her good
descent, she was nearly portionless too, and that her future husband,
whomsoever he might turn out to be, must possess a vast deal more of
this world's goods than did Lieutenant Andinnian. Ay, and of family
also. But, there it was: they had drifted into this mutual love
unconsciously: each knew that it was for all time: and that, in
comparison, "family" and "goods" were to them as nothing.
"And so Miss Blake is back, Lucy?"
The words, spoken by Mr. Andinnian, broke one of those long pauses of
delicious silence, that in themselves seem like tastes of paradise.
Lucy Cleeve's tones in answer were low and soft as his.
"She came to-day. I hardly knew her. Her hair is all put on the top of
her head: and--and--"
Lucy stopped. "And is of another colour," she had been about to
conclude. But it might not be quite good-natured to say it, even to
one to whom she would willingly have given her whole heart's
confidence. Reared in the highest of all high and true principles, and
naturally gifted with them, Lucy had a peculiar dread of deceit: her
dislike of it extended even to the changing of the colour of the hair.
But she was also of that sweet and generous disposition that shrinks
from speaking a slighting word of another. She resumed hastily and
with a slight laugh.
"Theresa is in love with Rome; and especially with its cardinals. One
of them was very civil to her, Karl."
"About this picnic to-morrow, Lucy. Are you to be allowed to go?"
"Yes, now Theresa's here. Mamma would not have liked to send me
without some one from home: and the weather is scarcely hot enough for
herself to venture. Do--you--go" she asked timidly.
"Yes."
There was silence again: each heart beating in unison. The prospect of
a whole day together, spent amidst glens, and woods, and dales, was
too much for utterance.
For the past twelve months, Lieutenant Andinnian's regiment had been
quartered at Winchester. On his arrival, he had brought with him a
letter of introduction to one of the clergy there--a good old man,
whose rectory was on the outskirts of the town. The Rev. Mr. Blake and
his wife took a great fancy to the young lieutenant, and made much of
him. Living with them at that time was a relative, a Miss Blake. This
lady was an orphan: she had a small fortune, somewhere between two and
three hundred a year: and she stayed sometimes with the Blakes,
sometimes with the Cleeves, to whom she and the Blakes were likewise
related.
A novel writer has to tell secrets: not always pleasant ones. In this
case, it must be disclosed that the one secret wish of Theresa Blake's
life, to which her whole energies (in a lady-like way) were directed,
was--to get married, and to marry well. If we could see into the
hearts of some other young ladies, especially when they have left the
bloom of youth behind, we might find them filled with the same ardent
longing. Hitherto Miss Blake's hopes had not been realized. She was
not foolish enough to marry downright unwisely: and nothing eligible
had come in her way. Considering that she was so very sensible a young
woman--for good common sense was what Miss Blake prided herself
upon--it was very simple of her to take up the notion she did--that
the attractive young lieutenant's frequent visits to the rectory were
made for her sake. She fell over head and ears in love with him: she
thought that his attentions (ordinary attentions in truth, and paid to
her as the only young lady of a house where the other inmates were
aged) spoke plainly of his love for her. Of what are called
"flirtations" Theresa Blake had had enough, and to spare: but of true
love she had hitherto known nothing. She ignored the difference in
their years--for there was a difference--and she waited for the time
when the young officer should speak out: her income joined to his and
his pay, would make what she thought they could live very comfortably
upon. Love softens difficulties as does nothing else in life; before
she knew Karl Andinnian, Miss Blake would have scorned the notion of
taking any man who could not have offered her a settlement of a
thousand pounds a year at least.
But now--what was Karl Andinnian's share in all this? Simply none.
He had no more notion that the young lady was in love with him than
that old Mrs. Blake was. If Miss Blake did not see the years she had
come to, he did; and would nearly as soon, so far as age went, have
offered to marry his mother. To a young man of twenty-six, a woman of
thirty-four looks quite old. And so, in this misapprehension--the one
finding fresh food for her hopes day by day, the other at ease in his
utter unconsciousness--the summer and autumn had passed. At the close
of autumn Miss Blake departed with some friends for the Continent,
more particularly to visit Paris and Rome. But that it was a
long-since-made engagement, and also that she had so wished to see
those renowned places, she would not have torn herself away from the
locality that contained Mr. Andinnian.
Shortly afterwards the Cleeves returned to Winchester, after a long
absence. They resided without the town, just beyond Mr. Blake's
rectory. Lucy Cleeve had been in the habit of spending nearly as much
time at the rectory as at home: and it was from the never-tiring
training of him and his good wife that Lucy had learnt to be the truly
excellent girl she was. On the very day of her return, she and Karl
Andinnian met: and--if it was not exactly love at first sight with
them, it was something very like it; for each seemed drawn to the
other by that powerful, sympathetic attraction that can no more be
controlled than explained or accounted for. A few more meetings, and
they loved for all time: and since then they had gone on living in a
dream of happiness.
There they were, pacing together the rectory garden under the warm May
moonlight. The rector had been called to a sick parishioner, and they
had strolled out with him to the gate. Mrs. Blake, confined to her
sofa, was unsuspicious as the day. Lucy, twenty 'years of age, was
looked upon by her as a child still: and the old are apt to forget the
sweet beguilements of their own long-past youth, and that the young of
the present day can be drifting into the same.
"It is very pleasant; quite warm," spoke Mr. Andinnian. "Would you
like another turn, Lucy?"
They both turned simultaneously without a word of assent from her, and
paced side by side to the gate in a rapture of silence. Lucy quitted
him to pluck a spray from the sweet-briar hedge; and then they turned
again. The moon went behind a cloud.
"Take my arm, Lucy. It is getting quite dark."
She took it; the darkness affording the plea; and the night hid the
blushes on her transparent cheeks. They were half-way down the walk,
and Karl was bending his head to speak to her; his tones low, though
their subject was nothing more than the projected party for the
morrow; when some one who had approached the gate from the road, stood
still there to look at them.
It was Miss Blake. She had that day returned from her continental
excursion, and taken up her abode, as arranged, at Colonel Cleeve's.
Whether at the rectory or at Colonel Cleeve's, Miss Blake paid at the
rate of one hundred a year for the accommodation; and then, as she
said, she was independent. It was a private arrangement, one that she
insisted on. Her sojourn abroad had not tended to cool one whit of her
love for Mr. Andinnian; the absence had rather augmented it. She had
come home with all her pulses bounding and her heart glowing at the
prospect of seeing him again.
But--she saw him with some one else. The moon was out again in all her
silvery brightness, and Miss Blake had keen eyes. She saw one on his
arm, to whom he seemed to be whispering, to whose face his own was
bent; one younger and fairer than she--Lucy Cleeve. A certain
possibility of what it might mean darted through her mind with a
freezing horror that caused her to shiver. But only for a moment. She
drove it away as absurd--and opened, the gate with a sharp click. They
turned at the sound of her footsteps and loosed arms. Mr. Andinnian
doffed his hat in salutation, and held out his hand.
"Miss Blake!"
"I came with old John to fetch you, Lucy, wishing to see dear Mrs.
Blake," she carelessly said in explanation, letting her hand lie in
Karl's, as they turned to the house. "And it is a lovely night."
Coming into the light of the sitting-room you could see what Miss
Blake was like--and Lucy, also, for that matter. Miss Blake was tall,
upright; and; if there was a fault in her exceedingly well-made
figure, it was that it was too thin. Her features and complexion
were very good, her eyes were watchful and had a green tinge; and
the hair originally red, had been converted into a kind of auburn that
had more than one shade of colour on it. Altogether, Miss Blake was
nice-looking; and she invariably dressed well, in the height of any
fashion that might prevail. What with her well-preserved face, her
large quantity of youthful hair, and her natty attire, she had an idea
that she looked years and years less than her real age; as in fact she
did.
And Lucy? Lucy was a gentle girl with a soft, sweet face; a face of
intellect, and goodness, and sensibility. Her refined features were of
the highest type; her clear eyes were of a remarkably light brown, the
long eyelashes and the hair somewhat darker. By the side of the
upright and always self-possessed Miss Blake--I had almost written
self-asserting--she looked a timid shrinking child. What with Miss
Blake's natural height and the unnatural pyramid of hair on the top
of her head, Lucy appeared short. But Lucy was not below the middle
height of women.
"I wonder--I wonder how much he has seen of Lucy?" thought Miss Blake,
beginning to watch and to listen, and to put in prompting questions
here and there.
She contrived to gather that the lieutenant had been a tolerably
frequent visitor at Colonel Cleeve's during the spring. She
observed--and Miss Blake's observance was worth having--that his good
night to Lucy was spoken in a different tone from the one to herself:
lower and softer.
"There _cannot_ be anything between them! There cannot, surely, be!"
Nevertheless the very thought of it caused her face to grow cold as
with a mortal sickness.
"I shall see to-morrow," she murmured. "They will be together at the
picnic, and I shall see."
Miss Blake did see. Saw what, to her jealous eyes--ay, and to her cool
ones; was proof positive. Lieutenant Andinnian and Miss Lucy Cleeve
were lost in love the one for the other. In her conscientious desire
to do her duty--and she did hope and believe that no other motive or
passion prompted the step--Miss Blake, looking upon herself as a sort
of guardian over Lucy's interests, disclosed her suspicions to Mrs.
Cleeve. What would be a suitable match for herself, might be entirely
unsuitable for Lucy.
Colonel Augustus and the Honourable Mrs. Cleeve were very excellent
people, as people go: their one prominent characteristic--perhaps some
would rather call it failing--being family pride. Colonel Cleeve could
claim relationship, near or remote, with three lords and a Scotch
duke: Mrs. Cleeve was a peer's daughter. Their only son was in India
with his regiment: their only daughter, introduced and presented but
the last year, was intended to make a good marriage, both as regards
rank and wealth. They knew what a charming girl she was, and they
believed she could not fail to be sought. One gentleman, indeed, had
asked for her in London; that is, had solicited of the Colonel the
permission to ask for her. He was a banker's son. Colonel Cleeve
thanked him with courtesy, but said that his daughter must not marry
beneath her own rank: he and her mother hoped she would be a peeress.
It may therefore be judged what was the consternation caused, when
Miss Blake dropped a hint of her observations.
The remark already made, as to Mrs. Blake's blind unsuspicion, held
good in regard to Colonel Cleeve and his wife. They had likewise taken
a fancy to the attractive young lieutenant and were never backward in
welcoming him to their house. _And yet they never glanced at Lucy's
interests in the matter;_ they never supposed that she likewise could
be awake to the same attractions; or that her attractions had charms
for the lieutenant. How frequent these cases of blindness occur in the
world, let the world answer. Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve would as soon
have suspected that Lucy was falling in love with the parish clerk.
And why? Because the notion that any one, so much beneath them in
family and position as Mr. Andinnian, should aspire to her, or that
she could stoop to think of him, never would have entered into their
exclusive imaginations, unless put there.
Mrs. Cleeve, dismayed, sick, frightened, but always mild and gentle,
begged of Lucy to say that it was a cruel mistake; and that there was
"nothing" between her and Mr. Andinnian. Lucy, amidst her blinding
tears, answered that nothing whatever had been spoken between them.
But she was too truthful, too honest, to deny the implication that
there existed love: Colonel Cleeve sent for Mr. Andinnian.
The young man was just coming in from a full-dress parade when the
note arrived. It was a peremptory one. He walked up at once, not
staying to put off his regimentals. Colonel Cleeve, looking the
thorough gentleman he was, and wearing his customary blue frock-coat
with a white cambric frill at his breast, met him at the door of his
library. He was short and slight, and had mild blue eyes. His white
hair was cut nearly close, and his forehead and head were so fair that
at first sight it gave him the appearance of being powdered. The
servant closed the door upon them.
That Karl Andinnian was, as the phrase runs, "taken to" by the plain
questioning of the Colonel cannot be denied. It was plunged into
without preface. "Is it true that there is an attachment between you
and my daughter? Is it true, sir, that you have been making love to
her?"
For a short while Karl was silent. The Colonel saw his embarrassment.
It was only the momentary embarrassment of surprise, and, perhaps, of
vexation: but Karl, guileless and strictly honourable, never thought
of not meeting the matter with perfect truth.
"That there does exist affection between me and your daughter, sir, I
cannot deny," he replied with diffidence. "At least, I can answer for
myself--that the truest and tenderest love man is, or, as I believe,
can be, capable of I feel for her. As to making love to her, I have
not done it consciously. But--we have been a great deal together; and
I fear Miss Cleeve must have read my heart, as--as----"
"As what, Mr. Andinnian?" was the stern question.
"As I have read hers, I was going to presume to say," replied Karl,
his voice and eyes alike drooping.
Colonel Cleeve felt confounded. He would have called this the very
height of impudence, but the young man standing before him was so
indisputably refined, so modest, and spoke as though he were grieved
to the heart.
"And, pray, what could you have promised yourself by thus presuming to
love my daughter?"
"I promised myself nothing. On my word of honour as a gentleman, sir,
I have not been holding out any kind of hopes or promises to myself. I
believe," added the young man, with the open candour so characteristic
of him, "that I have been too happy in the present, in Miss Cleeve's
daily society--for hardly a day passed that we did not see each
other--to cast so much as a thought to the future."
"Well, sir, what excuse have you to make for this behaviour? Do you
see its folly?"
"I see it now. I see it for the first time, Colonel Cleeve.
For--I--suppose--you will not let me aspire to win her?"
The words were given with slow deprecation: as if he hardly dared to
speak them.
"What do you think, yourself, about it?" sharply asked the Colonel.
"Do you consider yourself a suitable match for Miss Cleeve? In _any_
way? In _any_ way, Mr. Andinnian?"
"I am afraid not, sir."
"You are _afraid_ not! Good Heavens! Your family--pardon me for
alluding to it, Mr. Andinnian, but there are moments in a lifetime,
and this is one, when plain speaking becomes a necessity. Your family
have but risen from the ranks, sir, as we soldiers say, and not much
above the ranks either. Miss Cleeve _is_ Miss Cleeve: my daughter, and
a peer's grand-daughter."
"It is all true, sir."
"So much for that unsuitability. And then we come to means. What are
yours, Mr. Andinnian?"
The young man lifted his head and his honest grey eyes to the
half-affrighted but generally calm face. He could but tell the truth
at all times without equivocation.
"I fear you will consider my means even more ineligible than my
family," he said. "I have my pay and two hundred pounds a year. At my
mother's death another two hundred a year will come to me."
Colonel Cleeve drew down his lips. "And that is all--in the present
and in the future?"
"All I can reckon upon with any certainty. When my brother shall
succeed Sir Joseph Andinnian, he may do something more for me. My
father suggested it in his last testamentary paper: and I think he
will do it: I believe he will. But of this I cannot be certain; and in
any case it may not be much."
Colonel Cleeve paused a moment. He wished the young man would not
be so straightforwardly candid, so transparently single-minded,
putting himself, as it were, in all honour in his hands. It left the
Colonel--the mildest man in the world by nature--less loophole to get
into a proper passion. In the midst of it all, he could not help
liking the young fellow.
"Mr. Andinnian, every word you say only makes the case worse. Two
barriers, each in itself insurmountable, lie, by your own showing,
between you and my daughter. The bare idea of making her your wife is
an insult to her; were it carried into a fact--I condemn myself to
speak of so impossible a thing unwillingly--it would blight her life
and happiness for ever."
Karl's pale face grew red as his coat. "These are harsh words, Colonel
Cleeve."
"They are true ones, sir: and justifiable. Lucy has been reared in the
notions befitting her rank. She has been taught to expect that when
she marries her home will be at least as well-appointed as the one she
is taken from. My son is a great expense to me and my means are
limited as compared with my position--I am plain with you, you see,
Mr. Andinnian; you have been so with me--but still we live as our
compeers live, and have things in accordance about us. But what could
_you_ offer Lucy?--allowing that in point of family you were entitled
to mate with her. Why, a lodging in a barracks; a necessity to tramp
with you after the regiment at home and abroad."
Karl stood silent, the pain of mortification on his closed lips.
Colonel Cleeve put the case rather extremely; but it was near the
truth, after all.
"And you would wish to bring this disgrace, this poverty, this blight
on Lucy! If you----"
"No, sir, I would not," was the impulsive interruption. "What do you
take me for? Lucy's happiness is a great deal dearer to me than my
own."
"If you have one spark of honour, Mr. Andinnian--and until now I
believed you had your full share of it--if you do care in ever so
small a degree for my daughter's comfort and her true welfare; in
short, if you are a man and a gentleman, you will aid me in striving
to undo the harm that has been done."
"I will strive to do what is best to be done," replied Karl, knowing
the fiat that must come, and feeling that his heart was breaking.
"Very well. Our acquaintance with you must close from this hour; and I
must ask you to give me your word of honour never to attempt to hold
future communication with my daughter in any way: never to meet her in
society even, if it be possible for you to stay away and avoid it. In
future you and Miss Cleeve are strangers."
There was a dead silence. Karl seemed to be looking at vacancy, over
the Colonel's head.
"You do not speak, Mr. Andinnian."
He roused himself with a sort of shudder. "I believe I was lost in
glancing at the blighted life _mine_ will be, Colonel Cleeve." And the
Colonels in spite of his self-interest, felt a kind of pity for the
feelings that he saw were stung to the quick.
"Do you refuse to comply with my mandate?"
"No, sir. Putting the affair before me in the light you have put it,
no alternative is left me. I see, too, that circumstanced as I am--and
as she is--my dream of love has been nothing but madness. On my word
of honour, Colonel Cleeve, could I have looked at the matter at first
as I look at it now, and foreseen that we were destined to--to care
for each other, I would have flown Miss Cleeve's presence."
"These regrets often come late in the day, Mr. Andinnian," was the
rather sarcastic answer.
"They have in this case."
"Then I may rely on your honour?"
"You may indeed, sir. But that I see how right and reasonable your
fiat is; how essential for Lucy's sake, I could hardly have complied
with it; for to part with her will be rending myself from every joy of
life. I give you my sacred word of honour that I will not henceforth
attempt to hold communication of any kind with her: I will not meet
her if I can avoid it. That I should live to say this calmly!" added
Karl to himself.
"I expected no less from you, Mr. Andinnian," spoke the Colonel,
stiffly but courteously. "I am bound to say that you have met this
most lamentable affair in a proper spirit. I see I may rely upon you."
"You may rely upon me as you would rely upon yourself," said the
young officer earnestly. "Should the time ever come that my fortunes
ascend--it seems next door to an impossibility now, but such things
have been heard of--and Lucy be still free----"
"That could make no alteration: want of fortune is not the only bar,"
haughtily interrupted Colonel Cleeve. "The present is enough for us,
Mr. Andinnian: let us leave the future."
"True. The present is greatly enough; and I beg your pardon, Colonel
Cleeve. I will keep my word both in the spirit and the letter. And
now, I would make one request to you, sir--that you will allow me to
see Lucy for an instant before we finally part."
"That you may gain some foolish promise from her?--of waiting, or
something of that kind!" was the angry rejoinder.
"I told you that you might rely upon me," replied Karl with sad
emphasis. "Colonel Cleeve, don't you see what a bitter blow this is to
me?" he burst forth, with an emotion he had not betrayed throughout
the interview. "It may be bitter to Lucy also. Let us say a word of
good-bye to each other for the last time."
Colonel Cleeve hardly knew what to do. He did not like to say No; he
did not like to say Yes. That it was bitter to one, he saw; that it
might be bitter to the other, he quite believed: and he had a soft
place in his heart.
"I will trust you in this as I trust you in the other, Mr. Andinnian.
It must be good-bye, only, you understand: and a brief one."
He quitted the room, and sent Lucy in. Almost better for them both
that he had not done so--for these partings are nearly as cruel as
death. To them both, this severing asunder for all time seemed worse
than death. Lucy, looking quiet and simple in her muslin, stood
shivering.
"I could not depart without begging you to forgive me, Lucy," Karl
said, his tone less firm than usual with emotion and pain. "I ought to
have exercised more thought; to have foreseen what must be the
inevitable ending. Colonel Cleeve has my promise that I will never
again seek you in any way: that from henceforth we shall be as
strangers. Oh my darling!--I may surely call you so in this last
hour!--this is painful I fear to you as to me."
She went quite close to him, her eyes cast up to his with a piteous
mourning in their depths; eyes too sad for tears.
"They have told me the same, Karl. There is no hope at all for us. But
I--I wish in my turn to say something to you. Karl"--and her voice
sank to a whisper, and she put out her hand as if inviting him to take
it--"I shall never forget you; I shall never care for you less than I
do now."
He did not take her hand. He took her. Almost beside himself with the
bitter pain, Karl Andinnian so far forgot himself as to clasp this
young girl to his heart: as to rain down on her sweet face the sad
kisses from his lips. But he remembered his promise to Colonel Cleeve,
and said never a word of hope for the future.
"Forgive me, Lucy; this and all. Perhaps Colonel Cleeve would hardly
grudge it to us when it is to be our last meeting on earth."
"In the years to come," she sobbed, her face lying under his wet
tears, "when we shall be an old man and woman, they may let us meet
again. Oh, Karl, yes! and we can talk together of that best world,
Heaven, where there will be no separation. We shall be drawing near
its gates then, looking out for it."
A slight tap at the door, and Miss Blake entered. She had come to
summon Lucy. Seeing what she did see--the tears, the emotion, the
intertwined hands, Miss Blake looked--looked very grim and stately.
"Lucy, Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve have sent me to request you to go to
them."
"God bless you, Lucy," he whispered. "God bless you, my best and
dearest. Good-bye, for ever."
With what seemed a cool bow to Miss Blake and never a word, for in
truth he was unequal to speaking it, Lieutenant Andinnian passed into
the hall, caught up his hat and sword that he had left there, and let
himself out, buckling on the latter. Lucy had her hands to her face,
hiding it. Miss Blake waited.
"My dear Lucy, what am I to say?"
"Tell them that I wish to stay here alone for a few minutes. Tell them
that Mr. Andinnian is gone."
Miss Blake, her hard, thin lips compressed with the cruellest pain
woman can ever feel, took her way back again. Only herself knew, or
ever would know, what this dreadful blow was to her--the finding that
she had been mistaken in Karl Andinnian's love. For anguish such as
this women have lost life. One small drop, taking from the bitterness,
there was--to know that he and his true love had bidden each other
adieu for ever.
"Perhaps--in a few weeks, or months to come--when he shall have
recovered his folly--he and I may be friends again," she murmured.
"Nay--who knows--may even become something warmer and dearer: his
feeling for that child can only be a passing fancy. Something warmer
and dearer," softly repeated Miss Blake, as she traversed the hall.
"Lucy will come to you presently, Mrs. Cleeve. There's no hurry now:
Mr. Andinnian is gone."
"What is Lucy doing, Theresa?"
"Sobbing silently, I think: she scarcely spoke to me. Fancy her being
so foolish!"
Mrs. Cleeve went at once to the library. She and her husband were as
much alike as possible: mild, good, unemotional people who hated to
inflict pain: with a great love for their daughter, and a very great
sense of their own importance and position in the world, as regarded
pride of birth.
"Oh, Lucy dear, it was obliged to be. You are reasonable, and must
know it was. But from my very heart I am sorry for you: and I shall
always take blame to myself for not having been more cautious than to
allow you to become intimate with Mr. Andinnian. It seems to me as
though I had been living with a veil before my eyes."
"It is over now: let it pass," was Lucy's faint answer.
"Yes, dear, it is over. All over for good. By this time twelvemonth,
Lucy, I hope you will be happily married, and forget this painful
episode in your life. Not, my child, that we shall like to part with
you: only--it will be for your own welfare and happiness."
Lucy pressed her slender white fingers upon her brow, and looked at
her mother. There was a puzzled, doubting expression in her eyes that
spoke of bewilderment.
"Mamma," she said slowly, "I think perhaps I did not understand you. I
have parted with Mr. Andinnian, as you and papa wished, and as--as I
suppose it was right I should do; I shall never, I hope, do anything
against your will. But--to try to make me marry will be quite a
different thing. Were you and papa to tell me that you insisted on it,
I could only resist: And I should resist to the end."
Mrs. Cleeve saw that she had not been wise. To allude to any such
future contingency when Lucy was smarting under the immediate pain of
separation, was a mistake. Sighing gently, she sat down and took her
daughter's hand, stroking it fondly.
"Lucy, my dear, I will relate to you a little matter of my own early
experience," she began in a hushed tone. "_I_ once had one of the
affairs of the heart, as they are called. The young man was just as
attractive as Mr. Andinnian, and quite worthy. But circumstances were
unfavourable, and we had to part. I thought that all worth living for
in life was over. I said that I should never care for any one else,
and never marry. Not so very long afterwards, Captain Cleeve presented
himself. Before he said a word to me, Lucy, before I knew what he was
thinking of, I had learnt to like and esteem him: and I became his
wife."
"And did you love him?" questioned Lucy, in great surprise.
"Oh dear no. Not with the kind of love I had felt for another--the
kind of love that I presume you are feeling for Mr. Andinnian. Such
love never comes back to the heart a second time. But, Lucy, my
married life has been perfectly successful and happy. Once that great
passion is over, you see, the heart is at rest, calmness and reason
have supervened. Rely upon it, my dear, your married life will be all
the happier for this little experience connected with Mr. Andinnian."
Lucy said no more. _She_ knew. And Mrs. Cleeve thought how dutiful her
daughter was.
On the following day, a letter came to the Colonel from Karl. A
well-written and sensible letter; not of rebellion, but of
acquiescence. While it deplored his fate in separating from Lucy; it
bowed to the necessity that enforced it. A note was enclosed for Lucy:
it was unsealed, in case the Colonel should wish, to read before
giving it to her. The Colonel did so: he did not fear treason from
Karl, but it was as well to be on the safe side and assure himself
there was none. It contained only a few words, rather more coherent
than Karl's emotion of the previous day had allowed him to speak: and
it bade her adieu for ever. Colonel Cleeve sent both notes to his
daughter, and then lost himself in a reverie: from which he was
aroused by the entrance of his wife.
"Lucinda, that is really a most superior young man: high-principled,
true-hearted. A pity but he had rank and money."
"Who is a superior young man?" asked Mrs. Cleeve, not having the clue.
"Lieutenant Andinnian."