AND I can listen to thee yet,
Can lie upon the plain;
And listen till I do beget
That golden time again.--WORDSWORTH.
IT was past midnight--hostess and guests had retired to repose--when Lady
Vargrave's door opened gently. The lady herself was kneeling at the foot
of the bed; the moonlight came through the half-drawn curtains of the
casement, and by its ray her pale, calm features looked paler, and yet
more hushed.
Evelyn, for she was the intruder, paused at the threshold till her mother
rose from her devotions, and then she threw herself on Lady Vargrave's
breast, sobbing as if her heart would break. Hers were the wild,
generous, irresistible emotions of youth. Lady Vargrave, perhaps, had
known them once; at least, she could sympathize with them now.
She strained her child to her bosom; she stroked back her hair, and
kissed her fondly, and spoke to her soothingly.
"Mother," sobbed Evelyn, "I could not sleep, I could not rest. Bless me
again, kiss me again; tell me that you love me--you cannot love me as I
do you; but tell me that I am dear to you; tell me you will regret me,
but not too much; tell me--" Here Evelyn paused, and could say no more.
"My best, my kindest Evelyn," said Lady Vargrave, "there is nothing on
earth I love like you. Do not fancy I am ungrateful."
"Why do you say ungrateful?--your own child,--your only child!" And
Evelyn covered her mother's face and hands with passionate tears and
kisses.
At that moment, certain it is that Lady Vargrave's heart reproached her
with not having, indeed, loved this sweet girl as she deserved. True, no
mother was more mild, more attentive, more fostering, more anxious for a
daughter's welfare; but Evelyn was right. The gushing fondness, the
mysterious entering into every subtle thought and feeling, which should
have characterized the love of such a mother to such a child, had been to
outward appearance wanting. Even in this present parting there had been
a prudence, an exercise of reasoning, that savoured more of duty than
love. Lady Vargrave felt all this with remorse; she gave way to emotions
new to her,--at least to exhibit; she wept with Evelyn, and returned her
caresses with almost equal fervour. Perhaps, too, she thought at that
moment of what love that warm nature was susceptible; and she trembled
for her future fate. It was as a full reconciliation--that mournful
hour--between feelings on either side, which something mysterious seemed
to have checked before; and that last night the mother and the child did
not separate,--the same couch contained them: and when, worn out with
some emotions which she could not reveal, Lady Vargrave fell into the
sleep of exhaustion, Evelyn's arm was round her, and Evelyn's eyes
watched her with pious and anxious love as the gray morning dawned.
She left her mother still sleeping, when the sun rose, and went silently
down into the dear room below, and again busied herself in a thousand
little provident cares, which she wondered she had forgot before.
The carriages were at the door before the party had assembled at the
melancholy breakfast-table. Lord Vargrave was the last to appear.
"I have been like all cowards," said he, seating himself,--"anxious to
defer an evil as long as possible; a bad policy, for it increases the
worst of all pains,--that of suspense."
Mrs. Merton had undertaken the duties that appertain to the "hissing
urn." "You prefer coffee, Lord Vargrave? Caroline, my dear--"
Caroline passed the cup to Lord Vargrave, who looked at her hand as he
took it--there was a ring on one of those slender fingers never observed
there before. Their eyes met, and Caroline coloured. Lord Vargrave
turned to Evelyn, who, pale as death, but tearless and speechless, sat
beside her mother; he attempted in vain to draw her into conversation.
Evelyn, who desired to restrain her feelings, would not trust herself to
speak.
Mrs. Merton, ever undisturbed and placid, continued to talk on: to offer
congratulations on the weather,--it was such a lovely day; and they
should be off so early; it would be so well arranged,--they should be in
such good time to dine at-----, and then go three stages after dinner;
the moon would be up.
"But," said Lord Vargrave, "as I am to go with you as far as-----, where
our roads separate, I hope I am not condemned to go alone, with my red
box, two old newspapers, and the blue devils. Have pity on me."
"Perhaps you will take Grandmamma, then?" whispered Caroline, archly.
Lumley shrugged his shoulders, and replied in the same tone,--
"Yes,--provided you keep to the proverb, 'Les extremes se touchent,' and
the lovely grandchild accompany the venerable grandmamma."
"What would Evelyn say?" retorted Caroline.
Lumley sighed, and made no answer.
Mrs. Merton, who had hung fire while her daughter was carrying on this
"aside," now put in,--
"Suppose I and Caroline take your _britzka_, and you go in our old coach
with Evelyn and Mrs. Leslie?"
Lumley looked delightedly at the speaker, and then glanced at Evelyn; but
Mrs. Leslie said very gravely, "No, _we_ shall feel too much in leaving
this dear place to be gay companions for Lord Vargrave. We shall all
meet at dinner; or," she added, after a pause, "if this be uncourteous to
Lord Vargrave, suppose Evelyn and myself take his carriage and, he
accompanies you?"
"Agreed," said Mrs. Merton, quietly; "and now I will just go and see
about the strawberry-plants and slips--it was so kind in you, dear Lady
Vargrave, to think of them."
An hour had elapsed, and Evelyn was gone! She had left her maiden home,
she had wept her last farewell on her mother's bosom, the sound of the
carriage-wheels had died away; but still Lady Vargrave lingered on the
threshold, still she gazed on the spot where the last glimpse of Evelyn
had been caught. A sense of dreariness and solitude passed into her
soul: the very sunlight, the spring, the songs of the birds, made
loneliness more desolate.
Mechanically, at last, she moved away, and with slow steps and downcast
eyes passed through the favourite walk that led into the quiet
burial-ground. The gate closed upon her, and now the lawn, the gardens,
the haunts of Evelyn, were solitary as the desert itself; but the daisy
opened to the sun, and the bee murmured along the blossoms, not the less
blithely for the absence of all human life. In the bosom of Nature there
beats no heart for man!