Alas! when angry words begin
Their entrance on the lip to win;
When sullen eye and flushing cheek
Say more than bitterest tone could speak,
And look and word, than fire or steel,
Give wounds more deep--time cannot heal;
And anger digs, with tauntings vain,
A gulf it may not pass again.
L. E. L.
Two little children--a fine girl of four and a delicate boy of
three--were passing from the drawing-room, through the vestibule on
their way to bed followed by a nurse. Mary Seaham would have stopped to
make the acquaintance of her little cousins, but too eager in their
amusement, the noisy chase of one another through the long _suite_ of
rooms, they, like Jaques's careless herd, "jump along by her and never
stay to greet her," in spite of the chiding injunctions of their
attendant, to wait and speak to the young lady. And Mary walked on into
the adjoining saloon.
There she found Mr. de Burgh standing alone, his elbow resting on the
marble mantelpiece of the fireless grate, his eyes gazing fixedly
through the opposite window.
He did not hear her noiseless approach over the velvet carpet; and she
had time at the same moment that she recognized the unchanged, almost
feminine beauty, of her cousin's handsome features, to remark no very
promising expression, namely, one of dissatisfaction and annoyance, to
be now seated on his countenance. It, however, brightened
instantaneously, when he became aware of Mary's presence; and with the
most affectionate cordiality, he advanced to meet and welcome her to
his house. Then seating her on an ottoman by his side, he made anxious
inquiries as to her journey and the wedding of her sister, slightly
touching upon other family matters, in which, as guardian and trustee to
his young cousins, he was concerned. And thus, for awhile, his attention
and thoughts seemed diverted from any previous cause of discontent. But
his powers of interest or politeness seemed at length exhausted. He
became evidently restless and fidgetty, cast sundry impatient, or as
Mary was more likely to interpret them, anxious glances towards the
window which commanded the same view across the park as she had been
lately contemplating, and finally rising from his seat, resumed his
former station near the chimney-piece, to watch, as Mary concluded, for
the arrival of his truant lady.
Mr. de Burgh had only alluded to his wife's absence during their
conversation, by casually mentioning her not having returned from her
drive; but Mary Seaham, after noticing with rising sympathy and
compassion, the increasing perturbation of her cousin's countenance, and
naturally attributing its origin to the tender solicitation of an
adoring husband, ventured, after a few minute's silence, in which Mr. de
Burgh had been too much absorbed in his own feelings for common
discourse, to express in her gentle voice, the hope, that he was not
uneasy at her cousin Olivia's remaining out so late.
"Uneasy? Oh no!" Mr. de Burgh exclaimed, aroused by the question, and
turning to the speaker with a careless laugh, "Oh, no, not in the least
uneasy! I suppose I shall have the pleasure of seeing her back between
this and bed-time. Oh no! My present cause of uneasiness is merely at
the thought that the dinner--for which about an hour ago I had
considerable appetite--must be, by this time, fit only for the dogs to
eat: and, also, that you"--he added, softening his voice of irony into
one of kind concern, observing probably, that his cousin looked pale,
grave, and exhausted, "that you, after your long journey, must be quite
faint for want of nourishment; but it is just like her," he continued,
in soliloquy, hastily walking to the window, "selfish, inconsiderate,
careless of everybody, everything, but her own pleasure and amusement.
But at all events," he added, "we'll have dinner, such as it is," and
approaching the bell, he rang it impatiently, and desired that the
dinner should be immediately served.
If Mary Seaham had looked pale and serious before, she was ten times
more so after what she had heard. This outbreak of her cousin took her
so by surprise. The bitter words he had spoken with regard to his wife,
were in such direct unconformity, not only with anything she had been
accustomed to hear from one relative towards another, but, also, with
the picture her imagination had previously formed of the mutual
happiness and affection of the married pair with whom she had come to
sojourn. She looked back to the devoted lovers in their wanderings
through the flowery paths of courtship, devotion she had believed to be
but a faint fore-shadowing of the full-crowned sacred bliss, the
well-tried love, of a six years' union, such as she had expected it
would be now her lot to witness. But those disdainful expressions, this
disparaging declamation, came like an icy wreath upon her warm
imaginings.
"Selfish!" "Inconsiderate!" Could her cousin's beautiful wife really
merit such a character? Or was the accusation merely the casual effusion
of a hungry husband's fretful humour. If this were not the case, it
spoke indeed little for her own chance of comfort as that lady's guest.
Still she was far less affected by any selfish interested consideration,
than by the shock her inherent principles and preconceived ideas upon
the subject had received.
Louis de Burgh remained too much engaged with his own inward
dissatisfaction, for any further conversation; consequently, no more
words were spoken till dinner was announced, and then her cousin's arm,
with something of revived cheerfulness, was offered to her, and they
proceeded to the dining-room.
They were seated _tête-à-tête_ at the table, and had not proceeded half
way through the meal, which was far from justifying Mr. de Burgh's
unpromising prognostications, when the sound of carriage wheels was
heard, and a loud peal at the door bell denoted the expected arrival.
Mr. de Burgh made no demonstration of interest or excitement, but
continued the occupation in which he was now pleasantly engaged in
uninterrupted indifference. Mary, on the contrary, felt no slight degree
of nervous trepidation, and laying down her knife and fork, awaited in
anxious suspense the entrance of her other cousin.
In less than an instant, Mrs. de Burgh, in carriage costume, made her
appearance followed by a gentleman.
"Well, here we are at last," she exclaimed, rushing in with careless
abruptness, "and Mary arrived, I declare!" she added, with immediate
change of tone, "well, I _am_ shocked! I really had imagined that you
could not be here till nightfall. But welcome a thousand times!" she
continued, advancing with extended hands, and embracing her with an
affectionate warmth which almost brought tears into Mary's eyes.
"The fact is," she continued after a few other inquiries, and having
thrown her bonnet aside, and put back the ringlets from her
face--flushed and heated to a very brilliant hue by the exertions of a
hurried drive--she seated herself to partake of the dinner reproduced
for herself and her companion. "The fact is, I have really been engaged
in your service, for feeling sure you would be horrified to come out of
the wilds of Wales, to find us here in as stupid and uncivilized a state
of reclusiveness as any of the natives of Kamschatka--though, for what
I know," she parenthesized with a laugh, "_they_ may have much more
society of their kind--feeling sure, however, of the dullness of this
place, I determined to drive my ponies as far as Morland, and see if I
could beat up a few recruits from the party assembled there, for your
enlivenment."
Mary smiled and blushed, hardly knowing how to answer this speech.
"_I_ am a person," continued Mrs. de Burgh, "who _can_ exert myself a
little for the sake of my friends--who _am_ willing to take some slight
trouble, unconnected with my own tastes and inclinations; to consider
that a young lady _may_ possibly require a little more amusement than
seeing trees cut down--a little more society than a man, his wife and
two children."
Mary remarked the flashing eyes of Mrs. de Burgh directed towards her
husband, as she made this latter speech with much of marked
significance in her look and tone; and with the very contradictory
charges brought against the absent wife by Mr. de Burgh fresh in her
memory, she would, if she had deemed it smiling matter, have been
inclined to smile to see the table thus turned upon him.
Perhaps her cousin was not himself quite unimpressed or unconvicted in
his conscience by the unconscious retort, for colouring slightly, and
for the first time directly addressing his wife since her entrance,
though he had entered into some conversation with the gentleman by his
side, he said with a not ill-natured, though somewhat provoking laugh,
which nevertheless displayed to great advantage his set of ivory teeth.
"Well, Olivia, pray, the next time let your _unselfish consideration_,"
with a stress on the latter words, "be a little more considerately
timed. To keep a tired guest waiting for her dinner till nearly nine
o'clock--for you knew as well as I did, that she was sure to arrive
before seven--whilst you are scouring the country in search of people to
say pretty things to her on the morrow, is a specimen of attentive
consideration, which at least was not dreamt of before in my
philosophy."
"No of course not," was the contemptuous reply, "though perhaps Mary
Seaham may see the circumstance in a different light, supposing that
dinner, as she is a reasonable being, is not quite so important and
paramount a point in her existence as in yours. But why you waited for
me I cannot tell. You are not usually so painfully polite. I suppose you
wanted to show off to the utmost, the great inconsideration which marks
my conduct towards yourself and others, and the excessive consideration
of your own."
How distressing and astounding all this was to Mary's feelings may be
imagined, more especially from being herself made so prominent an object
in the debate.
In the first agitation of the meeting, what with the grateful and
gratified surprise which the unexpected warmth of her reception had
inspired, and subsequently her attention and interest being so much
absorbed by her newly arrived cousin, on whose unchanged beauty she
could not refrain from dwelling in unfeigned admiration--her opposite
neighbour who sat with his back to the now declining light had almost
entirely escaped her notice; but now, as with downcast eyes and flushing
cheeks, she sat listening in painful embarrassment to this conjugal
_tirade_, it occurred to her to lift a timid glance to discern how her
fellow-sufferer bore the infliction to which they were mutually exposed.
She raised her eyes, therefore, and having done so, that very timid
glance was rivetted, and became gradually changed into a gaze of
earnest, calm surprise, for as she gazed the indistinctness of the
vision seemed to clear away, and the face of him whose kindness had been
once so strongly impressed upon her girlish fancy to be revealed to her
astonished sight.
The same dark eyes fixed with interest upon her changeful countenance,
that very same peculiar smile which he had turned towards her, when they
were left standing alone together on the occasion of her second
_cavalier_ abandonment, by the self-absorbed lovers--seemed to mark his
observation of the discomfiture which the startling contrast now
exhibited had caused her. A smile--such as moves one to look again, and
observe with curious interest the countenance from whence it
emanates--in much the same way as one would look upon a book of strange
characters, whose mystic language we feel certain could we but read it
aright, would unto us a tale unfold of more than common import.
But, setting aside the interest which this unexpected recognition
inspired--the encouragement that smile, as on the former occasion just
mentioned, tended to convey--Mary Seaham felt--considering the many
secret thoughts and feelings which in her idle moments she had once
wasted on this--the almost, it might be said, ideal hero of her
imagination--wonderfully little affected by the fact of his real
substantial embodiment--not more so perhaps, than one might be who
awakens from a series of fanciful dreams to see the object who has
played therein the most fantastic and highly coloured part, standing,
divested of all supernatural and exaggerated characteristics, before his
eyes; and with a smile, almost as quiet and confiding as the one with
which she had yielded herself to his guidance six years before in the
grounds of Morland, she had acknowledged the recognition, ere Mrs. de
Burgh, after an angry pause and a killing glance across the
table--provoked by her husband's mortifying contradiction of her
assertion respecting the knowledge she had entertained of the hour of
her guest's arrival (a glance which was probably intended to convey to
his conviction how extremely odious an individual she deemed
him)--recovered sufficiently to proceed with her relation in the same
lively strain.
"I was not very successful," she continued. "Of course, every body is in
London; however, I have the promise of a reinforcement in a day or two.
In the meantime, determined not to return empty-handed, I pressed this
gentleman--whom I found just about to start homewards--into my service,
and brought him--I cannot say a willing captive--chained to my
triumphant car. Nay, I am glad you are beginning to be ashamed of your
conduct," she added, as the accused party, looking at Mary, attempted a
smiling refutation of the charge.
"Ah, yes, we will imagine what you would bring forth as your
excuse--that you did not expect _such_ a young lady, for you know I told
you there _was_ a young lady in the case, that you cannot deny. Well,
Mary and I will forgive you, now you are here, if you will only stay,
and withal--make yourself extremely agreeable--but, bye the bye, I ought
to introduce you to one another--how very forgetful of me! Miss Mary
Seaham or rather Miss Seaham now, I believe I should say--Eugene
Trevor."
And Mary Seaham and Eugene Trevor exchanged another smile, as they
slightly bent their heads in acknowledgement of the ceremony, but both
at the same time murmuring their declaration of a previous acquaintance.
"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. de Burgh, with some surprise, "when and where
could you have possibly met?"
"You forget the fête at Morland, when you so cruelly abandoned Miss
Seaham to her fate, whilst you and Louis," with a little covered malice
in his tone, "went love-making."
"Ah! to be sure, I do remember something of the kind," rejoined Mrs. de
Burgh, "that is to say, of you two being together, but that is so very
long ago," she added, in a tone of marked carelessness, and glancing at
her husband.
"Not quite six years," said Mary.
"_Only_ six years!" interposed Mr. de Burgh, blandly, "I should have
imagined it sixteen."
"And I too," rejoined the wife colouring; "but at any rate," she
continued, with affected carelessness, "it has been quite long enough to
have almost effaced from my mind the impression--almost the recollection
of things then existing--you two it seems," glancing from Mary to Mr.
Trevor, "have better memories."
Mr. de Burgh retorted with a beautiful smile; that the tablets of their
memories had happily been kept apart during that interregnum, that there
was nothing like six years of close contact for rubbing out old
impressions.
"And then in that space of time," he added, probably with more secret
meaning than the not very original remark expressed, "and then in six
years, a great deal of change may have taken place."
"A great deal indeed!" was almost unconsciously echoed by Mary's lips,
as her thoughts silently wandered over the domestic changes and family
events which coloured her reminiscences of that intervening period,
whilst from the soft pensive expression which stole over her
countenance, it might have seemed that it was more a soothing relief to
take refuge from "the strife of tongues" in the private sanctuary of
thought thus suggested, than that any very sharp pang of sadness or
regret was roused by this reflection.
"A great deal certainly!" had echoed instinctively from Eugene Trevor's
lips. But why has the smile with which he lightly commenced the words,
faded away like a gleam of sunshine, from the dark hill side, ere they
died upon his lips, what were the suggested thoughts, the awakened
recollections he would have wished diverted? What record did the history
of these six years inscribe on the tablets of his memory?
What ever it might be, he did not pause to contemplate it long; but
pouring himself out a glass of wine, drank it down hastily, as if the
ruddy draught could wash away the unrepented sin; the unatoned iniquity
of his secret soul--then looked and spoke as unconsciously as before.
"Each mind has indeed," as it has been ably written, "an interior
apartment into which none but itself and the divinity can enter. In this
secluded place, the passions fluctuate and mingle in unknown agitation.
Here all the fantastic, and all the tragic shapes of imagination have a
haunt--where they can neither be invaded or discerned. Here projects,
convictions, vows, are confusedly scattered, and the records of past
life are laid; and here in solitary state, sits conscience surrounded by
her own thunders which sometimes sleep, and sometimes roar, while the
world knows it not."
We said or quoted something to the same effect in a preceding chapter,
and added--that it was well that it should be so.