Thou, my once loved, valued friend!
By Heavens thou liest; the man so called my friend
Was generous, honest, faithful, just, and valiant:
Noble in mind, and in his person lovely;
Dear to my eyes, and tender to my heart;
But thou, a wretched, base, false, worthless coward.
All eyes must shun thee, and all hearts detest thee,
Pr'thee avoid, no longer cling thou round me,
Like something baneful, that my nature's chilled at.
VENICE PRESERVED.
It was as may be supposed, a trying ordeal for poor Mary, her arrival at
Silverton. The circumstances attendant on her last arrival, then
hopeful, trustful, happy; for what appeared the light fears and
imaginary evils which then oppressed her, contrasted with her feelings
and circumstances now? The thousand recollections the sight of the place
recalled, everything, caused her heart to sink and sicken within her.
With trembling limbs she alighted from the carriage, and in answer to
her inquiries for Mrs. de Burgh, was ushered by the servant into the
drawing-room.
A gentleman stood leaning his elbow against the marble mantle-piece. The
door closed upon her, and she found herself alone with Eugene Trevor.
Surprise, distress, displeasure, were alternately displayed on Mary's
countenance; and withdrawing the hand which, having hurried forward to
meet her, he had seized passionately in his own, she faltered forth in
accents choked by indignant emotion:
"I did not expect this; Olivia promised--or I should never have come."
"It was not Olivia's fault, the blame is entirely mine, Mary. But, ...
is it really come to this? can you look around; can you remember all
that passed between us in this room; nay, what happened on this very
spot--here where our vows of love were plighted?"
"I do remember," she replied in accents low and mournful, and leaning in
trembling agitation against the very chair on which on that occasion
she had been seated.
"Then surely your heart cannot harden itself against me--cannot doom me
to misery."
"My letter," Mary faintly murmured, gently but firmly repulsing the
effort he made again to take her hand.
"Oh! that abominable story, cooked up against me, which you are so ready
to believe--Olivia will explain...."
"God grant it!" she murmured, turning her eyes lighted with a brightened
expression on his face; but oh! for one calm, clear, truthful glance in
return.
Again painfully she averted her head, and saying faintly:
"I will go to Olivia," moved slowly towards the door. Eugene did not
attempt to stay her departure, only darkly eyeing her retreating
footsteps, he suffered her to leave the room without stirring from the
spot whereon he stood.
Slowly and heavily she ascended the familiar staircase to Mrs. de
Burgh's dressing-room. Her cousin, still lying on the sofa, started with
affected surprise at her appearance, and stretched out her arms to
receive her.
Pale, cold, and silent Mary suffered the embrace, then sinking on a
seat, covered her face with her hands, sobbing forth:
"Olivia, this was cruel; this was unkind--untrue; I came here trusting
to your word. Where is Louis? he surely would not think this right,
would not have allowed me to be drawn into such a distressing position."
"My darling Mary, what do you mean? You have not fallen in with Eugene,
I hope? Well, that is too bad of him; and he promised so faithfully that
he would leave an hour ago. One of the children let out that you were
coming, and you know there is no managing lovers in a case like this;
the poor fellow is half mad with wretchedness on your account. However,
go he shall, dear, if you wish it--pray make yourself easy on that
point. You must have some tea; you are exhausted after your journey; and
then we shall be able to talk comfortably together. No one shall
interrupt us. Louis has not come home yet, but I expect him every
moment; he will be so charmed to see you."
Thus Mrs. de Burgh hurried on with affectionate alacrity, without giving
Mary time to renew her reproaches or complaints, but by the tears which
from her overcharged heart the poor girl still silently continued to
shed.
Mrs. de Burgh did not mind those tears; she rather considered them a
favourable sign. Had Mary appeared before her after the meeting into
which she well knew she had been surprised--cold, calm, stern, silently
upbraiding, she would have feared then for the success of the cause in
which she was engaged.
But judging from herself, tears in her sex's eyes were marks of
conscious weakness, and the melting mood of feeling rather than of any
firmness or serious effect upon the mind; therefore with secret
complacency she watched and awaited the close of her gentle cousin's
agitated paroxysm of emotion. Then she had strong tea brought, of which
she insisted upon her drinking, overwhelming Mary with care and
tenderness, in the meantime sending for the children to stay a few
moments to divert her thoughts, and restore her by their innocent
presence to a more natural state of thought and feeling. Then, after
partaking herself of some dinner, which Mary declined to share, she saw
her guest ensconced in a comfortable arm-chair by the fire, looking very
pale, it was true, and eyes bright only from nervous excitement, but
her feelings apparently tranquillised and soothed; then struck bravely
forth upon the anxious theme.
With tact, skill, and eloquence which would have graced a better cause,
Mrs. de Burgh pleaded in her favourite's behalf--favouritism, alas! we
fear drawing its source from principles doing little honour to the
object of her partiality, and justifying still less the restless zeal
with which she strove to forward a cause, in which the fate of a good
and innocent being was so closely implicated.
But though "her tongue dropped manna and could make the worst appear the
better reason," the time was past when the willing ear of the auditor
could be thus beguiled. She had no longer to deal with the too credulous
and easy-to-be-persuaded Mary of other days, but one with eyes too
tremblingly awake, and ears too powerfully quickened, to the discernment
of falsity from the truth.
Each specious statement rang false and hollow on her unpersuaded mind,
touching not one atom of that weight of inward conviction which, alas!
had been too firmly rooted there, for aught but the touch of genuine
truth to undermine; and when, with her face buried in her hands, she
listened with suspended respiration to the story of the brother's
madness, which flowed so glibly from those eager, fluent lips, little
Mrs. de Burgh deemed now every word thus uttered served but more
forcibly to confirm the fearful impression which the simple-motived Jane
had made upon her listener's mind.
"And then poor man," Mrs. de Burgh, continued, "after frightening the
old man out of his wits by his violence, he fled from the house and hid
himself no one knew where. Poor Eugene's anxiety on his behalf was
extreme; but of course, as he supposed him to have gone abroad, all
researches were taken on the wrong track. There is no one to vouch for
the condition of his mind during that interval--when he came to your
part of the world it seems that he had pretty well recovered."
Thus had Mrs. de Burgh concluded her plausible relation, pausing not a
little, anxious for the effect produced upon her ominously silent
auditor. Mary then lifted up her eyes, and with an expression upon her
face, the fair Olivia did not know exactly how to understand, replied:
"Yes, he came to us, appearing like some being of a higher sphere, and
in accordance with Mr. Wynne's earnest persuasion (Mr. Wynne, a man
whose keen and sensitive discernment it would have been difficult to
deceive) settled down amongst us at once--unmistakably endued with every
attribute which bespeaks the spirit of wisdom and a sound mind. He had
spent the winter at ----, and often spoke of the solitary life he led
whilst at that wild spot. Since that time we have frequently visited the
Lake; and very far seemed the idea of madness to have entered the minds
of the poor simple people of the place, in connection with that 'great
and noble gentleman,' as they called him, who, to their pride and
profit, had taken up his abode amongst them for a time. Then he went to
----, and there he was taken very ill at the inn. The landlady and the
doctor, who are both familiar to us, never had but one simple idea
respecting the nature of his malady. He came to us with the signs of
past suffering stamped too plainly on his countenance--suffering which,
in such a man, appeared but to exalt and sanctify the sufferer in the
eyes of those who beheld him.
"But all this would bear little on the point, were it not for the surer
testimony which not myself only, but the many who for five years lived
in daily witness of the calm excellency of his life and conduct--the
undoubted strength and clearness of his mind and understanding are able
to produce. Tell the poorest and most ignorant of the little flock,
amongst whom Mr. Eustace Trevor (their beloved Mr. Temple) so familiarly
endeared himself, that he--who even, though interchange of language was
scarcely permitted between them, they had learned to venerate as some
almost supernatural being--that _his_ mind had been ever overthrown by
an infirmity which had banished him from society, from his friends; and
they would laugh to scorn the imputation, and say 'that the world rather
must be mad, that imagined such an absurdity against him.'"
Slowly and painfully, as if each word was drawn from her by the
irresistible conviction of her secret soul, to which some inward power
compelled her to give utterance, Mary offered these assertions. Mrs. de
Burgh's countenance when she concluded showed signs of uneasiness, but
she only said with some bitterness of tone:
"Those people must indeed be rather uninformed, who are not aware that
it is more frequently the strongest and the wisest minds who are most
liable to that most deceptive of all maladies; but really, my dear
Mary," she continued with increased asperity, "it seems to me a great
pity that you did not sooner appreciate the extraordinary perfections of
which you speak with such enthusiasm--both you and poor Eugene might
then have been spared all the trouble your mutual attachment has thus
unfortunately occasioned--though, of course, this is only according to
your own view of the case, for it would enter into few people's heads to
believe it probable that poor Eustace Trevor could ever marry."
The blood flowed with painful intensity over Mary's face and brow, and a
spark of almost fire shot from her usually mild eyes. But from whatever
cause the strong emotion proceeded, whether impatient indignation at
such unjust and cruel persistance on her cousin's part, or any other
feeling, its unwonted force, though momentary, seemed entirely to
over-power her self-possession, for though her lips moved, she found no
words to reply, but drooped her head in silent confusion before her
cousin.
So Mrs. de Burgh continued:
"You, Mary, would have been the last I thought to put such a
construction on an affair of this sort. You cannot know the
circumstances of the case, and the difficult position in which Eugene
might have been placed. That a most violent hatred between him and his
father always existed is well known. That Eustace Trevor's feelings in
this respect (feelings which it is to be confessed were not without some
foundation) after his mother's death amounted to frenzy, as it is easy
with his excitable disposition to believe. His violence must indeed have
been extreme, for I know from good authority, that it has been
impossible ever since to mention his eldest son's name in Uncle Trevor's
presence, without sending the old man almost into convulsions. For peace
and grief's sake alone, Eugene might have found it necessary to have his
brother removed from the house, especially when sanctioned, as of course
the action must have been, by medical certificates; at any rate, it is
only charitable to suppose error--rather than malice deliberate and
propense--to have been the origin of the proceeding."
Mary's eyes were by this time lifted up in anxious attention.
"Yes, yes," she murmured, with clasped hands and agitated fervour;
"convince me it were _error_, and I should be thankful--oh, how thankful
to cherish the idea; but vain, vain will be the endeavour to reason me
into the persuasion that anything short of the most generous
misconception could have justified any such proceeding with regard to
Eustace Trevor, as the cruel course which was pursued against him; and
oh, Olivia, I wonder at you--a woman--advocating such a cause."
Then pressing her hand wearily across her brow, as if she felt the
overpowering influence of the dark bewildering theme which had taken
such painful hold of her imagination.
Mrs. de Burgh lay back upon her sofa, and was silent. She felt herself
getting into deeper waters than she had power or ability to struggle
with. She had been persuaded to use all her rhetoric, into arguing a
serious but gentle-minded girl into marrying a man, towards whom time
and experience had much shaken her estimation.
To sift so particularly a matter, the wrongs and rights of which she
had, like the world in general, been contented to take for so many years
on credit, she was not prepared; and Mary's rebuke chafed her spirit,
and changed in a manner the current of her thoughts.
"How very disagreeable it would be for Eugene, if his brother should
ever come forward, claiming rights, of which he had been dispossessed by
his brother, under false pretences--" and the fair lady was beginning,
for the first time, seriously to agitate her mind with these
reflections, when the door softly opened, and Eugene Trevor himself made
his appearance.
One uneasy glance directed towards Mary, as if to see how she would take
the intrusion; a slight movement of her shoulders, as she met the look
of anxious inquiry which Eugene Trevor fixed upon her, seeming to
express: "I have done my best--you must now try for yourself--" and Mrs.
de Burgh took up her work and applied herself to it assiduously. Eugene
Trevor said something not very coherent about his horse not being ready
and seated himself a little behind Mary's chair, who had seemed more by
feeling than by sight to be aware of her lover's entrance; for she had
not lifted up her downcast eyes, fixed so drearily on the fire. And now
only a scarce perceptible shudder and more rigid immovability seemed to
announce the knowledge of his proximity.
"Mary is very tired," observed Mrs. de Burgh, glancing up from her work.
Eugene bent gently forward, and looked with earnest solicitude into
Mary's face. He did not speak, but volumes could not have expressed more
than the silent concentrated fervour of those dark, passionate eyes.
It was impossible not to feel in some degree their power, though the
influence which had enthralled her soul in other days, was gone; or
remained, to use that most hackneyed of all similes, only as the power
of the repellant rattlesnake.
Painfully she turned away her head, whilst the hand of which Eugene
gently had managed to possess himself, struggled to free itself from his
hold. Probably, Mrs. de Burgh conceived, from all appearance, that this
was the momentous crisis which it was her duty to make another effort
to assist.
She had a little piano-forte in her dressing-room, removed there to
while away the hours of her confinement to its precincts; and she
contrived, without disturbing her companions, to wheel her light sofa in
the right direction. She then arranged herself in a moment before the
instrument, and saying, playfully, "Mary, my dear, you shall have some
of your favourite songs to cheer you up a little," she struck the
chords, and without waiting for further encouragement or reply, began to
sing--perhaps by accident, but more probably by design--her choice
falling upon those plaintive songs and ballads with which she delighted
Mary that first evening, more than four years ago, of her last visit to
Silverton. That night on which her fair hostess was always pleased to
consider the magic of her own sweet singing had in no slight degree
contributed to weave the fatal spell, whose broken charm it was now so
much her object to renew. What better could she do for Eugene's
interest, than try this method of enchantment once again?
And could Mary listen, and her susceptible soul not be touched by the
memories and associations which must be naturally awakened? Could she
sit by Eugene's side, and not be carried back in softened fancy to the
time--that time to use the impassioned language of the poet--
"When full of blissful sighs
They sat and gazed into each other's eyes,
Silent and happy, as if God had given
Nought else worth looking on this side of heaven."
Alas! for the spell so irremediably broken, that not even this sweet and
subtlest of all human influences can restore.
Mary's soul was stirred indeed within her, but it was with very
different emotions than those which were intended to be produced; above
all was her heart swelling within her, with wounded, more than indignant
feelings, against the pretended friend who had thus made her the
unsuspected victim of an unworthy plot.
Therefore the soft music rather seemed to irritate, than to soothe her
jarred and shaken nerves--the words of thrilling pathos, which the
strain for the most part conveyed, to sound in mocking accents on her
ear.
"The sunshine of my life is in those eyes,
And when thou leav'st me, all is dark within."
What to her could such words be, but mockery; when now, alone "the image
of a wicked, heinous fault lived in the eye," which once, indeed, had
seemed too powerfully to absorb the whole sunshine of her life.
But still she sat there, pale, spiritless, and subdued, as if some spell
still bound her, she had not energy to break, however unwillingly she
yielded herself to its sway. Sat--till from silent looks, it seemed that
Eugene, perhaps encouraged by her passive conduct, began again to urge
in low and pleading tones his anxious suit, his father's earnest wishes
on the subject--his own broken-hearted despair. Then, it seems, her
passive trance had given way, for very soon after, when Mrs. de Burgh,
warned by the sound of Eugene's voice, that matters were taking a more
decisive and particular character, had begun to strike the chords with
considerately proportioned force, she was startled by hearing Mary's low
voice close behind her, announcing, in accents tremulous with agitation,
her intention of immediately retiring to bed.
The sweet sounds were abruptly suspended; the performer looking up,
said, with cheerful _insouciance_ which she did not exactly feel, for
she was rather disappointed at this ominous sign of the destruction of
her hopes that affairs were taking a more favourable turn:
"Yes, dear Mary, certainly, you shall go directly. I forgot that you had
had so fatiguing a journey."
Then glanced uneasily round to see how it went with the other party
concerned.
Eugene Trevor had approached the window, and having, with impetuous
hand, drawn aside the curtain, threw open the shutter, and looked out,
as if to ascertain the aspect of the night.
"By Jove, dark as pitch," he murmured moodily; then looking back, cried
with a kind of reckless laugh, "Olivia you must keep me here to-night, I
think, if you have the least regard for my neck."
Mrs. de Burgh glanced towards the window.
"Is it so very dark?" she asked, evasively.
"Dark--not a star to be seen--but--what in the name of fortune, is that
strange sudden light yonder?"
Mrs. de Burgh again glanced towards the window, but from the position of
her seat could not gain sight of anything but the thick impenetrable
darkness. Mary, however, standing with the candle she had taken up in
her trembling hand, mechanically turned her eyes in the direction
indicated. They were, indeed, immediately attracted by a red glare,
which, rendered more conspicuous by the surrounding blackness,
illuminated the distant sky opposite, just across the twelve miles of
flat country separating Silverton from that wooded rise, which had so
often rivetted her interested gaze, as marking the neighbouring site of
Montrevor.
But it must have been a meteorical appearance which had produced the
transitory effect, for even as she gazed it seemed to have faded from
her sight--or rather, she observed it no more--saw nothing but the dark
eye of Eugene Trevor flashing upon her with a lurid glaze, which in the
troubled confusion of her ideas seemed in some way confounded with this
late aspect of the sky.
"Sullenly fierce, a mixture dire,
Like thunder clouds, half gloom, half fire."
She turned away, lighting her candle with unsteady hand.
"Good night, Olivia," she said gravely.
Mrs. de Burgh held out her hand.
"Good night, Mary. I hope you will sleep well, and be better to-morrow."
By a faint, cold smile, Mary alone acknowledged the kindness of the
desire. She was turning silently away, but something seemed to come over
her spirit--a chill--a pang--a sinking at the heart--such as those must
feel who, be the circumstances what they may, have torn thus away the
last link of that broken chain which once, alas! so fondly bound them.
She paused, her softened glance directed towards Eugene. There was no
relenting, no wavering in the glance, nothing but a mournful interest,
sorrowful regret, offered up as it were, as a final tribute to the past.
But it seemed not that Trevor was in a condition of mind to enter into
the spirit of this silent adieu. Throwing himself back upon a chair,
without appearing to notice it, and addressing himself to Mrs. de Burgh,
he exclaimed in a tone of almost insolent defiance:
"Olivia, I must trouble you to order me a bed also. I shall not turn out
this dark night for any one."
It was not so much the words, but the tone in which they were spoken,
which seemed to complete the work of disenchantment. The softness passed
from Mary's eyes, and her parting look, though still sorrowful, was
grave and firm, whilst in a voice, low, but full of dignified reserve,
she uttered the words "Good bye."
Simple as was their emphasis, they were not to be mistaken. They seemed
to say "Good bye, Eugene, for whether you stay to-night, or go, you and
I meet not again." And then she slowly left the room.