From some ambiguous words dropped by Miles in the cottage, and during
Minnie's stay with them, it will be remembered that Skaife was impressed
with the idea that Tremenhere had, as a boy probably, loved Mary Burns,
who had been a _protegée_ of his mother's at the manor-house; and the
curate also thought that the other was aware of her sad fate. For some
time the silence was unbroken, then Miles, suddenly turning towards his
companion, said, like one awakening from a dream, "Pardon me, Mr.
Skaife, but I am an uncouth man, much alone, little in humanized
society; my chief companions are stocks and stones, and the native
inhabitants of wild nature; forgive me again, I had forgotten to thank
you, which I do most sincerely, for your kindness to poor Mary Burns,
and also to myself personally; few, indeed, would have had the courage
to notice, and be thus publicly seen with one at so low a discount as I
am in this neighbourhood."
"Believe me sincere, when I assure you, Mr. Tremenhere," rejoined the
other, "that from all I have heard, and now seen, no one can more truly
deplore your misfortunes than I do."
"Do you know them all?"
"I think, I believe I do," hesitated the curate; he feared uttering
something painful.
"Do you know that for upwards of twenty-one years I was brought up at
the manor-house, beloved by a father and mother, the best Heaven ever
formed--oh! especially the latter; I can scarcely speak of her now." He
paused, and seemed choking with emotion. "To be brief," he continued,
after a pause, "in one year I lost all; she died first, my father soon
followed her, and then, while my sorrow was still green, my cousin,
Marmaduke Burton, put in a claim for the property, on the ground of my
illegitimacy! I was stricken, I had not a word to offer, proof I had
none to the contrary; my father's marriage had taken place, for
_marriage there was_, at Gibraltar; my mother was Spanish, of not
exalted parentage, I believe,--from thence sprung the great difficulty
of proof. Only an obscure family to deal with, that ruffian Marmaduke
gained all--the property was tied up until the event should be known; I
had few wealthy friends--he, both friends and money. Most of my earlier
days had passed in studies abroad; I came only at stated periods to my
home--I was a stranger among my own countrymen;--he had secured himself
allies (I will not call them friends, of these he could have none); he
was assisted too, by a greater scamp than himself, a mean, cold-blooded
villain of the name of Dalby. In my bewilderment, my horror, at _her_
name--my pure, holy mother's name--being dragged forward for public
scorn, I lost all nerve and power; then too, I was poor,--the result you
know. Mr. Skaife, I am a wanderer--_he_, in my halls; but all is not
lost yet. I may find my way to sunlight, even like the blind mole."
"And, Mr. Burton," asked the other, hesitatingly, "was he not a frequent
visiter at the manor-house?"
"Why man, the reptile was there as my friend and brother; whenever I
returned from my rambles, or school, in earlier days, 'twas 'Marmaduke'
and 'Miles' with us from boyhood's youngest hours; he was with me
_soothing_, when she, my mother, died--and there, too, when I put on my
orphan state of master and lord of the manor-house. A week afterwards
the long prepared claim was put in; the morning he left for that worthy
purpose, he shook me by the hand, and said as usual, 'Good bye old
fellow, we shall meet soon;' and we did--_in court_."
"And it was at the manor he knew Mary Burns?" asked Skaife, deeply
affected.
"Ay, at the old place she had been as companion, almost child to my
mother, from her childhood. Then when her old mother became paralyzed,
and lost her school, Mary went to reside with her in that cottage; but
it was comfortable then. My mother, and a little of her own industry in
fancy work, kept them. Alas, poor Mary! I loved her dearly, as ever man
loved a sister, she was so exemplary a girl under many trials."
"I fancied," said Skaife, "I scarcely know why, but I fancied there had
been a warmer attachment." To his own surprise, he found himself
conversing with this almost stranger as with an old friend, so certain
is it, that kindred souls know no time, to limit their flight to meet
their fellow spirits. Tremenhere coloured even through the bronze of his
dark complexion; at the last words he was silent some moments, and then
said hastily, but not haughtily: "Mary was a playfellow, as a sister to
me--I never loved her," and he seemed desirous of changing the subject.
This proud man appreciated the other's qualities and his goodness; with
him he was no longer the cold, guarded person which circumstances had
made him generally in his intercourse with all.
"It is a painful subject with you, I see," said Skaife, much embarrassed
how to proceed; "but my mind is greatly relieved on one point--I feared
you had loved this poor girl; that not having been the case, my duty is
easier, for one it is, to consult with you what had best be done for
her."
"Yes, poor girl! I had for a moment lost sight of her case in other
thoughts--selfish ones, too--we are such mere automatons to our ruling
passions. Poor girl! I hear that hopeful cousin of mine has ordered them
to quit the cottage; so I presume they must--but where go? that's the
question. I am so hampered myself by other cares, I scarcely know how to
help them; could he not be prevailed upon to allow them to remain
another six months--what do you think?"
Skaife's blood chilled within him; he felt like a disappointed man. Here
was the person who had known Mary from childhood, almost a brother, so
coolly wishing her to remain on the sufferance of Marmaduke Burton, as
he knew him, and believed the other too, equally enlightened on several
points.
"No," he coldly said, "I do not think she can, or ought to remain under
circumstances; think of the dreadful crime she has almost committed, Mr.
Tremenhere,--suicide!"
"True, but she has promised not to attempt that again. In our toiling
passage to the attainment of any object, we must drink many a bitter
draught. She must try and submit for a while, I fear, to a few
annoyances: poor Mary--what can I do?"
"Pardon me, Mr. Tremenhere," answered Skaife in a cold but decided tone;
"with _my_ consent, as curate of this parish, she shall not remain. She
might not commit suicide; but men are strange creatures, and the woman
they cast from them to-day, they might kneel to, to-morrow, were she to
appear indifferent; this girl shall never know the temptation such an
act on his part might be."
Tremenhere stopped as if transfixed by a bolt of iron, and stared in
speechless wonder in his companion's face. Skaife continued speaking,
mistaking the dark cloud of demoniacal expression crossing that handsome
face, for indignation towards himself for his free speech; for this he
little cared.
"Mr. Burton's ardent, but heartless, pursuit of the girl till her ruin
ensued, proves a deeper motive, I fear, than passion; the same revenge
towards you, may urge----" He said no more.
"Stop!" cried Miles, in a voice of thunder, and he grasped the other's
arm, and arrested his footsteps. His whole power of utterance above a
whisper seemed to have been expended in that one word; for his voice
became a mere breath like a dying man's, as he asked, while that strong,
robust frame tottered beneath his heart's weight in his agony, "Do I
understand you aright, that Mary Burns has been seduced, and by
Marmaduke Burton?"
"Alas, yes! I thought you understood so from your words in that
cottage." Poor Skaife was pale with emotion; the other had not changed,
his blood stood still, only the muscles had given way beneath the blow.
There was a long silence; Miles still grasped his arm till it fell from
that clasp at last, powerless to hold it--they were near the stile
leading into the lane where Mary's cottage was situated.
"Does Miss Dalzell know this?" inquired Miles, as if one thought,
rushing with the many through his brain, found an outlet.
"The ruin, but not the man," answered Skaife.
"God bless her, then!" burst from the suffering man's lips, and with
that blessing the blood flowed once more through his frame. It was as a
gush of molten lead, forcing its way outwards, burning as it rushed; his
face became dark and lurid, and his flashing eyes looked wildly forward.
"I have not words to thank you with, for all you have done," he cried in
a hoarse, unnatural voice, grasping Skaife's hand. "We shall soon, very
soon, meet again;" and with one bound he cleared the stile, and almost
like thought stood before the terrified Mary Burns, who had sunk in a
chair when they departed, almost fainting, from fear of the result of
their conversation; and now she felt how well grounded that terror had
been when Miles strode into the cottage. She knew his ungovernable
passion when excited by injury or villainy in another--in her terror she
rose before him: "Miles!" she almost screamed.
"Not Miles!" he cried, "but the spirit of his mother returned to condemn
you; an angel who breathed on you from her own pure lip, who strove to
instil her purity into your polluted soul--Devil's child!" and he
grasped her trembling arm--he was pitiless, scarcely human, in his rage
then--as he continued, "to hear such counsels, to breathe the atmosphere
of such a presence, and turn to your hell again! Could not even her
dying blessing, which fell united on both of us, cleanse you? Could you
find no fitter object for your impure love than him, the man who has
branded her memory with so foul a stain, who has driven her son, almost
your brother, forth, a beggar, and nameless! If there's one drop of
human blood in you, woman, shed it in tears for your baseness! Oh,
heavens!" and he looked fixedly forward like a man in a trance, "give me
power to call down on this creature the reward of her foul work!"
"Do not curse me, Miles," she shrieked, dropping on her knees and
clasping them, "have mercy on me--have mercy on me!"
It was a fearful picture on which the curate at that moment looked
unseen through the open door; _they_, in their agony, and the poor old
mother totally unconscious of all, some happy thoughts evidently
crossing her mind, for she was smiling, and endeavouring to rub her
paralyzed hands together at the joyous dream. Skaife involuntarily drew
back, and leaned against the door-post to keep away other witnesses,
should the voices within attract notice in the adjoining cottages.
Miles's hand was passed painfully over his face and brow--he had flung
his hat aside.
"Have pity, Miles!" she cried, her eyes streaming with tears which
nearly choked her, as she clasped her hands, and kneeling, looked up to
where he stood, for he had shaken her off as she clung to him. "But if
you knew what dreadful struggles of nearly maddening power ground my
heart down to bitterness, and _revenge_," (she almost whispered the last
word,) "before I committed this fearful sin against myself, _you_, and,
far more than all, the memory of your sainted mother, you might find
some excuse. You cannot forget how my presumptuous heart, forgetting all
but her more than woman's kindness, dared to lose sight, from her
gentleness, of the distance between us, and loved you. You cannot forget
the day I dreamed you returned it, and boldly confessed mine; you were
calm, dignified, manly, and generous, when you said you never could
return it--that I had mistaken you, and you hoped myself, and when you
drew me to your heart with a _brother's_ love--Oh, may you never know
such humiliation as _I_ felt then, which turned to a blacker feeling
afterwards, fostered by him; for when you, for my sake, absented
yourself from home for months, you cannot know how this weak heart was
worked upon by _him_. He had seen all, guessed all; and, unsuspecting
his motives, I one day confessed the truth to him. From that hour he
became the friend, the comforter; he alone spoke hope to me--a hope his
every action discredited faith in. Then your mother died; events were
drawing to a close; you returned, no thought of love in your heart; I
repressed my mad affection for you, but I was weighed to earth by the
effort. I was but a girl of eighteen in a villain's hands, when the
downfall of all came; your father's death, your banishment----"
"And did not all these sad events, Mary," and his voice was low and
trembling as he looked down upon the cowering woman, "soften your heart
to pity, not revenge? Our affections are not our own; we are not masters
of these but by many a hard struggle. I never could have loved you more
than as a sister: it was not pride, Mary; we have none of that with
those we love. I loved you very truly for your own sake, for the sake of
our happy days of childhood together, and for my mother's sake." As the
last words fell from him, the man, for a moment spirit-broken and
agonized, sunk down on a chair, and, leaning his head on his arm across
the table, wept like any woman over the ruin before him, and his memory
of another. He had not one selfish thought; he was iron for
himself,--for others, as a child at heart in love and gentleness. She
rose, and, creeping to his side, took the hand which, clenched in its
agony, rested on his knee, and, dropping on hers, she covered it with
tears and kisses. "Forgive me, Miles," she sobbed, "for you know not
all I endured of trial before I fell. He told me you had scoffed at my
love--to him. It was not the work of a day or hour; it is nearly eight
long years since you quitted this place; for more than four we have not
met; for less than that space I have been the guilty creature I now am!"
Insensibly his hand unclenched and clasped her's; she continued sobbing
between each scarcely-articulate word, "When, by every artifice man
could employ, he led me to error; and, ever since, this most bitter
repentance. 'Twas done under the promise of making me his wife, to show
_you_ that _he_ appreciated my worth. And when he said you not only had
repulsed my love, but scorned it----"
"He lied, Mary, he lied!" articulated the sorrowing man, looking up;
"from _me_ he never heard of our love; he must have divined it."
"God help me!" she uttered, kissing his clasping hand, "for I have
suffered much; and it was my refusal (for years now) to continue in my
error, which has made him persecute me so of late. I told him last time
we met, that _I loved you still, and ever should_." These last words
were scarcely breathed.
"Heaven help you, my poor girl!" cried Miles, looking at her as he
placed a hand gently on her head; "for what can that love bring
you?--Sorrow and disheartenment in every effort for existence; a log to
hamper every step of your pathway to independence! Rise up, Mary," and
he drew her on his heart; "come what may, my girl, these arms will
shelter you still from the cold, heartless world. I am richer now,
Mary, and to-morrow you and that poor old woman shall leave this place;
and once away, oh, then!----" He spoke the last words with a stern
resolution.
"What, Miles?" and she clasped his clenched hand in her's, and gazed
terrified in his flashing eyes.
"I'll return to my home abroad," he uttered, dropping them to conceal
_their_ speech, lest she should read aright.