The beautiful month of May had arrived, with her light budding foliage,
which seems to hang over the hoar branches of the trees like a green
aerial mist--the nightingales sung through the moonlight night, and
every other feathered chorister took up the note at early dawn. The
sweetest flowers in the year embroidered the fields; and the verdant
corn-fields were spread like a lake, now glittering in the sun, now
covered over by the shadows of the clouds. It appeared impossible not to
hope--not to enjoy; yet a seriousness had again gathered over Falkner's
countenance that denoted the return of care. He avoided the society even
of Elizabeth--his rides were solitary--his evenings passed in the
seclusion of his own room. Elizabeth, for the first time in her life,
grew a little discontented. "I sacrificed all to him," she thought, "yet
I cannot make him happy. Love alone possesses the sceptre and arbitrary
power to rule; every other affection admits a parliament of
thoughts--and debate and divisions ensue, which may make us wiser, but
which sadly derogates from the throned state of what we fancy a master
sentiment. I cannot make Falkner happy; yet Neville is miserable through
my endeavours--and to such struggle there is no end--my promised faith
is inviolable, nor do I even wish to break it."
One balmy, lovely day, Elizabeth rode out with her cousins; Mrs. Raby
was driving her father-in-law through the grounds in the pony
phaeton--Falkner had been out, and was returned. Several days had
passed, and no answer arrived from Neville. He was uneasy and sad, and
yet rejoiced at the respite afforded to the final parting with his
child. Suddenly, from the glass doors of the saloon he perceived a
gentleman riding up the avenue; he recognised him, and exclaimed, "All
is over!" At that moment he felt himself transported to a distant
land--surrounded by strangers--cut off from all he held dear. Such must
be the consequence of the arrival of Gerard Neville; and it was he who,
dismounting, in a few minutes after entered the room.
He came up to Falkner, and held out his hand, saying, "We must be
friends, Mr. Falkner--from this moment I trust that we are friends. We
join together for the happiness of the dearest and most perfect being in
the world."
Falkner could not take his hand--his manner grew cold; but he readily
replied, "I hope we do; and we must concert together to ensure our
success."
"Yet there is one other," continued Neville, "whom we must take into our
consultations."
"Mrs. Raby?"
"No! Elizabeth herself. She alone can decide for us all, and teach us
the right path to take. Do not mistake me; I know the road she will
point out, and am ready to follow it. Do you think I could deceive her?
Could I ask her to give me her dear self, and thus generously raise me
to the very height of human happiness, with deception on my lips? I were
indeed unworthy of her, if I were capable of such an act.
"Yet, but for the sake of honest truth, I would not even consult her--my
own mind is made up if you consent; I am come to you, Mr. Falkner, as a
suppliant, to ask you to give me your adopted child, but not to separate
you from her: I should detest myself if I were the cause of so much
sorrow to either. If my conduct need explanation in the world, you are
my excuse, I need go no further. We must both join in rendering Miss
Raby happy, and both, I trust, remain friends to the end of our lives."
"You are generous," replied Falkner; "perhaps you are just. I am not
unworthy of the friendship you offer, were you any other than you are."
"It is because I am such as I am that I venture to make advances which
would be impertinent from any other."
At this moment, a light step was heard on the lawn without, and
Elizabeth stood before them. She paused in utter wonder on seeing
Falkner and Neville together; soon surprise was replaced by undisguised
delight--her expressive countenance became radiant with happiness.
Falkner addressed her: "I present a friend to you, dear Elizabeth; I
leave you with him--he will best explain his purposes and wishes.
Meanwhile I must remark, that I consider him bound by nothing that has
been said; you must take counsel together--you must act for your mutual
happiness--that is all the condition I make--I yield to no other. Be
happy; and, if it be necessary, forget me, as I am very willing to
forget myself."
Falkner left them; and they instinctively, so to prevent interruption,
took their way into a woody glade of the park; and as they walked
beneath the shadows of some beautiful lime-trees, on the crisp green
turf, disclosed to each other every inner thought and feeling. Neville
declared his resolve not to separate her from her benefactor. "If the
world censure me," he said, "I am content; I am accustomed to its
judgments, and never found them sway or annoy me. I do right for my own
heart. It is a godlike task to reward the penitent. In religion and
morality, I know that I am justified; whether I am in the code of
worldly honour, I leave others to decide; and yet I believe that I am. I
had once thought to have met Falkner in a duel, but my father's
vengeance prevented that. He is now acquitted before all the world of
being more than the accidental cause of my dear mother's death. Knights
of old, after they fought in right good earnest, became friends, each
finding, in the bravery of the other, a cause for esteem. Such is the
situation of Rupert Falkner and myself; and we will both join, dear
Elizabeth, in making him forget the past, and rendering his future years
calm and happy."
Elizabeth could only look her gratitude. She felt, as was most true,
that this was not a cause for words or reason. Falkner in himself
offered, or did not offer, full excuse for the generosity of Neville. No
one could see him, and not allow that the affectionate, duteous son in
no way derogated from his reverence for his mother's memory, by entirely
forgiving him who honoured her as an earthly angel, and had deplored,
through years of unutterable anguish, the mortal injury done her.
Satisfied in his own mind that he acted rightly, Neville did not seek
for any other approval; and yet he gladly accepted it from Elizabeth,
whose heart, touched to its very core by his nobleness, felt an almost
painful weight of gratitude and love; she tried to express it:
fortunately, between lovers mere language is not necessary ineffectually
to utter that which transcends all expression. Neville felt himself most
sweetly thanked; a more happy pair never trod this lovely earth than the
two that, closely linked hand in hand, and with hearts open and true as
the sunlight about them, enjoyed the sweetest hour of love, the first of
acknowledged perpetual union, beneath the majestic, deep-shadowing
thickets of Belleforest.
All that had seemed so difficult now took its course easily. They did
not any of them seek to account for or to justify the course they took.
They each knew that they could not do other than they did. Elizabeth
could not break faith with Falkner--Neville could not renounce her; it
might be strange--but it must be so; they three must remain together
through life, despite all of tragic and miserable that seemed to
separate them.
Even Lady Cecil admitted that there was no choice. Elizabeth must be
won--she was too dear a treasure to be voluntarily renounced. In a few
weeks, the wedding-day of Sir Gerard Neville and Miss Raby being fixed,
she joined them at Belleforest, and saw, with genuine pleasure, the
happiness of the two persons whom she esteemed and loved most in the
world, secured. Mrs. Raby's warm heart reaped its own reward in
witnessing this felicitous conclusion of her interference.
Whether the reader of this eventful tale will coincide with every other
person, fully in the confidence of all, in the opinion that such was the
necessary termination of a position full of difficulty, is hard to
say--but so it was; and it is most certain that no woman who ever saw
Rupert Falkner but thought Neville just and judicious; and if any man
disputed this point, when he saw Elizabeth he was an immediate convert.
As much happiness as any one can enjoy, whose inner mind bears the
unhealing wound of a culpable act, fell to the portion of Falkner. He
had repented; and was forgiven, we may believe, in heaven, as well as on
earth. He could not forgive himself--and this one shadow remained upon
his lot--it could not be got rid of; yet perhaps in the gratitude he
felt to those about him, in the softened tenderness inspired by the
sense that he was dealt with more leniently than he believed that he
deserved, he found full compensation for the memories that made him feel
himself a perpetual mourner beside Alithea's grave.
Neville and Elizabeth had no drawback to their felicity. They cared not
for the world, and when they did enter it, the merits of both commanded
respect and liking; they were happy in each other, happy in a growing
family, happy in Falkner; whom, as Neville had said, it was impossible
to regard with lukewarm sentiments; and they derived a large store of
happiness from his enlightened mind, from the elevated tone of moral
feeling, which was the result of his sufferings, and from the deep
affection with which he regarded them both. They were happy also in the
wealth which gave scope to the benevolence of their dispositions, and in
the talents that guided them rightly through the devious maze of life.
They often visited Dromore, but their chief time was spent at their seat
in Bucks, near which Falkner had purchased a villa. He lived in
retirement: he grew a sage amid his books and his own reflections. But
his heart was true to itself to the end, and his pleasures were derived
from the society of his beloved Elizabeth, of Neville, who was scarcely
less dear, and their beautiful children. Surrounded by these, he felt no
want of the nearest ties; they were to him as his own. Time passed
lightly on, bringing no apparent change; thus they still live--and
Neville has never for a moment repented the irresistible impulse that
led him to become the friend of him whose act had rendered his childhood
miserable, but who completed the happiness of his maturer years.
THE END