On the twenty-third day of September, Sir Sidney Delaware had some
slight symptoms of a fit of gout, which rendered him somewhat
irritable and anxious. Three times did he give particular directions,
that, when Mr. Tims of Ryebury came, he was to be shown into the
library, and, as often, when he heard any unusual sound in the
mansion, usually so still and tranquil, he demanded whether Mr. Tims
had arrived. Still Mr. Tims did not make his appearance, though about
two o'clock Mr. Burrel did; and the worthy baronet, in conversation
with his young friend, forgot his anxiety for a time. At length,
however, it began to resume its ascendency, and its first struggle was
of course with politeness. He was evidently uneasy; he moved to and
fro in his chair; he complained of some pain; and, at length, was in
the very act of desiring his son to take a walk, and see why Mr. Tims
had not kept his promise, when the daily bag arrived from the post,
and--together with a billet or two, apparently from some female
friends, for Miss Delaware, which she carried away to her own room;
and a letter for Captain Delaware--appeared a lawyer-like epistle,
addressed to Sir Sidney, and bearing the London post-mark.
"I will go to Mr. Tims as soon as I have looked over this letter,
sir," said Captain Delaware; but Sir Sidney at the same moment opened
his own, and, after he had read, he exclaimed, "No, no, William, there
is no necessity! You and Blanche were going to walk with Mr. Burrel;
and here Lord Ashborough's lawyer tells me that he can not be down on
the precise day--that is, to-morrow--but will come the day after, or
the day after that, with a thousand apologies for not coming. If I be
well enough, I will go to this person, Tims, myself, to-morrow. If
not, you can go. So call Blanche, and take your ramble while it is
fine. The clouds are beginning to gather."
Captain Delaware went to seek his sister, who, as we have said, had
retired to her own apartment; but he soon returned, saying that she
had a slight headache, and would stay at home. He would show Burrel
the way himself, he added, to what the people called the Sea Hill, so
named because the sea was thence first visible; and though the spirit
of their proposed expedition had all evaporated, Burrel did not choose
to decline. "If she did but know!" he thought--"If she did but know
what is going on here in my heart, I do not think a slight headache
would keep her at home! But I must bring this matter to some
certainty--it is growing painful!" and more than one-half of his walk
passed in silent musing.
On his return, he went into the library with Captain Delaware. Blanche
was there with her father, but she was deadly pale, and Burrel felt
more than anxious--alarmed. As soon almost as he entered, Sir Sidney
Delaware pressed him to stay to dinner, and Burrel, who had often
declined, mastered by strong anxiety, agreed to do so on the present
occasion; though, as the invitation was given and accepted, he saw a
passing blush, and then a relapse to snowy paleness, come over the
countenance of her he loved.
The evening was no longer of joy. Burrel hoped that some opportunity
would present itself of gaining a single moment of private
conversation with Blanche Delaware in the course of his stay; but it
was evident that she avoided every thing of the kind, and, at an early
hour, complaining of increased headache, she retired once more to her
room. Soon after, her lover took his leave, and returned home in a
state of feverish anxiety, difficult to be described; while Captain
Delaware perceived that something had gone wrong, but could not divine
what; and Sir Sidney, without seeing any thing deeper, felt that the
evening which had just passed to its predecessors, was the dullest he
had spent since he had become acquainted with Henry Burrel.
To Burrel the night went by in sleepless restlessness; and, though we
would fain see how it flew with Blanche Delaware, we must take up her
story in the course of the morning after, when, rising as pale as the
night before, she found that the hour, instead of nine--which she had
fancied it must be at least--was only seven. Putting on her bonnet,
she glided down the old stone staircase, and proceeded into the park;
but it was not toward Emberton that she took her way. On the contrary,
turning her steps through the wild woodlands that lay at the back of
the mansion, she trod very nearly the same path which she had pursued
with Henry Burrel during the first days of their acquaintance.
She traced the walk by the bank of the stream. The kingfishers were
flitting over the bosom of the river; the waters were pouring on,
fretting at the same pebbles, dashing over the same little falls,
lying quiet in the same still pools, as when she had last seen them.
But the feelings of her heart were changed, and the light, which
nature had then borrowed from joy, was now all overshadowed by the
clouds of care. As she gazed upon the stream, and the wild banks, and
the hawthorn dingles round her, and felt that a bitter change in her
own bosom had stripped them of all their beauties, as ruthlessly as
the hand of winter itself could have done, the pain was too much, and
she wept.
Still she trod her way onward, pondering slowly and gloomily, till she
came so near the little glen that had terminated that happy walk with
Burrel, that she could not refrain from going on. A few minutes
brought her to the spot where the Prior's Well was first visible, and
a few minutes more found her standing under the rich carved canopy of
gray stone that covered over the fountain.
For several moments she gazed wistfully and mournfully upon the
waters, as, with a calm, unobtrusive ripple, and a low, whispering
murmur, they welled from the basin of the fountain, and trickled
through the grass and pebbles. "Oh, would to Heaven!" she thought,
"that yon calm water did really possess the mysterious power the old
legends attribute to it. But two days since, nothing on earth would
have made me taste it, though I believed not a word; and now I am
almost tempted to drink, though I still believe as little."
As she thought thus, she stretched out her hand to the little iron
cup; and, after a short pause, filled it, and gazed upon the water, as
it lay pure and clear, with that peculiar cold sparkling limpidity
which the old monks so greatly prized in their wells. Her hand shook a
little; but, after a single instant's consideration, with a smile
which was mingled of sadness and of a sort of gentle scorn, at the
drop of credulity that still lay at the bottom of her heart, she was
raising the cup to her lips when a hand was laid gently upon her arm.
She started, but without dropping the cup, and, turning round, she saw
beside her Henry Burrel. Pouring the water carefully back into the
font, as if every drop were precious, she let go the chain, while,
with downcast eyes, and a cheek burning like crimson, she uttered a
scarcely audible good-morrow, in answer to some words that she had
hardly heard.
Burrel's hand still rested on her arm, while his eyes were fixed upon
her face, tenderly, but reproachfully. The action and the look were
those of intimacy, but not of presumption; and, indeed, there had been
of late a kind of mute language established between Blanche and her
lover, in which many a question had been asked, and many a feeling had
been acknowledged, which would have expired in shame, had words been
the only means of expression, and which gave Burrel some right to
inquire into the change he could not but perceive too plainly.
"You were about to drink, Miss Delaware," he said. "But if you taste of
the enchanted fountain, I must drink also; for Heaven knows, then, I
shall have more need of the waters of oblivion than you have!"
He spoke with a smile; but there are smiles in the world more
melancholy than a world of sighs; and his was so full of pain,
anxiety, and disappointment, that Blanche, as she turned away, made
the only answer in her power--by tears. The drops from her eyes fell
thick, and as her left hand rested on the little carved border of the
stone font, over which her head still hung, partially averted to hide
the deep and varying feelings that passed across her face, the tears
dimpled the clear, still waters; and though Burrel, as he stood, could
not see her eyes, he perceived that she was weeping bitterly. His
fingers, which had rested lightly on her arm, to prevent her from
drinking the water, now glided down, and circled round her hand,
clasping upon it with a degree of gentle firmness.
"Miss Delaware," he said, "for Heaven's sake, tell me, have my hopes
been all in vain?--Have I, like a presumptuous fool, dreamed of
happiness far greater than I deserve to possess! And do you now, by
the striking change which your demeanor toward me has undergone,
intend to rebuke my boldness in fancying that you might ever become
mine; and to crush the hopes which your former kindness inspired?"
Blanche Delaware wept, but she answered not a word; and Burrel gazed
on her for a moment in silence, in a state of agitation which might
have well prevented him from judging sanely of what was passing in her
mind, even had it been expressed by more unequivocal signs than the
bitter though silent tears that rolled over her cheeks.
"For God's sake, speak!" he exclaimed at length. "Oh, Blanche, if you
did but know the agony you are inflicting on a heart that loves you
better than any other earthly thing, you would at least save me the
torment of suspense--may I--dare I--hope that you will be mine?"
Blanche Delaware passed her hand across her brow, and brushed back the
rich long ringlets that, as she stooped, had fallen partially over her
eyes. She turned toward her lover also, still grasping the edge of the
fountain with her left hand for support, and, with something between a
gasp and a sob, replied to his question at once--"No, Mr. Burrel, no!
You must not hope!--Oh, forgive me!" she added, seeing the deadly
paleness that spread over his countenance. "Forgive me! Forgive me!
But for your sake--for your own sake--for both our sakes, it is better
said at once--I must not--I can not--"
The rest died upon her lips. Enough, however, had been spoken to make
the rejection decisive; and yet it was spoken in such a tone as to
betray deep grief as well as agitation on her own part; and to
awaken--not suspicions--but a thousand vague and whirling fancies in
Burrel's brain.
"And will not Miss Delaware," he said, at length, "at least console me
for broken hopes, and the first love of my heart crushed forever, by
assigning some cause for this change in her opinion of one who is
unconscious of having done any thing to offend or pain her?"
Blanche was again silent, and turned away her head, while the sighs
came thick and deep, and the tears were evidently falling fast. Burrel
paused for a moment, and then added, in a sad but kindly tone--"Or is
it, Miss Delaware, that I have imagined a heart free, that was before
engaged? Perhaps, long ere I knew you, some more fortunate person may
have created an interest which can be inspired but once; perhaps,
even, circumstances may have prevented you from rendering him as happy
as you might otherwise have done. Oh, tell me, is it so? For though
all men are selfish, I should find it easy to gratify my selfishness
in contributing to your happiness. I have interest--I have power; and
if I could render Blanche Delaware happy with one that she loves, it
would be the next blessing to possessing her hand myself. Tell me,
Miss Delaware, I beseech you, is it as I imagine?"
"Oh! no, no, no!" cried Blanche, turning her glowing face toward him.
"No, upon my word, I never saw the man that I could love but--"
The deepening blush and the fresh burst of tears concluded the
sentence as Burrel's heart could have desired; and again laying his
hand upon hers, he besought her to tell him what then was the
obstacle. But Blanche drew back--not offended, but sad and determined.
"It is in vain, Mr. Burrel," she said; "and I am bound to tell you so
at once. My mind is made up--my resolution is taken. You have my
highest esteem, my deepest gratitude, my most sincere regard, but you
can not have--"
She paused at the word love; for no circumstances, to the mind of
Blanche Delaware, could palliate a falsehood, and she felt too
bitterly that he did possess her love also. She changed the phrase in
the midst, and added, "I can never give you my hand."
One only glance at the countenance of her lover made her feel that she
could bear no more, and that it were better for them both to part at
once. She drew back a single step, and then, with a look of painful
earnestness while her hand unconsciously was laid upon his arm, she
said, in a low, sad tone, "Forgive me, Mr. Burrel! Oh, forgive me!"
and the next moment Burrel was standing alone by the side of the
fountain.
He remained there for several minutes, with every painful feeling that
it is possible to imagine struggling together in his bosom. First,
there was the disappointment of hopes that he had encouraged to a
pitch of which he had had no notion, till they were done away forever;
the breaking of a thousand sweet dreams, the vanishing of a crowd of
happy images, the dissolution of all the fairy fabric which the
enchanter Fancy builds up round the cradle of young affection. Then
there were the doubts, the fears, the jealousies, the vague and somber
imaginings, to which the unexplained and extraordinary conduct of her
that he loved gave rise; and then, again, was the rankling sting of
mortified pride, shooting its venom into the wound inflicted by
disappointment.
Burrel paused by the fountain, and suffered every painful thought to
work its will upon his heart in turn; and, oh, what he would have
given to have wept like a woman--but he could not. At length, steeling
himself with that bitter fortitude which is akin to despair, he turned
his steps toward the little town. He avoided, of course, the mansion;
and, though he gazed at it for a moment with a bent brow and quivering
lip, when he caught a sight of it from a distance, yet, as soon as he
withdrew his eyes, the sight only seemed to accelerate his pace.
"Have my horse at the door in a quarter of an hour!" were the first
words he addressed to his servant, as he entered the house; "and be
ready to take up the baggage to London by the coach."
Harding gazed upon his master in horror and astonishment; for the
newly-proposed arrangement did not at all coincide with his views and
purposes. But Burrel, having given his orders in a tone that left no
room for reply, walked on into the little parlor: and it was several
minutes before his worthy valet could so far recover the shock as to
find an excuse for evading the execution of his commands. He soon,
however, summoned sufficient obstacles to his aid; and, having
proceeded to order his master's horse, he returned and entered the
parlor uncalled.
"I have ordered the groom to bring up Martindale, sir," he said,
"because the bay needs shoeing. But I am afraid, sir, I can not get
all the things ready for the coach. There is every thing to pack, sir,
and all the bills to be paid, and not above three-quarters of an hour
to do it in."
Burrel had been gazing forth from the window, seeing nothing upon
earth; but his habitual command over himself was too powerful to
suffer him to get deaf as well as blind, under any disappointment; and
he turned immediately that the servant spoke. "I forgot," he said,
taking out his pocket-book--"you must go up to-morrow morning. There
is money to pay the bills;" and he noted down as carefully as usual
the sum he gave, adding, "I shall sleep to-night at Dr. Wilton's, and
shall be in town on Saturday. Have the traveling chariot taken to
Holditch, to be put in order, as soon as you arrive. Call in all my
bills in London; and get things arranged to set off for the continent
in the course of next week."
The man bowed low, with his usual silent gravity; in a few minutes
more the horse was at the door, and Burrel, riding slowly out of the
town, took the road toward the house of his former tutor.