THE TWO LETTERS.
From the digression of the last chapter I was recalled by the sight of
the two letters which lay during my reverie unopened before me. I first
broke the seal of Lady Callonby’s epistle, which ran thus:
“Munich, La Croix Blanche,
“My dear Mr. Lorrequer—I have just heard from Kilkee, that you are at
length about to pay us your long promised visit, and write these few
lines to beg that before leaving Paris you will kindly execute for me
the commissions of which I enclose a formidable list, or at least as
many of them as you can conveniently accomplish. Our stay here now will
be short, that it will require all your despatch to overtake us before
reaching Milan, Lady Jane’s health requiring an immediate change of
climate. Our present plans are, to winter in Italy, although such will
interfere considerably with Lord Callonby, who is pressed much by his
friends to accept office. However, all this and our other gossip I
reserve for our meeting. Meanwhile, adieu, and if any of my tasks bore
you, omit them at once, except the white roses and the Brussels veil,
which Lady Jane is most anxious for.
“Sincerely yours,
“Charlotte Callonby.”
How much did these few and apparently common-place lines convey to me?
First, my visit was not only expected, but actually looked forward to,
canvassed—perhaps I might almost whisper to myself the flattery—wished
for. Again, Lady Jane’s health was spoken of as precarious, less actual
illness—I said to myself—than mere delicacy requiring the bluer sky and
warmer airs of Italy. Perhaps her spirits were affected—some mental
malady—some ill-placed passion—que sais je? In fact my brain run on so
fast in its devisings, that by a quick process, less logical than
pleasing, I satisfied myself that the lovely Lady Jane Callonby was
actually in love, with whom let the reader guess at. And Lord Callonby
too, about to join the ministry—well, all the better to have one’s
father-in-law in power—promotion is so cursed slow now a-days. And
lastly, the sly allusion to the commissions—the mechancete of
introducing her name to interest me. With such materials as these to
build upon, frail as they may seem to others, I found no difficulty in
regarding myself as the dear friend of the family, and the acknowledged
suitor of Lady Jane.
In the midst, however, of all my self-gratulation, my eye fell upon the
letter of Emily Bingham, and I suddenly remembered how fatal to all
such happy anticipations it might prove. I tore it open in passionate
haste and read—
“My dear Mr. Lorrequer—As from the interview we have had this morning I
am inclined to believe that I have gained your affections, I think that
I should ill requite such a state of your feeling for me, were I to
conceal that I cannot return you mine—in fact they are not mine to
bestow. This frank avowal, whatever pain it may have cost me, I think I
owe to you to make. You will perhaps say, the confession should have
been earlier; to which I reply, it should have been so, had I known, or
even guessed at the nature of your feelings for me. For—and I write it
in all truth, and perfect respect for you—I only saw in your attentions
the flirting habits of a man of the world, with a very uninformed and
ignorant girl of eighteen, with whom as it was his amusement to travel,
he deemed it worth his while to talk. I now see, and bitterly regret my
error, yet deem it better to make this painful confession than suffer
you to remain in a delusion which may involve your happiness in the
wreck of mine. I am most faithfully your friend,
“Emily Bingham.”
What a charming girl she is, I cried, as I finished the letter; how
full of true feeling, how honourably, how straight-forward: and yet it
is devilish strange how cunningly she played her part—and it seems now
that I never did touch her affections; Master Harry, I begin to fear
you are not altogether the awful lady-killer you have been thinking.
Thus did I meditate upon this singular note—my delight at being once
more “free” mingling with some chagrin that I was jockied, and by a
young miss of eighteen, too. Confoundedly disagreeable if the mess knew
it, thought I. Per Baccho—how they would quiz upon my difficulty to
break off a match, when the lady was only anxious to get rid of me.
This affair must never come to their ears, or I am ruined; and now, the
sooner all negociations are concluded the better. I must obtain a
meeting with Emily. Acknowledge the truth and justice of all her views,
express my deep regret at the issue of the affair, slily hint that I
have been merely playing her own game back upon her; for it would be
the devil to let her go off with the idea that she had singed me, yet
never caught fire herself; so that we both shall draw stakes, and part
friends.
This valiant resolution taken, I wrote a very short note, begging an
interview, and proceeded to make as formidable a toilet as I could for
the forthcoming meeting; before I had concluded which, a verbal answer
by her maid informed me, that “Miss Bingham was alone, and ready to
receive me.”
As I took my way along the corridor, I could not help feeling that
among all my singular scrapes and embarassing situations through life,
my present mission was certainly not the least—the difficulty, such as
it was, being considerably increased by my own confounded “amour
propre,” that would not leave me satisfied with obtaining my liberty,
if I could not insist upon coming off scathless also. In fact, I was
not content to evacuate the fortress, if I were not to march out with
all the honours of war. This feeling I neither attempt to palliate nor
defend, I merely chronicle it as, are too many of these confessions, a
matter of truth, yet not the less a subject for sorrow.
My hand was upon the lock of the door. I stopped, hesitated, and
listened. I certainly heard something. Yes, it is too true—she is
sobbing. What a total overthrow to all my selfish resolves, all my
egotistical plans, did that slight cadence give. She was crying—her
tears for the bitter pain she concluded I was suffering—mingling
doubtless with sorrow for her own sources of grief—for it was clear to
me that whoever may have been my favoured rival, the attachment was
either unknown to, or unsanctioned by the mother. I wished I had not
listened; all my determinations were completely routed and as I opened
the door I felt my heart beating almost audibly against my side.
In a subdued half-light—tempered through the rose-coloured curtains,
with a small sevres cup of newly-plucked moss-roses upon the table—sat,
or rather leaned, Emily Bingham, her face buried in her hands as I
entered. She did not hear my approach, so that I had above a minute to
admire the graceful character of her head, and the fine undulating
curve of her neck and shoulders, before I spoke.
“Miss Bingham,” said I—
She started—looked up—her dark blue eyes, brilliant though tearful,
were fixed upon me for a second, as if searching my very inmost
thoughts. She held out her hand, and turning her head aside, made room
for me on the sofa beside her. Strange girl, thought I, that in the
very moment of breaking with a man for ever, puts on her most
fascinating toilette—arrays herself in her most bewitching manner, and
gives him a reception only calculated to turn his head, and render him
ten times more in love than ever. Her hand, which remained still in
mine, was burning as if in fever, and the convulsive movement of her
neck and shoulders showed me how much this meeting cost her. We were
both silent, till at length, feeling that any chance interruption might
leave us as far as ever from understanding each other, I resolved to
begin.
“My dear, dear Emily,” I said, “do not I entreat of you add to the
misery I am this moment enduring by letting me see you thus. Whatever
your wrongs towards me, this is far too heavy a retribution. My object
was never to make you wretched, if I am not to obtain the bliss, to
strive and make you happy.”
“Oh, Harry”—this was the first time she had ever so called me—“how like
you, to think of me—of me, at such a time, as if I was not the cause of
all our present unhappiness—but not wilfully, not intentionally. Oh,
no, no—your attentions—the flattery of your notice, took me at once,
and, in the gratification of my self-esteem, I forgot all else. I
heard, too, that you were engaged to another, and believing, as I did,
that you were trifling with my affections, I spared no effort to win
your’s. I confess it, I wished this with all my soul.”
“And now,” said I, “that you have gained them”—Here was a pretty sequel
to my well matured plans!—“And now Emily”—
“But have I really done so?” said she, hurriedly turning round and
fixing her large full eyes upon me, while one of her hands played
convulsively through my hair—“have I your heart? your whole heart?”
“Can you doubt it, dearest,” said I, passionately pressing her to my
bosom; and at the same time muttering, “What the devil’s in the wind
now; we are surely not going to patch up our separation, and make love
in earnest.”
There she lay, her head upon my shoulder, her long, brown, waving
ringlets falling loosely across my face and on my bosom, her hand in
mine. What were her thoughts I cannot guess—mine, God forgive me, were
a fervent wish either for her mother’s appearance, or that the hotel
would suddenly take fire, or some other extensive calamity arise to put
the finishing stroke to this embarassing situation.
None of these, however, were destined to occur; and Emily lay still and
motionless as she was, scarce seeming to breathe, and pale as death.
What can this mean, said I, surely this is not the usual way to treat
with a rejected suitor; if it be, why then, by Jupiter the successful
one must have rather the worst of it—and I fervently hope that Lady
Jane be not at this moment giving his conge to some disappointed swain.
She slowly raised her long, black fringed eyelids, and looked into my
face, with an expression at once so tender and so plaintive, that I
felt a struggle within myself whether to press her to my heart, or—what
the deuce was the alternative. I hope my reader knows, for I really do
not. And after all, thought I, if we are to marry, I am only
anticipating a little; and if not, why then a “chaste salute,” as
Winifred Jenkins calls it, she’ll be none the worse for. Acting at once
upon this resolve, I leaned downwards, and passing back her ringlets
from her now flushed cheek, I was startled by my name, which I heard
called several times in the corridor. The door at the same instant was
burst suddenly open, and Trevanion appeared.
“Harry, Harry Lorrequer,” cried he, as he entered; then suddenly
checking himself, added “a thousand, ten thousand pardons. But—”
“But what,” cried I passionately, forgetting all save the situation of
poor Emily at the moment, “what can justify—”
“Nothing certainly can justify such an intrusion,” said Trevanion,
finishing my sentence for me, “except the very near danger you run this
moment in being arrested. O’Leary’s imprudence has compromised your
safety, and you must leave Paris within an hour.”
“Oh, Mr. Trevanion,” said Emily, who by this time had regained a more
befitting attitude, “pray speak out; what is it? is Harry—is Mr.
Lorrequer, I mean, in any danger?”
“Nothing of consequence, Miss Bingham, if he only act with prudence,
and be guided by his friends. Lorrequer, you will find me in your
apartments in half an hour—till then, adieu.”
While Emily poured forth question after question, as to the nature and
extent of my present difficulty, I could not help thinking of the tact
by which Trevanion escaped, leaving me to make my adieux to Emily as
best I might—for I saw in a glance that I must leave Paris at once. I,
therefore, briefly gave her to understand the affair at the salon—which
I suspected to be the cause of the threatened arrest—and was about to
profess my unaltered and unalterable attachment, when she suddenly
stopped me.
“No, Mr. Lorrequer, no. All is over between us. We must never meet
again—never. We have been both playing a part. Good by—good by: do not
altogether forget me—and once more, Harry good by.”
What I might have said, thought, or done, I know not; but the arrival
of Mrs. Bingham’s carriage at the door left no time for any thing but
escape. So, once more pressing her hand firmly to my lips, I said—“au
revoir, Emily, au revoir, not good by,” and rushing from the room,
regained my own, just as Mrs. Bingham reached the corridor.