THE YEARNING OF A BREAKING HEART.
At her bedroom door, the next morning, stood Lady Isabel, listening
whether the coast was clear ere she descended to the gray parlor, for
she had a shrinking dread of encountering Mr. Carlyle. When he was
glancing narrowly at her face the previous evening she had felt the
gaze, and it impressed upon her the dread of his recognition. Not only
that; he was the husband of another; therefore it was not expedient that
she should see too much of him, for he was far dearer to her than he had
ever been.
Almost at the same moment there burst out of a remote room--the nursery-
-an upright, fair, noble boy, of some five years old, who began
careering along on the corridor, astride upon a hearth-broom. She did
not need to be told it was her boy, Archibald; his likeness to Mr.
Carlyle would have proclaimed it, even if her heart had not. In an
impulse of unrestrainable tenderness, she seized the child, as he was
galloping past her, and carried him into her room, broom and all.
“You must let me make acquaintance with you,” she said to him by way of
excuse. “I love little boys.”
Love! Down she sat upon a low chair, the child held upon her lap,
kissing him passionately, and the tears raining from her eyes. She could
not have helped the tears had it been to save her life; she could as
little have helped the kisses. Lifting her eyes, there stood Wilson, who
had entered without ceremony. A sick feeling came over Lady Isabel: she
felt as if she had betrayed herself. All that could be done now, was to
make the best of it; to offer some lame excuse. What possessed her thus
to forget herself?
“He did so put me in remembrance of my own children,” she said to
Wilson, gulping down her emotion, and hiding her tears in the best
manner she could; whilst the astonished Archibald, released now, stood
with his finger in his mouth and stared at her spectacles, his great
blue eyes opened to their utmost width. “When we have lost children of
our own, we are apt to love fondly all we come near.”
Wilson, who stared only in a less degree than Archie, for she deemed the
new governess had gone suddenly mad, gave some voluble assent, and
turned her attention upon Archie.
“You naughty young monkey! How dare you rush out in that way with
Sarah’s hearth-broom? I’ll tell you what it is, sir, you are getting a
might deal too owdacious and rumbustical for the nursery. I shall speak
to your mamma about it.”
She seized hold of the child and shook him. Lady Isabel started forward,
her hands up, her voice one of painful entreaty.
“Oh, don’t, don’t beat him! I cannot see him beaten.”
“Beaten!” echoed Wilson; “if he got a good beating it would be all the
better for him; but it’s what he never does get. A little shake, or a
tap, is all I must give; and it’s not half enough. You wouldn’t believe
the sturdy impudence of that boy, madame; he runs riot, he does. The
other two never gave a quarter of the trouble. Come along, you figure!
I’ll have a bolt put at the top of the nursery door; and if I did, he’d
be for climbing up the door-post to get at it.”
The last sentence Wilson delivered to the governess, as she jerked
Archie out of the room, along the passage, and into the nursery. Lady
Isabel sat down with a wrung heart, a chafed spirit. Her own child! And
she might not say to the servant, you shall not beat him.
She descended to the gray parlor. The two older children and breakfast
were waiting; Joyce quitted the room when she entered it.
A graceful girl of eight years old, a fragile boy a year younger, both
bearing her once lovely features--her once bright and delicate
complexion--her large, soft brown eyes. How utterly her heart yearned to
them; but there must be no scene like there had just been above.
Nevertheless she stooped and kissed them both--one kiss each of
impassioned fervor. Lucy was naturally silent, William somewhat
talkative.
“You are our new governess,” said he.
“Yes. We must be good friends.”
“Why not!” said the boy. “We were good friends with Miss Manning. I am
to go into Latin soon--as soon as my cough’s gone. Do you know Latin?”
“No--not to teach it,” she said, studiously avoiding all endearing
epithets.
“Papa said you would be almost sure not to know Latin, for that ladies
rarely did. He said he should send up Mr. Kane to teach me.”
“Mr. Kane?” repeated Lady Isabel, the name striking upon her memory.
“Mr. Kane, the music-master?”
“How did you know he was a music-master?” cried shrewd William. And Lady
Isabel felt the red blood flush to her face at the unlucky admission she
had made. It flushed deeper at her own falsehood, as she muttered some
evasive words about hearing of him from Mrs. Latimer.
“Yes, he is a music-master; but he does not get much money at it, and he
teaches the classics as well. He has come up to teach us music since
Miss Manning left; mamma said that we ought not to lose our lessons.”
Mamma! How the word, applied to Barbara, grated on her ear.
“Whom does he teach?” she asked.
“Us two,” replied William, pointing to his sister and himself.
“Do you always take bread and milk?” she inquired, perceiving that to be
what they were eating.
“We get tired of it sometimes and then we have milk and water, and bread
and butter, or honey; and then we take to bread and milk again. It’s
Aunt Cornelia who thinks we should eat bread and milk for breakfast. She
says papa never had anything else when he was a boy.”
Lucy looked up.
“Papa would give me an egg when I breakfasted with him,” cried she, “and
Aunt Cornelia said it was not good for me, but papa gave it to me all
the same. I always had breakfast with him then.”
“And why do you not now?” asked Lady Isabel.
“I don’t know. I have not since mamma came.”
The word “stepmother” rose up rebelliously in the heart of Lady Isabel.
Was Mrs. Carlyle putting away the children from their father?
Breakfast over, she gathered them to her, asking them various questions
about their studies, their hours of recreation, the daily routine of
their lives.
“This is not the schoolroom, you know,” cried William, when she made
some inquiry as to their books.
“No?”
“The schoolroom is upstairs. This is for our meals, and for you in an
evening.”
The voice of Mr. Carlyle was heard at this juncture in the hall, and
Lucy was springing toward the sound. Lady Isabel, fearful lest he might
enter if the child showed herself, stopped her with a hurried hand.
“Stay here, Isabel.”
“Her name’s Lucy,” said William, looking quickly up. “Why do you call
her Isabel?”
“I thought--thought I had heard her called Isabel,” stammered the
unfortunate lady, feeling quite confused with the errors she was
committing.
“My name is Isabel Lucy,” said the child; “but I don’t know who could
have told you, for I am never called Isabel. I have not been since--
since--shall I tell you?--since mamma went away,” she concluded,
dropping her voice. “Mamma that was, you know.”
“Did she go?” cried Lady Isabel, full of emotion, and possessing a very
faint idea of what she was saying.
“She was kidnapped,” whispered Lucy.
“Kidnapped!” was the surprised answer.
“Yes, or she would not have gone. There was a wicked man on a visit to
papa, and he stole her. Wilson said she knew he was a kidnapper before
he took mamma. Papa said I was never to be called Isabel again, but
Lucy. Isabel was mamma’s name.”
“How do you know papa said it?” dreamily returned Lady Isabel.
“I heard him. He said it to Joyce, and Joyce told the servants. I put
only Lucy to my copies. I did put Isabel Lucy, but papa saw it one day,
and he drew his pencil through Isabel, and told me to show it to Miss
Manning. After that, Miss Manning let me put nothing but Lucy. I asked
her why, and she told me papa preferred the name, and that I was not to
ask questions.”
She could not well stop the child, but every word was rending her heart.
“Lady Isabel was our very, very own mamma,” pursued Lucy. “This mamma is
not.”
“Do you love this one as you did the other?” breathed Lady Isabel.
“Oh, I loved mamma--I loved mamma!” uttered Lucy, clasping her hands.
“But it’s all over. Wilson said we must not love her any longer, and
Aunt Cornelia said it. Wilson said, if she loved us she would not have
gone away from us.”
“Wilson said so?” resentfully spoke Lady Isabel.
“She said she need not let that man kidnap her. I am afraid he beat her,
for she died. I lie in my bed at night, and wonder whether he did beat
her, and what made her die. It was after she died that our new mamma
came home. Papa said that she was to be our mamma in place of Lady
Isabel and we were to love her dearly.”
“Do you love her?” almost passionately asked Lady Isabel.
Lucy shook her head.
“Not as I loved mamma.”
Joyce entered to show the way to the schoolroom, and they followed her
upstairs. As Lady Isabel stood at the window, she saw Mr. Carlyle depart
on foot on his way to the office. Barbara was with him, hanging fondly
on his arm, about to accompany him to the park gates. So had she fondly
hung, so had she accompanied him, in the days gone forever.
Barbara came into the schoolroom in the course of the morning, and
entered upon the subject of their studies, the different allotted hours,
some to play, some to work. She spoke in a courteous but decided tone,
showing that she was the unmistakable mistress of the house and
children, and meant to be. Never had Lady Isabel felt her position so
keenly--never did it so gall and fret her spirit; but she bowed to meek
obedience. A hundred times that day did she yearn to hold the children
to her heart, and a hundred times she had to repress the longing.
In a soft, damask dress, not unlike the color of the walls from which
the room took its name, a cap of Honiton lace shading her delicate
features, sat Mrs. Hare. The justice was in London with Squire Pinner,
and Barbara had gone to the Grove and brought her mamma away in triumph.
It was evening now, and Mrs. Hare was paying a visit to the gray parlor.
Miss Carlyle had been dining there, and Lady Isabel, under plea of a
violent headache, had begged to decline the invitation to take tea in
the drawing-room, for she feared the sharp eyes of Miss Carlyle.
Barbara, upon leaving the dessert-table, went to the nursery, as usual,
to her baby, and Mrs. Hare took the opportunity to go and sit a few
minutes with the governess--she feared the governess must be very
lonely. Miss Carlyle, scorning usage and ceremony, had remained in the
dining-room with Mr. Carlyle, a lecture for him, upon some defalcation
or other most probably in store. Lady Isabel was alone. Lucy had gone to
keep a birthday in the neighborhood, and William was in the nursery.
Mrs. Hare found her in a sad attitude, her hands pressed upon her
temples. She had not yet made acquaintance with her beyond a minute’s
formal introduction.
“I am sorry to hear you are not well, this evening,” she gently said.
“Thank you. My head aches much”--which was no false plea.
“I fear you must feel your solitude irksome. It is dull for you to be
here all alone.”
“I am so used to solitude.”
Mrs. Hare sat down, and gazed with sympathy at the young, though
somewhat strange-looking woman before her. She detected the signs of
mental suffering on her face.
“You have seen sorrow,” she uttered, bending forward, and speaking with
the utmost sweetness.
“Oh, great sorrow!” burst from Lady Isabel, for her wretched fate was
very palpable to her mind that evening, and the tone of sympathy
rendered it nearly irrepressible.
“My daughter tells me that you have lost your children, and you have
lost your fortune and position. Indeed I feel for you. I wish I could
comfort you!”
This did not decrease her anguish. She completely lost all self control,
and a gush of tears fell from her eyes.
“Don’t pity me! Don’t pity me dear Mrs. Hare! Indeed, it only makes
endurance harder. Some of us,” she added, looking up, with a sickly
smile, “are born to sorrow.”
“We are all born to it,” cried Mrs. Hare. “I, in truth, have cause to
say so. Oh, you know not what my position has been--the terrible weight
of grief that I have to bear. For many years, I can truly say that I
have not known one completely happy moment.”
“All do not have to bear this killing sorrow,” said Lady Isabel.
“Rely upon it, sorrow of some nature does sooner or later come to all.
In the brightest apparent lot on earth, dark days must mix. Not that
there is a doubt but that it falls unequally. Some, as you observe, seem
born to it, for it clings to them all their days; others are more
favored--as we reckon favor. Perhaps this great amount of trouble is no
more than is necessary to take us to Heaven. You know the saying,
‘Adversity hardens the heart, or it opens it to Paradise.’ It may be
that our hearts continue so hard, that the long-continued life’s trouble
is requisite to soften them. My dear,” Mrs. Hare added, in a lower tone,
while the tears glistened on her pale cheeks, “there will be a blessed
rest for the weary, when this toilsome life is ended; let us find
comfort in that thought.”
“Ay! Ay!” murmured Lady Isabel. “It is all that is left to me.”
“You are young to have acquired so much experience of sorrow.”
“We cannot estimate sorrow by years. We may live a whole lifetime of it
in a single hour. But we generally bring ill fate upon ourselves,” she
continued, in a desperation of remorse; “as our conduct is, so will our
happiness or misery be.”
“Not always,” sighed Mrs. Hare. “Sorrow, I grant you, does come all too
frequently, from ill-doing; but the worst is, the consequences of this
ill-doing fall upon the innocent as well as upon the guilty. A husband’s
errors will involve his innocent wife; parent’s sins fall upon their
children; children will break the hearts of their parents. I can truly
say, speaking in all humble submission, that I am unconscious of having
deserved the great sorrow which came upon me; that no act of mine
invited it on; but though it has nearly killed me, I entertain no doubt
that it is lined with mercy, if I could only bring my weak rebellious
heart to look for it. You, I feel sure, have been equally undeserving.”
She? Mrs. Hare marked not the flush of shame, the drooping of the
eyelids.
“You have lost your little ones,” Mrs. Hare resumed. “That is grief--
great grief; I would not underrate it; but, believe me, it is as nothing
compared to the awful fate, should it ever fall upon you, of finding
your children grow up and become that which makes you wish they had died
in their infancy. There are times when I am tempted to regret that all
my treasures are not in that other world; that they had not gone before
me. Yes; sorrow is the lot of all.”
“Surely, not of all,” dissented Lady Isabel. “There are some bright lots
on earth.”
“There is not a lot but must bear its appointed share,” returned Mrs.
Hare. “Bright as it may appear, ay, and as it may continue to be for
years, depend upon it, some darkness must overshadow it, earlier or
later.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle--what sorrow can there be in store for them?”
asked Lady Isabel, her voice ringing with a strange sound, which Mrs.
Hare noted, though she understood it not.
“Mrs. Carlyle’s lot is bright,” she said, a sweet smile illumining her
features. “She loves her husband with an impassioned love; and he is
worthy of it. A happy fate, indeed, is hers; but she must not expect to
be exempted from sorrow. Mr. Carlyle has had his share of it,” continued
Mrs. Hare.
“Ah!”
“You have doubtless been made acquainted with his history. His first
wife left him--left home and her children. He bore it bravely before the
world, but I know that it wrung his very heart-strings. She was his
heart’s sole idol.”
“She? Not Barbara?”
The moment the word “Barbara” had escaped her lips, Lady Isabel,
recollected herself. She was only Madame Vine, the governess; what would
Mrs. Hare think of her familiarity?
Mrs. Hare did not appear to have noticed it; she was absorbed in the
subject.
“Barbara?” she uttered; “certainly not. Had his first love been given to
Barbara, he would have chosen her then. It was given to Lady Isabel.”
“It is given his wife now?”
Mrs. Hare nearly laughed.
“Of course it is; would you wish it to be buried in the grave with the
dead, and with one who was false to him? But, my dear, she was the
sweetest woman, that unfortunate Lady Isabel. I loved her then, and I
cannot help loving her still. Others blamed her, but I pitied. They were
well matched; he so good and noble; she, so lovely and endearing.”
“And she left him--threw him to the winds with all his nobility and
love!” exclaimed the poor governess, with a gesture of the hands that
looked very much like despair.
“Yes. It will not do to talk of--it is a miserable subject. How she
could abandon such a husband, such children, was a marvel to many; but
to none more than it was to me and my daughter. The false step--though I
feel almost ashamed to speak out the thought, lest it may appear to
savor of triumph--while it must have secured her own wretchedness, led
to the happiness of my child; for it is certain Barbara would never love
one as she loves Mr. Carlyle.”
“It did secure wretchedness to her, you think?” cried Lady Isabel, her
tone one of bitter mockery more than anything else.
Mrs. Hare was surprised at the question.
“No woman ever took that fatal step yet, without its entailing on her
the most dire wretchedness,” she replied. “It cannot be otherwise. And
Lady Isabel was of a nature to feel remorse beyond common--to meet it
half-way. Refined, modest, with every feeling of an English gentlewoman,
she was the very last, one would have thought, to act so. It was as if
she had gone away in a dream, not knowing what she was doing; I have
thought so many a time. That terrible mental wretchedness and remorse
did overtake her, I know.”
“How did you know it? Did you hear it?” exclaimed Lady Isabel, her tone
all too eager, had Mrs. Hare been suspicious. “Did he proclaim that--
Francis Levison? Did you hear it from him?”
Mrs. Hare, gentle Mrs. Hare, drew herself up, for the words grated on
her feelings and on her pride. Another moment, and she was mild and kind
again, for she reflected that the poor, sorrowful governess must have
spoken without thought.
“I know not what Sir Francis Levison may have chose to proclaim,” she
said, “but you may be sure he would not be allowed opportunity to
proclaim anything to me, or to any other friend of Mr. Carlyle’s; nay, I
should say, nor to any of the good and honorable. I heard it from Lord
Mount Severn.”
“From Lord Mount Severn?” repeated Lady Isabel. And she opened her lips
to say something more, but closed them again.
“He was here on a visit in the summer; he stayed a fortnight. Lady
Isabel was the daughter of the late earl--perhaps you may not have known
that. He--Lord Mount Severn--told me, in confidence, that he had sought
out Lady Isabel when the man, Levison, left her; he found her sick,
poor, broken-hearted, in some remote French town, utterly borne down
with remorse and repentance.”
“Could it be otherwise?” sharply asked Lady Isabel.
“My dear, I have said it could not. The very thought of her deserted
children would entail it, if nothing she did. There was a baby born
abroad,” added Mrs. Hare, dropping her voice, “an infant in its cradle,
Lord Mount Severn said; but that child, we knew, could only bring pain
and shame.”
“True,” issued from her trembling lips.
“Next came her death; and I cannot but think it was sent to her in
mercy. I trust she was prepared for it, and had made her peace with God.
When all else is taken from us, we turn to him; I hope she had learned
to find the Refuge.”
“How did Mr. Carlyle receive the news of her death?” murmured Lady
Isabel, a question which had been often in her thoughts.
“I cannot tell; he made no outward sign either of satisfaction or grief.
It was too delicate a subject for any one to enter upon with him, and
most assuredly he did not enter upon it himself. After he was engaged to
my child, he told me he should never have married during Lady Isabel’s
life.”
“From--from--the remains of affection?”
“I should think not. I inferred it to be from conscientious scruples.
All his affection is given to his present wife. There is no doubt that
he loves her with a true, a fervent, a lasting love: though there may
have been more romantic sentiment in the early passion felt for Lady
Isabel. Poor thing! She gave up a sincere heart, a happy home.”
Ay, poor thing! She had very nearly wailed forth her vain despair.
“I wonder whether the drawing-room is tenanted yet,” smiled Mrs. Hare,
breaking a pause which had ensued. “If so I suppose they will be
expecting me there.”
“I will ascertain for you,” said Lady Isabel, speaking in the impulse of
the moment; for she was craving an instant to herself, even though it
were but in the next hall.
She quitted the gray parlor and approached the drawing-room. Not a sound
came from it; and, believing it was empty, she opened the door and
looked cautiously in.
Quite empty. The fire blazed, the chandelier was lighted, but nobody was
enjoying the warmth or the light. From the inner room, however, came the
sound of the piano, and the tones of Mr. Carlyle’s voice. She recognized
the chords of the music--they were those of the accompaniment to the
song he had so loved when she sang it him. Who was about to sing it to
him now?
Lady Isabel stole across the drawing-room to the other door, which was
ajar. Barbara was seated at the piano, and Mr. Carlyle stood by her, his
arm on her chair, and bending his face on a level with hers, possibly to
look at the music. So once had stolen, so once had peeped the unhappy
Barbara, to hear this selfsame song. She had been his wife then; she had
craved, and received his kisses when it was over. Their positions were
reversed.
Barbara began. Her voice had not the brilliant power of Lady Isabel’s,
but it was a sweet and pleasant voice to listen to.
“When other lips and other hearts Their tales of love shall tell, In
language whose excess imparts The power they feel so well, There may,
perhaps, in such a scene, Some recollection be, Of days that have as
happy been--And you’ll remember me.”
Days that had as happy been! Ay! did he remember her? Did a thought of
her, his first and best love, flit across him, as the words fell on his
ear? Did a past vision of the time when she had sat there and sung it to
him arouse his heart to even momentary recollection?
Terribly, indeed, were their positions reversed; most terribly was she
feeling it. And by whose act and will had the change been wrought?
Barbara was now the cherished wife, East Lynne’s mistress. And what was
she? Not even the courted, welcomed guest of an hour, as Barbara had
been; but an interloper; a criminal woman who had thrust herself into
the house; her act, in doing so, not justifiable, her position a most
false one. Was it right, even if she did succeed in remaining
undiscovered, that she and Barbara should dwell in the same habitation,
Mr. Carlyle being in it? Did she deem it to be right? No, she did not;
but one act of ill-doing entails more. These thoughts were passing
through her mind as she stood there, listening to the song; stood there
as one turned to stone, her throbbing temples pressed against the door’s
pillar.
The song was over, and Barbara turned to her husband, a whole world of
love in her bright blue eyes. He laid his hand upon her head; Lady
Isabel saw that, but she would not wait to see the caress that most
probably followed it. She turned and crossed the room again, her hands
clasped tightly on her bosom, her breath catching itself in hysterical
sobs. Miss Carlyle was entering the hall. They had not yet met, and Lady
Isabel swept meekly past her with a hurried courtesy. Miss Carlyle
spoke, but she dared not answer, to wait would have been to betray
herself.
Sunday came, and that was the worst of all. In the old East Lynne pew at
St. Jude’s, so conspicuous to the congregation, sat she, as in former
times; no excuse, dared she, the governess make, to remain away. It was
the first time she had entered an English Protestant church since she
had last sat in it, there, with Mr. Carlyle. Can you wonder that the
fact alone, with all the terrible remembrances it brought in its train,
was sufficient to overwhelm her with emotion? She sat at the upper end
now, with Lucy; Barbara occupied the place that had been hers, by the
side of Mr. Carlyle. Barbara there, in her own right his wife; she
severed from him forever and forever!
She scarcely raised her head; she tightened her thick veil over her
face; she kept her spectacles bent toward the ground. Lucy thought she
must be crying; she never had seen anyone so still at church before.
Lucy was mistaken; tears came not to solace the bitter anguish of
hopeless, self-condemning remorse. How she sat out the service she could
not tell; she could not tell how she could sit out other services, as
the Sundays came round! The congregation did not forget to stare at her.
What an extraordinary looking governess Mrs. Carlyle had picked up!
They went out when it was over. Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle in advance; she,
humbly following them with Lucy. She glanced aside at the tomb in the
churchyard’s corner, where moldered the remains of her father; and a
yearning cry went forth from the very depth of her soul. “Oh, that I
were laid there with him! Why did I come back again to East Lynne?”
Why, truly? But she had never thought that her cross would be so sharp
as this.