DR. WINTHROP HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH MISS ROCHESTER.
The next morning Dr. Winthrop was an early visitor at the chateau. He
was resolved to put his own and his brother’s fate to the test. Upon
reaching the villa, he sent a servant directly to Miss Rochester, asking
if she would oblige him with a private interview.
She soon came, looking more beautiful than he had ever seen her, in a
spotless dress of exquisitely embroidered white lawn, with a few
brilliant autumn leaves fastened to her corsage, while her cheeks glowed
with repressed excitement, and her eyes shone like stars.
“I was almost afraid we should not see you again,” she remarked, as she
came forward and greeted him cordially, “for your mother said you had
important business which would detain you in Paris.”
“I did not intend to return when I went away,” he replied, and she could
see that he spoke with an effort, “but after what occurred yesterday, I
felt that I owed it to you to come.”
“I am very glad,” she returned, blushing delightedly and bestowing a shy
glance upon him.
“I felt that I owed it to you to explain even more fully than I have
already done, by letter, the state of my feelings regarding the past,
and the prospects of the future,” he resumed gravely, while his
companion paled somewhat, and wondered if he was going to “back out”
after all.
“You know the story of my marriage,” he continued; “but I fear that you
do not count the cost of linking your bright young life to one who has
only a dead heart to offer you. You have done me the honor to tell me
that you will be my wife, in spite of all this; but I have thought it
best to talk with you face to face, that you may be sure you are making
no mistake. My brother came to me last evening in a perfect frenzy of
despair over the knowledge of your acceptance of my proposal. He loves
you with the one passion of his life; he came to me pleading that I
would release you from your pledge to me; he said he was pleading for
life, home, happiness, that his love would either be his salvation or
his ruin, and I believed him—it would have been impossible not to
believe him. I told him, Miss Rochester, that I would submit the matter
to you—that I would tell you that the Rochester-Hamilton fortune was
nothing to me compared with his happiness and yours; that I would far
rather forfeit my share of it than marry you if you loved him and would
give him your hand. It seems to me as if we are all involved in the most
unfortunate complication of circumstances which only perfect frankness
and truthfulness can set right. I pray that you will be true to the
dictates of your own heart. If you have any affection for my brother—and
I gleaned from what he told me that he believes you have—if you could be
happy with him, I assure you that I will do all in my power to make your
future as bright as possible, as far as worldly prospects are concerned,
and though we may lose the fortunes that were so strangely bequeathed,
we shall at least have been true to ourselves, and you will win the best
and brightest crown of a woman’s life—the love of a devoted husband. I
have spoken at length, and very plainly, and now I await your verdict.
What will you say to me?” he questioned, as he turned his earnest face,
his eager eyes upon her.
She sat perfectly motionless for a few moments after he concluded, but
he could see that her face, though averted, was crimson, while she
trembled visibly.
Then all at once she lifted her face haughtily and met his glance with a
defiant look.
“Yes, what shall I say to you?” she cried, in quivering tones. “I wonder
that I do not tell you to go and never let me look at your face again;
that I do not tell you that I care nothing for that wretched
contract—that I hate it, scorn it and you; that I would almost rather
die than marry a man who can so coldly tell me that his heart is dead
and he has no love to bestow upon me with his hand—who, more than that,
can plead so eloquently the cause of another and deprecate his own
success. But, oh, Truman Winthrop, I will not—I will not! I shall be
your wife in spite of it all! You do not know what I sacrifice in
telling you this,” she went on vehemently, and throwing out her hand
toward him with a passionate gesture; “how my pride suffers, how my love
suffers, how I am violating all the strongest feelings of my nature; but
I cannot help it. I have given myself to you and I will not retract;
but—I will make you love me yet—you shall yet own to me that your heart
is not dead, and that Sadie Rochester is the one love of your life.”
She burst into a passion of tears at this point, and, as if able to bear
no more, abruptly arose and fled from the room, leaving Dr. Winthrop in
no enviable frame of mind.
Her passionate denunciation had made him feel as if he had done her a
double wrong in stating his own feelings so plainly and in pleading his
brother’s cause. But he could not have done otherwise under the
circumstances. Truman Winthrop was true to his heart’s core, and he
could not allow her to marry him without trying to make her realize the
risk she ran of ruining her own life by so doing.
Still he felt uncomfortable over having wounded her so deeply; her
words, “you do not know what my pride suffers—you do not know what my
love suffers,” smote him keenly, and he firmly believed that she could
have no affection whatever for his brother.
How could he know that what she sacrificed in keeping her pledge to him
was the one love of her life—Norman Winthrop? How could he know that her
pride suffered in that, having vowed to be his wife, she could not
repudiate him and tell him that she scorned and despised him—that she
would never marry him but for the wealth and position which she would
win as his wife?
She had wrought herself into a veritable tempest of passion, and her
last threat that she would win his love had been an idle one; for she
cared little for his affection, in comparison with the fortunes for
which she was scheming.
But the die was cast—he had gained nothing by his visit or by pleading
for Norman.
He was very sad, for he felt that he was standing in the way of his
brother’s interest and happiness and even his moral welfare.
On the other hand, if Sadie Rochester loved him, as he was now firmly
convinced, it was hard for her to know that her affection could never be
returned; but he felt that he could do nothing more; he could only leave
it to a higher power to work out and regulate.
Since Dr. Winthrop could at present do nothing more than he had already
done to discover Sister Angela, and as his friends were to leave for
Italy in a few days, he thought it best to remain at the chateau and
assist them in their arrangements for their departure. So, a little
while after Miss Rochester’s flight from his presence, he sought his
mother.
She greeted him with undisguised delight.
“At last, my dear boy,” she exclaimed as she kissed him—“at last I have
gained the one wish of my heart! And now I believe that your future will
be all that I could desire.”
Dr. Winthrop’s lips curled in a bitter smile.
If his future, with his sad and blighted heart and broken hopes, was all
that she could desire for him, how shallow was her nature—how little of
real mother love she must have for him!
* * * * *
When Miss Rochester fled in such a passion from Dr. Winthrop’s presence,
she did not slacken her pace until she reached her mother’s parlor,
where she sank upon a chair, and gave way to a paroxysm of mingled
grief, anger, and mortification, which, however, was not unmixed with
something of almost hysterical exultation.
“What is the matter with you?” her mother demanded, as she regarded her,
in bewildered surprise, for it was a rare occurrence for her
proud-spirited, self-reliant daughter to break down like this.
The only reply to this question was a burst of nervous and immoderate
laughter, and this sudden change from tears to mirth really alarmed Mrs.
Rochester.
“Gracious, Sadie! I honestly believe you have hysterics. I never saw you
in such a state before. Here, take my vinaigrette, and try to calm
yourself.”
Miss Rochester obediently inhaled several breaths of the aromatic
preparation her mother extended to her, and gradually regained
composure.
“Well, mamma,” she at length remarked, “I’ve just had a hand-to-hand
battle with my future husband.”
“Sarah!” exclaimed the elder woman, aghast.
“Oh, but I have come off victor in the encounter,” said Miss Rochester,
with a smile of triumph. “I’ve simply given him a taste of my claws, and
I do not imagine he will care to have the experience repeated very
often. Do not fear, mamma,” she continued, as she saw the look of
anxiety on her mother’s brow; “it is a settled thing that I am to be
Mrs. Truman Winthrop. I knew that I should win.”
“Do not be too sure; for you would never dare to take any decided step
until you receive those papers from New York,” was the troubled reply.
Miss Rochester laughed out mockingly.
“Dr. True does not appear to be in any great hurry to have his chains
irrevocably riveted,” she said with some bitterness, “but as far as that
divorce is considered there will be no trouble about that, for you know
the letter I received from Converse the day before yesterday, spoke very
encouragingly—he the same as promised that I should have the papers
within three months; that letter which I made Salome sign did the
business. How provoking it was that she turned up as she did, to make
all this trouble,” she concluded with a frown.
“Well, but tell me about your interview with Dr. Winthrop,” said Mrs.
Rochester curiously.
The young lady complied, and gave her a faithful account of all that had
passed between herself and her reluctant suitor.
“Flattering, wasn’t it?” she said sarcastically, in conclusion, “to be
told that my promised husband loved another woman to distraction, while
he tried to beg off by pleading the cause of somebody else. If I had not
vowed that I would be mistress of Brookside and Englehurst at any cost,
I believe I would have given him a curt dismissal.”
“Don’t do anything rash,” pleaded Mrs. Rochester earnestly, “you will be
lucky to get him under any circumstances, if you can be sure of the
divorce; it would be dreadful to run any risk of—bigamy.”
“Nonsense, mamma. Converse knows what he is about. I have given him a
true statement of affairs, and as he assures me that it will be all
right, it surely will be. And, mamma, we must never let Salome out of
that place, for if she and Dr. Winthrop should ever meet, even after I
have bagged my game, she could make no end of trouble for me.”
“I intend that she shall never do any harm,” Mrs. Rochester
significantly returned. Then she asked, “Will Dr. Winthrop go with us to
Italy?”
“No—I hope not,” the girl retorted, a flush suddenly suffusing her face;
for although she meant to marry him in spite of everything, she hoped to
be able to still carry on a secret flirtation with his brother—her
stolen love-dream was too sweet to be relinquished just yet.