"Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more;
Men were deceivers ever."--_Much ado about Nothing._
"From sport to sport they hurry me, to banish my regret,
And when they win a smile from me, they think that I forget."
_Baillie._
We must again pick up the dropped thread of our story, and return to the
family at Seaview, to see what the Ravensworths have been doing all this
time. The sudden departure of the Earl had fallen like a thunderbolt on
poor Ellen and her brother. Whilst they stayed at the Towers they had
been to her like a bright ray of sunshine that bursts through the clouds
on a stormy day, as evanescent as it was brilliant, it had soon
departed. And now life seemed doubly dark and cheerless when she
contrasted it with those happy days, numbered among the things that
were. How much had been crowded into that short span,--how much
compressed into that little month! It had found her a wild enthusiastic
dreamer, a conjurer of vain hopes that might never be realized;--it had
left her able to look back, not on the unreal fictions of a poetic mind,
not on the airy castles of imagination, but on truth--substantial, real,
earnest! It had found her a captive to love she could not reciprocate;
it had left her loving,--fondly, devotedly loving, and she believed as
fondly, as devotedly beloved. It had been an era of the utmost
importance,--a month the most pleasurable and the most joyous of her
young life. She had something, too, on which to rest her
love,--something on which to anchor her affections; how else could she
interpret the golden circlet with its virgin emeralds that gemmed her
finger, and those oft-read words, "Hope on"? This was a link between
parted lovers; whilst she owned that ring it seemed as though a bond
bound their hearts together; it was a remembrance of bright days
past,--a pledge of still brighter days to come; and however dull was her
present life, however uneventful the passing hour, whilst she had this
ring she had the "one remembrance fondly kept," and seemed to possess,
as it were, a kind of loadstone which, though her guiding star was
unseen, still trembled to the pole of her affections. Johnny's feelings
were, of course, of a very different nature; he only regretted lost
pleasures,--his rides, his drives. Another thing was, that while his
great friends had been near he had been made much of, much petted; and
of course liking the kind of life very well, and feeling it was a higher
tone of society than he had been accustomed to, he had, naturally
enough, cut all his old acquaintances and playmates; and now that the De
Veres were gone he was left doubly lone, and much in the position of the
jackdaw with borrowed plumes, unable to associate with those to whom he
aspired, and in ill favour with those whom he cast off in his pride. So
Johnny was thrown much more on his own resources, and, like his sister,
his memory of past joys could ill atone for present miseries. It is a
bad thing to be forced to live on the past. The mind becomes
ill-directed, and it is a kind of mental backsliding. Careless of the
future, forgetful of the present grows such a mind: it is like the
antiquary groping in the ruins of old, and never allowing his eye to
rest on the palaces of the modern time. Such was the case with these
two. Their father had returned to the dull routine of every-day life;
and though he had enjoyed the past, now that it was gone, he was too
busy to give more than a passing thought to it. But Ellen passed the
time in vain attempts to recall and revivify the days gone by; and
Johnny, when not actually at his lessons, was wont to let his mind run
on the days at the Towers, his drives and his amusements, and this was
invariably the topic of their conversation when they got together,
utterly upsetting all useful employment, and unhinging their minds for
life's real duties. Time fled by on silent wing, and soon three weeks
had almost imperceptibly glided away, and yet they had had no sort of
intelligence of their friends, except the bald paragraphs that
occasionally told their whereabouts, in the papers. One evening,
however, the postman brought a letter addressed in the Earl's own
handwriting to Ellen. For a moment her excitement was so great that she
could hardly break the seal, and thousands of conjectures passed rapidly
through her mind. She tore it open,--there was no letter from the Earl,
but an announcement of the Marquis and Marchioness of Arranmore's
marriage. It was certainly a disappointment, for Ellen had expected
little short of a long and loving epistle; but still it proved one grand
point,--she was not forgotten. In all the bustle of his sister's
marriage, in all the distraction of company, she had dwelt in his mind;
he had himself addressed the envelope; certainly he could not have done
so to every one to whom cards were sent. The ring bade her "hope
on,"--she would hope! The next night's mail brought the London papers
with a full and glowing description of the gay ceremony. How eagerly
Ellen read every word; how eagerly she pored over the names, ay, and
even the dresses of the guests; how she wished she had been there;
another hope whispered perhaps her own wedding would next take place, a
gayer assemblage would meet together, and she be bride and queen of
all! She smiled at this conceit and read on: what does she read? Mr.
Ravensworth was standing near the fire, the only person then in the
drawing-room besides herself; he was also reading, when suddenly he was
alarmed by her loud, harrowing scream, and at the same moment he saw
Ellen dash the paper on the ground, and rush frantically from the room.
All was so sudden, all took place in such a moment, he stood paralyzed.
His first thought was that Ellen was ill, and his impulse to follow; his
next, to see if there was anything in the paper to account for this
strange conduct. He picked up the paper; the first sentence his eye
caught was quite enough,--enough to explain all. The short but fatal
passage ran as follows:--"We are authorized in stating that the young
Earl of Wentworth will shortly lead Lady Alice Claremont to the hymeneal
altar, thus forming a double bond between these noble families. Lady
Alice is the youngest sister of the noble Marquis of Arranmore." He
dropped the paper, still undecisive how he should act, when, to his
surprise and astonishment, who should enter the room but Ellen,
apparently quite composed, with a smile on her face; but one had only to
look at her wild eye, to see all was not right. Her smile was the bitter
smile which sometimes betrays rejected love. So allied are our intensest
feelings of sorrow and pleasure, that tears may course the cheek for
very joy, and smiles light the countenance for very sorrow, blackness,
and stagnation of woe.
She sat down on a sofa, but she scarcely knew where she was; she spoke
not, sighed not, wept not,--she scarcely seemed to draw her breath. The
eloquence of that silent suffering was awful; the stillness was the
stillness of death,--not the death of the mortal frame, but the death,
the annihilation of all soft feelings, and all love by one fell swoop.
Mr. Ravensworth looked at his daughter in silence too; he saw how great
her grief was; he saw that she was yet unconscious of all its depth and
all her loss; and so at first he spoke not. Five minutes and more of
this deadly silence lasted, and then the poor girl's father spoke.
"My poor Ellen! it is a great trial; God give you strength to bear it!"
For a moment she looked at him wildly; for a dread moment he feared her
mind had given way beneath the blow; but, heaven be praised! it had not,
and in a voice--how unlike her usual silvery tone! she said, "Yes, papa,
I am stunned,--stupefied. My God! is it true,--has he left me? Cruel,
cruel man! My heart is full,--it is bursting! Would God that it might
break!"
"My own Ellen, did I not warn you, dearest,--did I not entreat you----"
"Reason not with despair! No, no, no!--it is vain! He has left me,--left
me cruelly! Oh, it was cruel to raise hopes only to quench them! I am
desolate. It is no dream,--I am broken-hearted! Let me die! What is life
now to me?--let me die!"
"Say not so, darling,--time will heal your wound; he was not worthy of
you, Ellen."
"Add not to my grief, dearest papa,--if you love me, desist. It is
false! Eternity can never heal that wound,--but speak not so of him! He
has left me,--forsaken me,--killed me; but I love him,--I love him
still!"
"Be calm, my own love. This is only excitement; try and be calm,
Ellen,--do, dearest!"
"I will--I will! See how I bear it! See, I do not weep,--but, oh! my
head,--how it throbs! My eyeballs seem of flame,--they are bursting out
of my head! My brain seems on fire! Oh, if I could cry! If I could only
cry! I cannot,--I have no tears,--they are dried up!"
"I will leave you, darling, now; try and weep if you can; think of
something to cry on,--try: it will relieve you."
He left the poor girl alone, for he knew she had spoken the truth,--she
_was_ stunned; but when Nature's soft relief came,--when the tears
fell,--the storm would weep itself away: as in nature, so he knew it was
in the natural mind.
"If you love me, papa, tell this to no one; let me bear my misery
alone," she said, as her father left the room.
Sorrow had crushed her; her nerves were strung to the utmost stretch;
another strain and her mind would have given way! The excitement of the
first blow sustained her wonderfully; still, her grief was too deep for
tears--and, tearless in the midst of her anguish, she was able to go
through all the duties of the evening, as if nothing unusual had
happened: the freezing air, the quick-drawn breath, the frequent start,
told only how deep was her sorrow.
She heard her little sister repeat her evening hymn--she saw her laid
down; but she heard as though she heard not, she saw as though she did
not see; and when she left her asleep, how she envied the heart that
could sleep! She then retired herself to rest--not to sleep, not even to
hope for sleep.
As she bade her father good-night, he pressed her hand, and with tears
in his eyes commended her to God's keeping.
"God bless you, my afflicted child, and make all work together for your
good!"
Ellen's mind whispered "Amen!"
When she was first alone, all the horror of her condition came back with
crushing, overwhelming agony,--she first began to believe its reality.
She threw herself on her couch;--what was it glistened by her?
Something fell,--it was her ring. It had fallen off her finger, and now
lay on the carpet. Oh! fatal amulet! prime cause of all this misery!
Ellen's mind, as we have already said, was tinged with romance and
superstition; in this she was not unlike many of her countrymen. This
accident, this falling off of her only remembrance, was too strange a
coincidence to escape her. It seemed emblematical of her
condition,--forsaken by him she loved so well, and now forsaken by his
gift. The ring, as it lay there, seemed to say "the last link is
broken!" She picked it up; for one moment she thought the precious
stones clouded in her gaze--this was doubtless fancy; but what was not
fancy was this,--the golden hoop was cracked--broken through, and this
was the cause of its slipping off her finger.
"My last friend forsakes me!" said the unhappy girl; "I am truly most
miserable!"
For a moment, too, the thought entered her mind of burning this relic
now of faithlessness; the words "Hope on" seemed to mock her woe. The
fire was there; what prevented her burning it? what stayed her hand from
committing it to the flames?
"No," she said, "I won't destroy it; broken as it is--fit emblem of my
heart--I will keep it. I may live to see him--I may live to show it to
him! he may yet return--may yet live to bind the heart he has broken!
Till then I will keep thee, broken as thou art; when my heart is
re-united, so shall be thy circlet!"
With these words she placed the gaud in her bosom, and some good angel
whispered "Hope on!"
The thought passed away; the bright ray of hope darkened again and
again; she threw herself on her bed and wished for death. We know not
how long she lay there; soon however her fortitude gave way, a tear
started in her eye, another and another, and then came a long paroxysm
of grief,--a torrent of tears, a flood after passion's storm; but the
relief came too quickly. It was like the sudden breaking up of ice in
the Northern ocean; like the sudden thaw after a long winter of
snow,--prognostic only of a worse storm to come. And so it was with
Ellen; the sudden relief given by tears was too much for her mind. For a
moment she felt the load gone,--the next, and all came back, and her
mind began to wander. She was at the Towers; by her side stood her
lover;--he told his love, and asked her hand, and she accepted him. And
lo! another lady came--another fair creature--and he left her and smiled
on his new flame. She tried to speak, to reproach his infidelity; she
could not, she had not the power of utterance; her words were frozen.
Then she heard a wild maniacal laugh--she turned, and saw a demon form
scoffing at her woe!--and his face, oh, agony! oh, shame!--his face was
L'Estrange's.
She woke--not from sleep, but from this wild vision bred by a troubled
mind. Her head ached as if it would split, an awful load seemed to crush
her very brain;--was it in a vice? She had thrown herself on her bed,
all dressed as she was: she rose,--how giddy she felt! She hastily
disrobed herself--she could have fallen all the time: why did she not? A
strange power upheld her, and she now sought her couch and tried to
think. Oh, God! was her mind going? She knew something was wrong, but
had forgotten what it was; and now she felt chill, and now burning hot,
her pulse throbbed, her heart fluttered: what was the matter?--was she
ill, dying? She had asked for death,--was it come? She stretched out her
hand to ring the bell--where was it?--ah, here it is!--she rung it
violently, and overpowered by her exertion, sunk back on her pillow.
Was it a dream again in which she saw her father stand by her bed?--did
she really feel him take her hand, and feel her fluttering pulse? No,
this was no dream; her father had heard that midnight bell, and rushed
to her chamber; he had felt her pulse, and was horror-stricken at its
quick and still quickening convulses; still more terrified when he found
his daughter knew him not. And he himself hurriedly dressed, and,
bidding the servant watch while he was absent, ran for the village
doctor.
He came as soon as he could,--but not soon enough to please the anxious
father. He came, and saw in a moment she was in a high brain-fever; the
disease was raging and burning fiercer every moment, and he had to tell
the poor father he could not undertake the case without higher medical
attendance.
The first doctors in Edinburgh were summoned; and for one-and-twenty
days her father never left her bedside. During the first ten days
delirium had wildly triumphed; and in her fits she would often repeat
the names of "Wentworth," "L'Estrange." Afterwards, though insensible
even to her father, the fever had become less violent, and the patient
seemed daily more exhausted.
At length the twenty-first day dawned and the critical hour
approached--the crisis came! In one hour it would be known if she
recovered, or sunk beneath it.
How anxiously her worn father watched! and when at last the fever
lessened, the crisis past, and favourable symptoms were observed, and
for the first time the sufferer slept, he fell on his knees at her
bedside and thanked heaven for it. Then first too did he consent to
court sleep himself.
After a long, death-like sleep, Ellen opened her eyes. She saw her
father, who had also had a nap, by her side, and faintly smiled. He took
her hand in his own and asked her if she knew him, and told her to press
it if she did. She pressed it, faintly indeed, but he felt it. She could
not speak, so weakened had the fever left her. Oh! had Lord Wentworth
seen his Ellen then!--would he have known her? She was the mere shadow
of the beautiful girl into whose hand he had pressed the ring; her eyes
were still bright--still unchanged; and her long hair--once had it been
doomed--once had the doctor nigh closed the open forfex on her silken
tresses, but her father had stayed the ruthless spoiler.
"If she is to die, it cannot save her; if she is to live, why rob her of
one tress?"
Thus was her long fair hair spared. But, oh! to have seen her wan
face!--to have seen her wasted white arm!--it would have made a
faithless lover start to have beheld the wreck of loveliness his perjury
had wrought. This was the mere ghost of the beautiful Ellen in her
ball-dress!
When the patient became stronger, the first words she whispered to her
father were:--
"Where is the ring?"
"It is safe, sweet; I have it."
"I thank you."
These words were few, but very significant. The blow that had caused all
was still swelling,--the wound that had unstrung her mind still
unforgotten. Time, the restorer, gave back her beauty; and if her cheek
was paler, her features more fined down, her bloom more shadowy and more
frail--she seemed still lovelier; her beauty seemed to have less of
earth--to be of a higher, more heavenly tint! Time, the restorer, gave
back her health; but Time, restorer though he be, had not given back
her peace of mind; her heart ached yet; the void of lost love was an
"aching void" still. But another and greater change had passed over
Ellen Ravensworth,--her character was softened down, all was now
persuasion, softness, kindness, gentleness. Gone the haughty usurpation
of authority, gone the love of rule and command, gone the pride of
personal charms. Her pride had had a rude rebuff; the lesson to be
learned was not lost; she had passed through the furnace of sorrow, and
had come out thoroughly refined and purified.
She was able ere long to come down stairs, and to set again to her
duties; and these she now did with an alacrity,--an earnestness she had
never done them with before. No castle-building now!--her greatest
castle had fallen, and great was the fall of it! and she would not again
lay one stone. Of course, by mutual desire and consent, no allusion was
made to the past,--no lip framed the "once familiar word;" and when her
father saw how diligently she attended to her duties, and the smile that
now and then came back, bright as if glad to be renewed on a face it had
so long ceased to lighten,--when he saw all this he fancied the
bitterness of woe was passed, the first poignancy dulled, and that she
would yet forget. Ah! how little he knew Ellen; she might wish to
die--but forget, even wish to forget, she could not. The wound was still
unhealed; every thought tore it open to bleed afresh: she hugged the
grief to her heart; and though it stung her, she pressed it the closer!
But there was another change this disappointment and illness had
wrought. Ellen's mother had been a pious mother, and, while she was
spared to Ellen, had piously brought her up. The bread cast on the
waters was found after many days; the good seed, sown by a praying hand
in early years, was still quick,--still full of vitality. It had been
sadly choked by the pomps and pleasures of this life; but fire,--the
flames of sorrow,--had consumed the thorns and briers, and now it sprung
up! Ellen was more attentive in her devotions; more constant and devout
at church; more frequently was her Bible a companion to her in her hours
of loneliness; and this taught her that it was wrong to brood over
affliction,--wrong to give way to sorrow; the trial had been sent for
her good, and it was her duty to bear it, and profit by it. She would
try and bear it,--try and carry her heavy cross, without murmuring!
Think not from this love had died. Oh, no,--
"on hallowed ground
The idol of man's heart was found."
Still the idol of her affections was reared in her heart; still she
offered him silent devotion and secret incense; but it was no longer the
all-absorbing passion; chastened down, subdued, brought under--it was
now a sad necessity, no longer a joyous freewill offering!
In about a month Ellen was able to take her first walk; she chose the
road along which a few months ago _he_ had driven with her in the
sleigh. Then the snow was white--now April's sunshine and showers began
to make everything green and spring-like. Ah! the love born amid the
snows of winter seemed to have flown with them! To her mind that time
had been spring,--now all was winter.
Though Ellen was thus apparently restored in health, strength, and
beauty, the lingering traces of the illness had not entirely vanished,
and her physicians had recommended a tour on the Continent, selecting
Switzerland as the best spot. Her father, too, thought the excitement of
a tour abroad, the new scenes, foreign faces and customs, would do more
than anything else to banish old griefs from her mind, and drown her
sorrow; so he decided on following their advice, and began to prepare
for their departure. As there were then no steamboats and railroads, Mr.
Ravensworth decided on travelling by posting, and procured an excellent
courier through Mr. Lennox. This courier was to meet them in London, and
they determined on travelling thither by the coach that passed their
door daily. On May day the London coach stopped before Seaview and
picked up Mr. Ravensworth and his daughter. Ellen had only time to wave
her hand to Johnny and Maude, who stood on the steps, before the four
prancing horses dashed off, and whirled her away from her home, and
separated her from her brother and sister for the first time in her
life.