THE LAST APPEAL.
Robert Wodrow, on the afternoon referred to in our last chapter, was,
we have said, engaged elsewhere than at the manse, and yet he was not
very far away.
Incidents trivial at the time had now recurred with convincing and
accumulating force to his feverish mind on one hand; on the other, he
feared that he might have been too hasty in his condemnation, and too
summary in his suspicions, in quitting the party at Craigmhor as he
had done; yet where were these two all the time he had missed them,
and what was the subject of their discourse while he had been
lingering amid the gay groups in the sunshine, and was grotesquely
tortured by the music of the band?
And the token he had prayed for had not been accorded! How he
loathed the little world in which he lived; how he longed to eschew
everyone there, and get far away from the Birks of Invermay, for to
see Ellinor among these with another, and that other 'the slimy
Sleath,' as he thought, would drive him mad.
To think of Ellinor--to meet and hang about her; to anticipate her
every wish and want, so far as lay in his humble power, had been for
years--in the intervals of his hard studies--the daily occupation of
Robert Wodrow's life; and now all this was at an end; his
'occupation,' like Othello's, seemed gone.
Knowing that Mary was at the manse, he thought he would find Ellinor
at home alone, and he was right, so he ventured near Birkwoodbrae to
make a 'last appeal;' and yet even in this he had been, to a certain
extent, interfered with by his rival.
The latter, well aware of the time when Mary Wellwood was generally
abroad among her poor people, or otherwise employed, had sent his
valet, John Gaiters--a well-trained rascal--with a beautiful bouquet
and a perfumed note to Ellinor.
In the note he urged her by every means in her power to preserve
secrecy close as the grave concerning the terms on which they were,
lest his expectations might be destroyed, and with them her own; and
then he pressed her to meet him at a certain point near the Linn on
the May, at a given time, when he would tell her more.
This missive was curiously and most warily worded to be the
production of one who professed to be such an ardent lover. It did
not bear even his signature, but only his initials mysteriously
twisted into a species of monogram. To one more worldly wise or less
foolish than Ellinor, some doubts would have been inspired by its
tenor alone, but she had none, and simply felt joy and tumult in her
breast.
She clasped the golden locket round her neck, and with brightness
spreading over her sweet face, contemplated herself in a hand mirror,
while indulging in daydreams of her future as Lady Sleath, being
driven in a splendid carriage to Buckingham Palace, or down St.
James's Street, with bare shoulders in broad daylight, with a train
some yards long and diamonds in profusion, to be presented at the
drawing-room in the gloomy old palace of the Tudors, surrounded by
handsome fellows in snowy uniforms, who murmured compliments about
her beauty.
Had 'dear Redmond' not described to her, too, something of the life
they would lead together? Returning from Tyburnian and Belgravian
balls at 6 a.m., breakfasting at mid-day, and then going for 'a spin'
in the Row, where cavaliers would surround her, or canter by her side
and beg for waltzes at Lady A.'s and the Countess of B.'s. Then
dress again for a flower _fête_ at the Botanical Gardens; for
pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham (wherever that was--poor Ellinor had
not the ghost of an idea!) Sunday at the Zoo, and a dinner at the
'Star and Garter,' or it might be at the 'Trafalgar' in Greenwich,
which she supposed to be one of H.M. ships.
Suddenly, amid visions such as these, unheard or unannounced, Robert
Wodrow stood before her, hat in hand, and in his eyes, keen and dark
grey, a brooding light that boded evil to some one!
He was pale almost to ghastliness, and her eyes drooped, as if a
weight oppressed their full white lids when they met his fixed gaze.
However, he took her proffered hand mechanically, and then she tried
to talk gaily, not knowing what she said; but the talk proved a
miserable failure.
How he longed to take her in his arms once again; to kiss her glossy
brown hair, her damask cheek, her rosy lips; to implore her to love
him still and share his humble future! But no; it would be more
cowardly to take any advantage then of any passing remorse she might
feel; and better was it, perhaps, that she should marry this other
man, if he really loved her, and forget--if she could--that there was
such a poor fellow as Robert Wodrow in the secluded world she would
leave behind her; and he said something of this to her in faltering
accents, and for a time the heart of Ellinor faltered too--but for a
time only.
The new vision was too bright to fade quickly away!
'I am eating my heart out with sorrow and uncertainty--I am sick of
suspense, Ellinor,' he said, after a pause; 'our happy meetings, our
walks, our talks, our plans for the future--are they all as nothing
to you now, Ellinor?'
'That is it, Robert,' she said, making a prodigious effort to be calm
and cool; 'you see, Robert, we have been so much together.'
'All our days, Ellinor!'
'Too much so--yes, all our days; so it never struck me that--that----'
'What, darling?'
'You cared for me in _that_ way.'
'Indeed! Your doubts come too late.'
'Or I might have learned to care too,' she said, with confusion.
'You did love me, and care for me too, before that fellow Sleath came
among us,' said Robert, gloomily; for it seemed hard indeed that,
after the happiness of their boyhood and girlhood, after all the
budding hopes of riper years, under this man's new and hateful
influence, she made light of him and his love--mocked him, it seemed,
laughed at him for being so foolish to care for her 'in that way,' as
she phrased it.
'Robert,' said she, after a pause, 'why be so angry about a little
flirtation?'
She spoke deprecatingly, and her face wore a sickly smile.
'To flirt was never your wont, and I have read that the essence of
flirting is that it is a stolen pleasure, the future results of which
cannot be foreseen.'
'It would be tame between such old friends as you and I, Robert.'
'Tame indeed--and unnatural,' said he, huskily.
His eyes, which hitherto had been fixed upon her colourless face, now
fell upon the ornament she was wearing--an ornament he had never seen
before; and from its apparent value his heart too surely foreboded
who the donor was; yet he disdained to refer to it, though he said,
upbraidingly,
'Oh, Ellinor, how I have loved, and still love you, is known only to
Heaven and myself; yet never again shall my hand touch yours; never
again my arm go round you; never more shall my lips touch yours,
though yearning--oh, God only knows how intensely--longing to do so
once again--only once again!'
She evinced no sign of a truce in this position, and was devoutly
hoping that Robert Wodrow would adopt some other _rôle_ than that of
lover.
'Robert,' she said, nervously, 'are we not friends?'
'No.'
'Can we not be friends again?'
'_Friends!_ How can you ask me? It was, you well know, always
understood,' he continued, making an effort to be calm, 'that when I
could afford to marry, you, Ellinor, would be my wife. Why take all
my love and give me back not an atom now?'
She accorded no answer.
'You have ceased to be true to me. I have known and felt it for
weeks past,' he continued, 'and yet I cannot regain my freedom of
heart.'
Her head was weary, but her heart was beating wildly and painfully;
and Robert's eyes, as he surveyed her with all their sadness of
expression, were expressive of the fondest love.
Never before had these two spoken or confronted each other with
bitterness of heart until now, and each felt that for the other all
was over, and that the tender past, 'the grace of a day that was
dead,' would never come again.
'Robert, I have always hated the idea of being poor,' urged Ellinor,
as if to extenuate herself, 'and with you, a young, struggling,
country practitioner, supposing the summit of your ambition won, I
should never be otherwise. Pardon me,' she added, recalling the
Alnaschar visions his visit had interrupted, 'if I speak unkindly.'
'Say, rather, cruelly, and you will be nearer the truth, Ellinor
Wellwood; yet I am sorry for you.'
'Be not so, Robert. I repeat that I would never be happy poor--now,'
she added, involuntarily.
'You have made that discovery since this interloper came!'
She was silent, but her silence was assent, and he took it as such.
'Not happy even at dear old Birkwoodbrae or the home I meant to
provide close by it?' he said, reproachfully.
'Be reasonable, Robert; happen what may, we can always be dear
friends.'
'Friends--again!' he exclaimed, sternly; 'you and I, Ellinor?'
Then his manner changed, for the greatness of his love made him very
humble, and he said,
'Do you know what you are doing--do you fully think of it even? You
cannot love this man, Ellinor, whom, I suppose, you are going to
marry, as you loved me.'
'Marriage, Robert!' said she, blushing deeply now; 'how fast your
thoughts run.'
'How?'
'If that is to be, it is in the future, of course--but just now----'
She paused with some confusion, as she thought of the injunctions
laid by Sleath upon her.
'You cannot love him?'
'Perhaps not quite exactly yet, Robert,' replied Ellinor, not knowing
really what to say, and feeling some shame at the part she was
acting; 'but think of his position, and the place he can give me--a
poor, almost penniless, girl--in society.'
'And in that place you expect to be happy?'
'I shall have substantial grounds for happiness, and I think, Robert
dear, you wish me well.'
'Heaven knows I do, though you are learning fast to forget. Search
your heart, Ellinor,' he continued, piteously; 'think over our past,
darling--of our mutually anticipated future, in which each seemed to
see only the other. Against reason, hope, and all I hear I cannot
forget, and hence I love you--love you still, Ellinor.'
He stretched out his hands to her, and his eyes grew very dim.
For a moment she was tempted to throw herself upon his loving breast,
and there sob out her remorse and seek his forgiveness; but the
demons of pride and ambition ruled her heart too strongly now, and
she withheld or crushed the emotions of pity and generosity that so
fleetly inspired her.
When that emotion came again they were far apart, and it came too
late--too late!
How this last meeting _might_ have ended it is difficult to say; but
Robert Wodrow, thinking it was useless to protract the agony he felt,
pressed his tremulous lips to her right hand, and, without trusting
himself to look again in her face, swiftly withdrew, and quitted the
house.
Poor Robert! She was indeed sorry for him--sorry that the old
friendly relations, as she strove to deem them now, should be broken
up. 'They had been such chums'--Robert, more justly, deemed it
'lovers'--in the dear past time that would never--could never--come
again!
Better a thousand times, if it was to be, that they parted now, and
that it was over--all over and done with, thought Ellinor, after a
time.
Amid all this there was a strange and conflicting--a mysterious
foreboding in her mind, that by casting off the honest love of Robert
Wodrow she might be entailing future misery on herself.
The last appeal had been made, and, though in vain, young Wodrow did
not regret that he had made it, but he feared that Ellinor might be
following a shadow and missing the substance. So true it is that
'the golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see
nothing but sand; that angels come to visit us, and we only know them
when they are gone.'