Lady Avondale wrote again and again to Glenarvon. All that a woman
would repress, all that she once feared to utter, she now ventured
to write. “Glenarvon,” she said, “if I have displeased you, let me
at least be told my fault by you: you who have had power to lead me
to wrong, need not doubt your influence if you would now but advise
me to return to my duty. Say it but gently—speak but kindly to me,
and I will obey every wish of yours. But perhaps that dreaded moment
is arrived, and you are no longer constant and true. Ah! fear not
one reproach from me. I told you how it must end; and I will never
think the worse of you for being as all men are. But do not add
cruelty to inconstancy. Let me hear from your own lips that you are
changed. I but repeat your words, when once my letters failed to reach
you—suspense, you then said, was torture: and will you now expose me
to those sufferings which you even knew not how to endure? Let no one
persuade you to treat her with cruelty, who, whatever your conduct
may be, will never cease to honour and to love you.
“Forgive, if too presumptuous, I have written with flippant gaiety,
or thoughtless folly. Say I have been to blame; but do not you,
Glenarvon, do not you be my accuser. You are surrounded by those who
possess beauty and talents, far, far above any which I can boast;
but all I had it in my power to give, I offered you; and, however
little worth, no one can bear to have that all rejected with contempt
and ingratitude. And are they endeavouring to blacken me in your
opinion? and do they call this acting honourably and fairly? Lady
Trelawney perhaps—ah! no, I will not believe it. Besides, had they
the inclination, have they the power to engage you to renounce me thus?
“Glenarvon, my misery is at the utmost. If you could but know what I
suffer at this moment, you would pity me. O leave me not thus: I cannot
bear it. Expose me not to every eye: drive me not to desperation.
This suspense is agonizing: this sudden, this protracted silence is
too hard to bear. Every one does, every one must, despise me: the
good opinion of the wise and just, I have lost for ever; but do not
you abandon me, or if you must, oh let it be from your own mouth
at least that I read my doom. Say that you love another—say it, if
indeed it is already so; and I will learn to bear it. Write it but
kindly. Tell me I shall still be your friend. I will not upbraid you:
no grief of mine shall make me forget your former kindness. Oh no, I
will never learn to hate or reproach you, however you may think fit
to trample upon me. I will bless your name with my last breath—call
you even from the grave, where you have sent me—only turn one look,
one last dear look to me.”
Such was her letter. At another time she thus again addressed him:
“Glenarvon, my only hope in life, drive me not at once to desperation.
Alas! why do I write thus? You are ill perhaps? or my friends
surrounding you, have urged you to this? In such case, remember my
situation. Say but kindly that my letters are no longer a solace
to you, and I will of myself cease to write; but do not hurl me at
once from adoration to contempt and hate. Do not throw me off, and
doom me to sudden, to certain perdition. Glenarvon, have mercy. Let
compassion, if love has ceased, impel you to show me some humanity.
I know it is degrading thus to write. I ought to be silent, and to
feel that if you have the heart to treat me with harshness, it is
lowering myself still further thus to sue. But oh! my God, it is no
longer time to think of dignity—to speak of what is right. I have
fallen to the lowest depth. You, you are the first to teach me how
low, how miserably I am fallen. I forsook every thing for you. I would
have followed you; and you know it. But for yours and other’s sake,
I would have sacrificed all—all to you. Alas! I have already done so.
“If you should likewise turn against me—if you for whom so much is
lost, should be the first to despise me, how can I bear up under it.
Dread the violence of my feelings—the agonizing pang, the despair of
a heart so lost, and so betrayed. Oh, write but one line to me. Say
that another has engaged you to forsake me—that you will love me no
more; but that as a friend you will still feel some affection, some
interest for me. I am ill, Glenarvon. God knows I do not affect it,
to touch you. Such guilt as mine, and so much bitter misery!—how can
I bear up under it? Oh pity the dread, the suspense I endure. You
know not what a woman feels when remorse, despair and the sudden loss
of him she loves, assail her at once.
“I have seen, I have heard of cruelty, and falsehood: but you,
Glenarvon—oh you who are so young, so beautiful, can you be inhuman?
It breaks my heart to think so. Why have you not the looks, as well
as the heart of a villain? Oh why take such pains, such care, to
lull me into security, to dispel every natural fear and suspicion, a
heart that loves must harbour, only to plunge me deeper in agony—to
destroy me with more refined and barbarous cruelty? Jest not with my
sufferings. God knows they are acute and real. I feel even for myself
when I consider what I am going to endure. Oh spare one victim at
least. Generously save me: I ask you not to love me. Only break to
me yourself this sudden change—tell me my fate, from that dear mouth
which has so often sworn never, never to abandon me.”