It was five o’clock--five o’clock on a dull November afternoon--as
I, Elizabeth Lacy, the wretched companion of Lady Cunningham, of
Northampton Lodge, in the town of Rockledge, stood gazing from the
dining-room windows at the grey curtain of fog which was slowly but
surely rising between my vision and all outward things, and thinking
how like it was in colour and feeling and appearance to my own sad
life. I have said that I was the “wretched” companion of Lady
Cunningham: is it very ungrateful of me to have written down that
word? I think not; for if a wearisome seclusion and continual
servitude have power to make a young life miserable, mine had fairly
earned its title to be called so. I had withered in the cold and
dispiriting atmosphere of Northampton Lodge for four years past, and
had only been prevented rupturing my chains by the knowledge that I
had no alternative but to rush from one state of bondage to another.
To attend upon old ladies like an upper servant--to write their
letters, carry their shawls, and wait upon them as they moved from
room to room--this was to be my lot through life; and if I ever
dreamed that a brighter one might intervene, the vision was too faint
and idealistic to gild the stern realities which were no dreams.
I daresay there are plenty of people in this world more miserable than
I: indeed, I knew it for a fact even at the time of which I speak; and
the few friends I possessed were never tired of telling me that I was
better off than many, and that I should strive to look on the bright
side of things, and to thank heaven who had provided me with a safe
and respectable home, when I might have been upon the parish. Did not
Job have friends to console him in his trouble? Do not we all find in
the day of our distress that, whatever else fails, good advice is
always forthcoming? Well! perhaps I _was_ ungrateful: at all events, I
was young and headstrong, and good advice irritated and worried,
instead of making me any better. I knew that I was warmly clothed,
whilst beggars stood shivering at the corner of the streets, and that
beneath the care of Lady Cunningham no harm could happen to me, whilst
women younger than myself broke God’s holy laws to put bread in their
mouths. And yet, and yet, so perverse is human nature, and so perverse
was mine above all others, that, engaged on my monotonous round of
duty, I often envied the beggars their liberty and their rags; and
even sometimes wished that I had not been reared so honestly, and had
the courage to be less respectable and more free. Perhaps one reason
why my life chafed me so fearfully, was because I had not been brought
up to it. Five years before, I had been the child of parents in good
circumstances, and loved and made much of, as only daughters generally
are. My father, who held the comfortable living of Fairmead in
Dorsetshire, had always managed to keep up the household of a
gentleman, and my poor delicate mother and myself had enjoyed every
luxury consistent with our station in life. She had had her
flower-garden and her poultry and her pony-chair, and I my pets and my
piano and--my lover. Ah! as I stood at the wire-blinded windows of
Lady Cunningham’s dining-room that sad November afternoon, and
recalled these things, I knew by the pang which assailed me at the
thought of Bruce Armytage, which loss of them all had affected me
most. My father and mother, who from my youth up had so tenderly loved
and guarded me, were in their graves, and with them had vanished all
the luxuries and possessions of my early days. But though I stood
there a penniless orphan, with no joy in my present and very little
hope in my future, the tears had not rushed to my eyes until my memory
had rested on Bruce Armytage; and then they fell so thickly that they
nearly blinded me; for mingled with his memory came shame as well as
regret, and to a woman perhaps shame is the harder feeling of the two.
His conduct had been so very strange, so marvellously strange and
unaccountable to me, that to that day I had found no clue to it. When
he first came down and took lodgings in Fairmead--for the purpose of
studying to pass his examination for the law, he said--he had seemed
so very, very fond of me that our engagement followed on the avowal of
his love as a matter of course. But then his family interfered; they
thought, perhaps, that he ought to marry some one higher than myself,
though my father was a gentleman, and no man can be more; at any rate,
_his_ father wrote to say that Bruce was far too young (his age was
then just twenty) to fix upon his choice for life, and that no regular
engagement must be made between us until he returned from the two
years’ foreign tour he was about to make. My father and mother said
that old Mr. Armytage was right, and that in two years’ time, both I
and my lover would be better able to form an opinion on so serious a
matter. Bruce and I declared it was all nonsense, that fifty years of
separation could make no difference to us, and that what we felt then,
we should feel to our lives’ end. And they smiled, the old people,
whilst our young hearts were being tortured, and talked about the
evanescence of youthful feelings, whilst we drank our first draught of
this world’s bitterness. How seldom can old people sympathise with the
young! How soon they become accustomed to the cold neutral tints of
middle age, and forget even the appearance of the warm fires of youth
at which they lighted those passions which time has reduced to ashes!
It was so with my parents: they were not unkind, but they were
unsympathetic; they rather hoped, upon the whole, that I should forget
Bruce Armytage; and, in order to accomplish their end, they pretended
to believe it. But he went, with the most passionate protestations
upon his lips, that as soon as he returned to England, no earthly
power should keep us separate; and he never came back to me again! My
father and mother had died rather suddenly, and within a few months of
each other; our home had been broken up, and at the age of nineteen I
had been sent forth upon the world to earn my own living; and, at the
age of three-and-twenty, I was at the same trade, neither richer nor
poorer than at first, but with all my faith in the constancy and
honour of mankind broken and destroyed; for Bruce Armytage had never
found me out, or, as far as I knew, inquired after me. His family had
permitted me to leave Fairmead and enter on my solitary career without
a word of remonstrance or regret; since which time I had had no
communication with them, though at that period my pride would not have
forbidden my sending an account of my trouble to Bruce, believing that
he cared for me. Correspondence between us during his foreign tour had
been strictly prohibited, and I had no means of ascertaining his
address. For a while I had expected he would write or come to me; but
that hope had long died out, and the only feeling I had left for him
was contempt--contempt for his fickleness and vacillation, or the
pusillanimity which could permit him to give up the woman he had sworn
to marry because his father ordered him to do so. No! filial obedience
carries very little weight with the heart that is pitted against it;
and as I thought of it and him, I bit my lip, dashed my hand across my
eyes, and hoped the day might yet come when I should be able to show
Bruce Armytage how greatly I despised him.
At this juncture the housemaid came bustling into the room with a
little note for me--a dear little cocked-hat note--which seemed to
speak of something pleasant, and at the writer of which I had no need
to guess, for I had but one friend in Rockledge who ever sent such
notes to me.
“Waiting for an answer,” said the bearer curtly; and I tore it open
and devoured its contents.
“Dear Lizzie,--I think you will be _very much_ surprised to hear
that your little friend Amy is engaged to be married! However, it is
quite true, although the business was only settled this morning; and
the young gentleman has promised to spend the evening with us, and to
bring a cousin whom he is anxious to introduce. Will you come and take
tea with us also? The doctor has only just told me that Lady
Cunningham dines out to-night, or I should have sent before. Do come,
Lizzie. Amy is crazy to see you and tell you all her secrets, and you
know that you are always sure of a welcome from your affectionate
friend,
“Mary Rodwell.”
The perusal of this little epistle threw me into a perfect whirl of
excitement and delight, which would have appeared extraordinary to any
one who had not been acquainted with the maddening monotony of my
daily existence. These Rodwells, the family of the good old doctor who
attended Lady Cunningham, were my only friends in Rockledge, the only
people with whom I ever caught a glimpse of a happy domestic life,
such as had been once my own. To spend the evening at their large,
old-fashioned house, which rang from basement to attic with the sound
of happy voices, was the only dissipation by which my days were ever
varied, and a relaxation all the more precious because, on account of
Lady Cunningham’s requirements, it came so rarely to me. And on the
afternoon in question, when I had allowed myself to become absorbed by
fanciful thought, the cordial and unexpected invitation warmed my
chilled spirits like a draught of generous wine. All things seemed
changed for me: I no longer saw the grey fog nor remembered my
mournful past, but in their stead pictured to myself the
brightly-lighted, crimson-curtained room at Dr. Rodwell’s house, and
heard the ringing laughter and merry jests of his many boys and girls.
In a moment I had shaken off my despondency--my eyes sparkled, my
heart beat: I was in a flutter of anticipation at the pleasure in
store for me.
“Is there any answer, miss?” demanded the housemaid, who had been
waiting whilst I read my note.
“Yes, yes; I will go, of course. Say I will be there in half-an-hour,”
I replied, for my evening, in consequence of Lady Cunningham’s
absence, was at my own disposal. “And, Mary, please bring me up a jug
of hot water; I am going to take tea with Mrs. Rodwell.”
“Well, I’m very glad of it, miss; it’s a shame you shouldn’t have a
holiday oftener than you do,” returned my sympathising hearer as she
departed with my answer.
I must say that, during my years of servitude, I had nothing to
complain of respecting the treatment I received from the hands of
servants. I have read of needy companions and governesses being
cruelly insulted and trampled on by their inferiors; I never was. From
the first they saw I was a gentlewoman, and to the last they treated
me as such.
With a hasty vote of thanks to Mary for her kind speech, I ran
upstairs to my own bedroom to make the few preparations needful for my
visit. I knew that Mrs. Rodwell would not desire me to dress; but to
arrange my hair anew with a blue ribbon woven in it, and to change my
dark merino body for a clear muslin Garibaldi, made me look fresh and
smart, without taking up too much of the precious time I had to spend
at her house. Besides, were there not to be some gentlemen present? At
that thought my mind reverted to the wonderful news of Amy’s
engagement, and I could scarcely proceed with my toilet for thinking
of it. Little Amy! younger by five years than myself, who had always
appeared so shy and modest and retiring--was it possible she could
have had a lover without my knowing it? And now to be actually
engaged! going to be married at her age! It almost seemed incredible,
until I remembered with a sudden sigh that I had been no older myself
when Bruce Armytage proposed to me, and had been able to keep my
secret very well until the necessity for doing so was over.
But I would not let such thoughts engross me now, for I had no wish to
carry a long face to Mrs. Rodwell’s house; and so I hurried on the
remainder of my things, and wrapping myself up warmly in a dark cloak,
hurried bravely out into the evening air. It was then six o’clock, and
the fog was denser than before; but what cared I for outer dullness
any longer? My imagination ran on before me, vividly picturing the
cheerful scene in which I should so soon mingle, and my feet tripped
after it joyous as my heart. I had not far to go, and my eagerness
shortened the way; so that in a few minutes, I was rapping at Dr.
Rodwell’s hall door and scraping my feet upon his scraper. How quickly
it was opened by little Amy herself! And what a mixture of
bashfulness, pleasure, and self-importance was in her blushing face as
I threw my arms around her neck and warmly congratulated her.
“Come upstairs, Lizzie,” she entreated in a whisper; “come up and take
off your things, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
We were soon in her own room--that cozy room in which she and her
younger sister Mattie slept, and which bore so many evidences of their
mother’s tender care and thought for them.
“And so you are really engaged to be married, Amy?” I exclaimed as the
door closed behind us. “That was a very astounding piece of
intelligence to me, who had never heard the faintest whisper of such a
thing before.”
“You forget you have not been near us for a month,” she answered,
laughing; “but the truth is, Lizzie, it was all so uncertain till this
morning that mamma said it would be very unwise to mention it to
anybody; so that you were the first recipient of the news, after all.”
“Well, I suppose I must be satisfied with that; and when did you meet
him, Amy?”
“Last month, up in London, while I was staying with my Aunt
Charlesworth.”
“And is it a settled thing, then?”
“Oh yes! His parents have consented, and are coming to Rockledge on
purpose to call on us. And--and--_he_ came down this morning to tell
papa; and I believe we are to be married in the spring.”
“So soon?” I ejaculated, thinking how easily some people’s courtships
ran.
“Yes,” replied Amy, blushing; “and he is here this evening, you know,
with his cousin, who is staying at Rockledge with him. He talked so
much about this cousin, but oh! he is not _half_ so nice-looking as
himself; and--and--I hope you will like him, Lizzie dear,” kissing me
affectionately as she spoke, “for I have told him so much about you.”
“I am sure I shall, Amy,” I replied as I returned her caress; we were
on the staircase at the time, descending to the dining-room. “I assure
you I am quite impatient to see your hero. By-the-bye, dear, what is
his name?”
“Armytage.” And then, seeing my blank look of amazement, she repeated
it--“Armytage. Have you never heard the name before? I think it’s such
a pretty one. Amy Armytage,” she whispered finally in my ear, as,
laughing merrily, she pushed me before her into the dining-room.
It was all done so suddenly that I had no time to think about it, for
before the echo of her words had died away, I was in the midst of the
family group, being warmly kissed by Mrs. Rodwell, and Mattie, and
Nelly, and Lotty, and shaken hands with by the dear, kind old doctor,
and his rough school-boys.
“Well, Lizzie dear,” exclaimed my motherly hostess, as she claimed me
for a second embrace, “this is quite an unexpected treat, to have you
here to-night; I thought we were never going to see you again. But you
look pale, my child; I am afraid you are kept too much in the house.
Doctor, what have you been about, not to take better care of Lizzie?
You should give her a tonic, or speak to Lady Cunningham on the
subject.”
But the good old doctor stuck both his fingers into his ears.
“Now, I’m not going to have any talk about pale looks or physic
bottles to-night,” he said; “the time for doctoring to-day is over.
Miss Lizzie, you just come and sit between Tom and me, and we’ll give
you something that will beat all the tonics that were ever invented.
Here, Mattie, pass the scones and oatcakes down this way, will you? If
you children think you are going to keep all the good things up at
your end of the table, you are very much mistaken,” and with no gentle
touch my hospitable friend nearly pulled me down into his own lap.
“Now, doctor!” exclaimed Mrs. Rodwell, with an affectation of
annoyance, “I will not have you treat my guests in this way. Lizzie
has come to see _me_, not _you_, and she sits by no side but mine.
Besides, you have not even given me time to introduce the gentlemen to
her. Lizzie, my dear, we must all be friends here this evening. Mr.
Bruce Armytage, Mr. Frederick Armytage--Miss Lacy. And now, doctor,
we’ll go to tea as soon as you please.”
I had known from the moment of my entering the room that there were
strangers in it, but I had not dared to glance their way. Amy’s
announcement of her lover’s name had come too unexpectedly to permit
me to form any fixed idea upon the subject, excepting that it was the
same as mine had borne, and yet, when Mrs. Rodwell repeated it with
the familiar prefix, strange to say, I seemed to hear it with no
second shock, but to have known the bitter truth all along.
Not so, however, Bruce Armytage; for Mrs. Rodwell’s introduction was
scarcely concluded before I heard his voice (unforgotten through the
lapse of years) exclaim, “Miss Lacy!” in a tone of surprise, which
could not but be patent to all.
Cold and pulseless as I had felt before, the mere tones of his voice
sent the blood rushing from my heart to my head, till the room and the
tea-table and the group of living figures swam before my dazzled eyes.
I felt my weakness, but I determined all the more that no one else
should guess at it, and mentally stamped upon my heart to make it
steady against the moment when its energies should be required.
“You have met Mr. Armytage before, Lizzie?” said Mrs. Rodwell, with a
pleasant astonishment.
Then I lifted my eyes and looked at him. Good God! What is the vital
force of this feeling, called love, which Thou hast given to us, far
oftener to prove a curse than a blessing, that after years of
separation, coldness, and neglect, it has the strength to spring up
again, warm and passionate as ever, at the sight of a face, the tone
of a voice, or the touch of a hand? Has nothing the power to trample
life out of it? Will it always revive when we think it most dead, and
turn its pale mutilated features up to the glare of day? Shall our
mortal dust, even when confined in the mould, stir and groan and
vainly strive to make itself heard, as the step of one whom we have
loved passes sorrowfully over the fresh grass beneath which we lie?
I lifted up my eyes, and looked upon Bruce Armytage, to be able to say
truly if I had met him before. Yes, it was he, but little altered
during our five years of separation, excepting that he had passed from
a boy to a man. He coloured vividly beneath my steady gaze; for a
moment I thought he was about to seize my hand, but my eyes forbade
him, and he shrank backward.
“Mr. Armytage and I _have_ met before,” I said, with a marvellous
quietness, in answer to Mrs. Rodwell’s previous question--“when I was
living in my old home at Fairmead; but that is so many years ago that
we are nothing but strangers to each other now.”
At these words any purpose which he might have entertained of claiming
me as an old acquaintance evidently died out of Bruce Armytage’s mind;
for, retreating a few paces, he bowed coldly to me, and took a seat,
where his proper place now was, by Amy’s side.
“Oh, not strangers, my dear--oh no!” exclaimed Mrs. Rodwell, who had
taken my answer in its literal sense. “You must all be friends
together here, you know, if it is only for Amy’s sake. Mr. Frederick
Armytage, will you be so kind as to pass the muffins up this way?
Thank you! Now, Lizzie, my dear, you must make a good tea.”
I sat down between my host and hostess, triumphant on the subject of
the manner in which I had acquitted myself, and feeling strong enough
for any future trial; but before many minutes had elapsed I was
overtaken by a sickly and oppressive sensation for which I was quite
unable to account. The hot flush which had risen to my face whilst
speaking to Bruce Armytage died away, leaving a cold, leaden weight
upon my breast instead; my pulses ceased their quick leap and took to
trembling; the rich dainties which the doctor and his wife heaped upon
my plate nauseated me even to contemplate; and a whirring confusion
commenced in my head, which obliged me to rally all my forces before I
could answer a simple question. The noise and laughter of the
tea-table seemed to increase every minute; and if one might judge from
the incessant giggling of Amy, Mattie, Nelly, and Lotty, the two
gentlemen at the other end were making themselves very agreeable. I
tried to eat; I tried to force the buttered toast and plum cake and
rich preserves down my throat, but there was something there which
utterly prevented my swallowing them.
“Lizzie, my dear, are you not well?” inquired Mrs. Rodwell, presently.
The friendly interrogation saved me. I had just been relapsing into a
state of weakness which might have resulted in hysteria: her words
recalled me to myself. Should all the table know that I was grieving?
Or rather should he--he who had deserted me, and had forsworn himself,
who now sat by the side of his newly betrothed--guess that his
presence had the slightest power to affect me? Good heavens! where was
my pride? where the contempt which I had hoped to have an opportunity
of showing for him? I almost sprang from my chair at the thought.
“Not well, dear Mrs. Rodwell!” I exclaimed, speaking as fast and as
shrilly as people generally do under the circumstances; “why, what can
make you think so? I never felt better in my life. But, really, you do
so oppress me with good things that it is quite impossible I can do
justice to them all, and talk at the same time. No, doctor, not
another piece of cake. I couldn’t, really; thank you all the same. You
know there is a limit of all things, though you never seem to think so
where I am concerned.”
Whilst my voice thus rang out, harshly and unnaturally, across the
table, I felt the dark eyes of Bruce Armytage were regarding me from
the other end, and I wished I had the courage to stare him down, but I
had not. By-and-by, however, when he was again engaged in
conversation, I tried to let my eyes rove in his direction, as though
I were an uninterested hearer, but the moment that they reached him,
he raised his own as if by intuition, and my lids dropped again. I
hated myself for this indecision, though I felt it was but
nervousness, and that were we alone together but for five minutes I
should have strength of mind to look him in the face, and tell him
what I thought of his behaviour. As it was, however, it was a great
relief to me when the doctor gave the order to march, and the whole
party adjourned to the drawing-room. As soon as we had entered it, Amy
left her lover’s side and flew to mine.
“Oh, Lizzie,” she whispered as we sat in a corner together, “do tell
me what you think of him! I am dying to hear. Is he not very
handsome?”
“Very handsome,” I answered with closed lips.
“Much better looking than his cousin?”
“Yes, certainly; there is no comparison between them,” which was true,
inasmuch as Frederick Armytage, with his fair hair and blue eyes, was
a washed-out, sickly-looking creature by the side of his dark,
stalwart cousin Bruce.
“I knew you would say so, Lizzie; I was sure you would agree with me.
But just fancy your having met Bruce before! Where was it, and when?
I couldn’t ask you a lot of questions at tea-time, but you made me so
curious.”
“Amy,” I said suddenly, for I felt this was a subject on which she
must not be inquisitive, “when I knew Mr. Bruce Armytage, I was living
at home with my dear father and mother at Fairmead, and you must be
aware that an allusion to those days cannot be a pleasant allusion to
me. So, please, like a dear girl, don’t ask me any more questions
about it, or let me remember that I ever saw your friend before I met
him here to-night.”
“I won’t,” said Amy, submissively. “Poor, dear Lizzie!” and she
stroked my hand with her soft little palm.
“And do not mention me to him, either. Our acquaintance was but a
brief one: he can have no interest left in the matter.”
“Oh, but he has though, Lizzie,” with a shy upward glance. “He was
talking about you all tea-time; his cousin and I thought he would
never stop. He asked where you were, and what you were doing, and
seemed so sorry when I told him of Lady Cunningham, and what a cross
old thing she is, and said several times that he could not get over
the surprise of having met you here to-night.”
“Indeed! He has a more retentive memory than I have; you can tell him
so next time he speaks of me.” I answered so haughtily that little Amy
looked timidly up in my face, and I remembered suddenly that I was
speaking of her lover. “There is your mamma beckoning to you, Amy; and
Mattie and Tom are clearing away the chairs and tables. I suppose they
want a dance. Tell them I shall be charmed to play for them;” and
then, seeing that Bruce Armytage was crossing the room with a view to
seeking Amy, I quickly left my seat, and taking possession of the
music-stool, commenced to rattle off a polka. Soon they were all
busily engaged in dancing, and the noise occasioned by their feet and
voices almost prevented my hearing the conversation which Mrs.
Rodwell, who had taken up a station with her knitting close to the
piano, addressed to me.
“You were very much surprised to hear our news, Lizzie, I’m sure,” she
began, as she bent toward my ear.
“Very much surprised, Mrs. Rodwell--never more so.”
“Ah!” with a sigh, “dear Amy is full young--only eighteen last
October, you know, Lizzie; but I think she’ll be happy. I’m sure I
trust so. He is a very steady young man, and they are to live in
Rockledge, which is a great comfort to me.”
“In Rockledge!” Was I to undergo the pain of continual intercourse
with him, or the alternative of quitting my present situation? “Did I
hear you rightly, Mrs. Rodwell?”
“Yes, my dear. His papa, who appears to be a very pleasant old
gentleman, has decided to set him up in an office here, that Amy may
not be separated from her family. So thoughtful of him, Lizzie, is it
not?”
“Very!” I remembered the pleasant old gentleman’s conduct on a similar
occasion more immediately concerning myself, and could scarcely trust
my voice to answer her.
“You have heard that Mr. Armytage is in the law, have you not?” I
nodded my head; I had heard it. “A nice profession--so gentlemanly;
and he is a fine-looking young man too; don’t you think so? I have
heard that some people prefer his cousin’s looks to his; but beauty is
such a matter of taste, and Amy is quite satisfied on the subject. You
may stop playing now, my dear, for they have all done dancing. Nelly,
child, how hot you are! Come away at once from the draught of the
door.”
“A waltz, a waltz, Lizzie!” they all shouted as they surrounded the
piano.
“Perhaps Miss Lacy is tired,” suggested the deep voice of Bruce
Armytage. I had been going to plead for a brief respite, but at that
sound the desire for repose fled, and without a look in his direction
I returned to the instrument and began to play the dance they had
asked for. But I had not been so occupied long before I became aware
that some one amongst them continued to hover about the piano, and
felt by intuition that it was Bruce Armytage. At that discovery my
fingers flew faster and more gaily, and I regarded the notes before me
with a fixed smile, whilst, in order to keep up my courage, I kept
repeating to myself: “He deserted me: he left me for no fault of mine.
My father and mother died, and he never came near me in my sorrow. He
is fickle, base, dishonourable--unworthy of regard.” I tried to set
the notes of the waltz that I was playing to the words, “Fickle, base,
dishonourable!” but they refused to be so matched, and only seemed to
repeat instead, “I loved him, I loved him, I loved him!” and then a
blurred mist came before my eyes, and I had to play from memory; for
Bruce Armytage had taken up his station at the back of the piano and
was looking me full in the face.
“It is a long time since we met, Miss Lacy,” he remarked presently,
but in so low a voice that had my hearing not been sharpened by anger
at his daring to address me, I do not think I should have caught the
words.
“Do you think so?” I answered carelessly, for I felt that I must say
something.
“How can you ask? Have the last five years passed so pleasantly as to
leave no evidence of the flight of time?”
“Considering,” I replied, panting with indignation at what appeared to
me such thorough indifference to my feelings, “considering, Mr.
Armytage, that during the years you speak of, I have lost both my dear
parents, I should think you might have spared me the allusion.”
“Forgive me. I do not mean to wound you. But if the loss of your
parents is the only loss you have to regret during those five years,
you are happier than some, Miss Lacy. Death is natural, but there are
griefs (the loss of love and hope, for instance) almost too unnatural
to be borne.”
How dared he, how dared he--he who had treated me in so cruel and
unnatural a manner himself, who had but just plighted his faith afresh
to my friend--quietly stand there, looking me in the face with his
dark, searching eyes, and taunt me with the barrenness of the life
which he had made sterile? Much as I had loved him--much as I feared I
loved him still--I could have stood up at that moment and denounced
him to them all as a traitor and a coward. But I thought of Amy, dear
little innocent, confiding Amy, and I was silent.
“_I_ have not lost them,” I answered him, quietly. “Therefore I cannot
sympathise with your allusion. The death of my dear parents was more
than sufficient trouble for me; all else of solace that this world can
give me is mine.”
“Do you mean to tell me--” he commenced quickly.
“I mean to tell nothing,” I replied in the same cold tones. “I am not
in the habit of discussing my private affairs with strangers. Had you
not better go to Amy? I see that she is sitting out this dance.”
Upon which he gravely inclined his head in acquiescence, and left me
to myself.
“Lizzie, Lizzie, how fast you have been playing! We are all out of
breath,” exclaimed Mattie, as she and Tom danced up to my side. “Get
up, there’s a good girl, and let me take your place; we are going to
have a game of ‘Magical Music.’ Tom, will you go out first? That’s
right; now, girls, what shall we hide? Oh, papa’s keys; they will do,
and then, if he wants them, he will take quite an interest in coming
and joining in the game himself.”
I resigned my seat, and stole a hasty glance at the other end of the
room. Mrs. Rodwell was busily engaged upon her knitting, and Bruce was
sitting on an ottoman close by Amy’s side; so, gasping for fresh air
and one moment’s solitude, and unperceived by the laughing group of
children, I left the apartment and ran hastily up to the bedroom which
I had first entered. The gas was lighted there, and the fire burned
warmly on the hearth, but in my present state of feeling neither
warmth nor light was what I most desired. I felt as though I were
choking--as though, if no relief were at hand, I must scream aloud, or
dash my head against the wall, for my nerves were overstrung, and the
demon of hysteria was gaining strength with every minute, and I almost
feared would win the victory. But pride came to my assistance--that
mighty supporter of human weakness--and flying to the window, I raised
the sash and leaned my head out of it, drinking in deep draughts of
the foggy night air. And as I did so, watching the bustle in the
street below, and the calm stars in the sky above, I felt strength
return to me,--strength, not to avoid suffering, but to suffer in
patience. The tears rose to my eyes and fell quietly over my cheeks,
and as they fell they seemed to dissolve the hard, dry lump which had
settled in my throat and threatened to deprive me of breath. I thought
of Bruce Armytage as I had known him in the past, and my tears fell
fast for the loss I had sustained in him; but I thought of him also as
I saw him in the present, and pride and jealousy made me dash them
from my eyes, and resolve that if I died--yes, if I died of grief and
love and longing combined--he should never have the gratification of
knowing that I had retained one particle of my old affection for him.
With which intent I hurried on my walking things, determined not to
expose myself any longer to the danger of betrayal; but before I had
finished doing so, Mrs. Rodwell was in the room, all anxiety to know
what had occasioned my sudden absence.
“What is the matter, Lizzie? Did you feel the heat of the room? Why,
my dear child, you are never going! It is only just nine o’clock.”
“Yes, dear Mrs. Rodwell, I think I had better do so. Lady Cunningham
will not be late to-night, and you know how particular she is about my
being home before her. Please let me go.”
“Well, dear, it must not be so long again before we see you. We must
try and get up a few parties this winter, as it will be Amy’s last in
the home circle. And mind, Lizzie, you are to be one of her
bridesmaids; she insists upon it.”
“Ah! She is very kind, as you all are, but we will talk of that when
the time comes. Good-night, dear Mrs. Rodwell. Kiss the girls for me.
I won’t go into the drawing-room, such a figure as I am.”
But Mrs. Rodwell accompanied me down the stairs, conversing as she
went.
“I am sorry the doctor is from home, my dear; he would have seen you
round to Northampton Lodge; but he is never to be depended on from one
hour to another, you know.”
“Oh, it is of no consequence, Mrs. Rodwell; I am used to going alone.”
“But I don’t half like your doing it, Lizzie: the night is so very
dark, and--”
“Allow me to have the pleasure of accompanying Miss Lacy, Mrs.
Rodwell,” said the voice of Bruce Armytage. We had reached the
drawing-room floor by that time, and he stood on the threshold of the
open door.
“No, no!” I exclaimed, as I shrank backward; “I do not desire it--I
would rather go alone;” and with a hasty kiss on Mrs. Rodwell’s cheek,
I ran down the remaining stairs and out at the hall door. The wind was
blowing fresh and cold as I turned into the open air, and the night
was very dark, but I thought of nothing but his offer to accompany me,
and I hurried onward. Did he wish to add insult to injury?
But I had not gone far when I heard the sound of footsteps running
after me; and I had hardly realised it was indeed himself before he
was by my side, apologising for his presence by the excuse that Mrs.
Rodwell had desired him to overtake me and see me home. Would I
forgive what might otherwise seem an intrusion to me? I was too
indignant to vouchsafe him any answer.
We walked on in silence side by side for several minutes, I with my
head bent down and holding my thick cloak around me, and he vainly
endeavouring to look me in the face. At last, as though making a great
effort, he cleared his throat, and said,
“I suppose, after the manner in which you spoke to me at the piano
this evening, my pride ought to forbid my attempting any further
explanation with you, but in this case I have one feeling more
powerful than pride, Miss Lacy, and I must ask you what you meant by
saying that all that this world could give of solace was yours?”
“I meant what I said,” I answered abruptly, “or rather, that I require
no pity from you or any other stranger. Our paths in life are widely
enough divided now: let each walk in his own track, without
interfering with the other.”
“That is easier said than done, perhaps,” he replied; “it is difficult
in this world for people to forget what they have been.”
“It does not appear so to me.”
“Ah, perhaps you are differently, more happily, constituted than most.
They told me so long ago, though I did not believe them. Will you
consider an old friend impertinent for asking if that from which you
derive your solace now is the same from which you derived it then? and
if so, why I still find you unsettled in life?”
“You are speaking in riddles,” I replied. “I do not understand you.”
“Your present engagement--is it the same which separated us? Do not be
afraid to tell me the truth, Lizzie. I have borne a good deal in my
lifetime, and am proof against suffering.”
His voice was so tender and kind, so much like the voice which I
remembered in the old days of our love, that it won me to listen to
him quietly.
“My engagement!” I echoed in surprise. “What are you talking of? I
have never been engaged--never since”--and then I halted, fearing what
my revelation might suggest to him.
“What do you tell me?” he exclaimed. “What object have you in
deceiving me? Were you not engaged, even before your parents’ death,
to young Hassell, of Fairmead, and was it not by his father’s means
that your present situation was procured for you? I little thought to
meet you here,” he added bitterly. “I imagined you were married long
ago, or I should have been more careful of my own feelings. And now
you are engaged for the third time! How easily life runs for some
people!”
“Who could have told you such a falsehood?” I said, turning to him.
“It is true that old Mr. Hassell stood my friend when I had not one in
the world, and that he found my present situation for me; but as to
being engaged to his son, why, he is a married man--he married my own
cousin.”
“Could the mistake have arisen so?” said Bruce Armytage, as he seized
my hand. “Oh, Lizzie, do not be angry; think what I have gone through!
When I returned home from that wretched foreign tour, during which I
was not allowed to correspond with you, the first news which I heard
from my own family was, that your father and mother had died some
eighteen months before, and that you were engaged to Robert Hassell,
and living with some old lady (no one could tell me where) until the
time for your marriage arrived. I would not believe them; I rushed
down to Fairmead myself to make inquiries, and reached there on the
very day of young Hassell’s wedding with Miss Lacy. Do you think I was
a coward not to stop and see the bride, believing her to be yourself?
Perhaps I was; but I flew from the spot as though I had been haunted;
and I suffered--ah, Lizzie, I cannot tell how much! It is so fearful,
so awful a thing to teach one’s self to believe the heart in which we
have trusted to be faithless and unworthy.”
“I know it,” I said in a low voice, which was nearly choked by my
tears.
“How I have lived since that time I can hardly tell you,” he continued
as he pressed my hand. (I knew it ought not to remain in his, but it
was so sweet to feel it there.) “I have had very little hope, or
peace, or happiness, though I have struggled on through it all, and
made myself a name in my profession. And then to meet you again
to-night so unexpectedly, still free, but promised to another, myself
and my love so evidently forgotten, and to feel that it has been but a
chance that separated us! Oh, Lizzie, it is almost harder than it was
at first.”
“I am not engaged,” I answered, sobbing; “you choose to take my words
at the piano as meaning so, but it was your mistake, not mine. I have
lived much in the manner you describe yourself to have done--not very
happily, perhaps, and finding my best relief in work. But I am glad to
have met you, Bruce--glad to have heard from your own lips what parted
us; and I thank you for this explanation, though it comes too late.”
“But why too late, my dearest?” he exclaimed joyfully. “Why, if you
are free to accept my hand, and can forgive all that has made us so
unhappy in the past, should we not bury our mutual trouble in mutual
love? Oh, Lizzie, say that you’ll be mine--say that you’ll be my own
wife, and help me to wipe out the remembrance of this miserable
mistake!”
I thought of Amy. I looked at him with astonishment; I recoiled from
him almost with disgust. Was I to accept happiness at the expense of
that of my dear friends, of the only creatures who had shown me any
affection during my long years of exile from him? Oh no. I would
rather perish in my solitude. The very fact that he could propose it
to me made him sink lower in my estimation.
“Bruce!” I exclaimed, “you must be mad, or I am mad so to tempt you
from your duty. Think of all your offer involves--of the distress, the
disappointment, the shame it would entail on those who have been more
than friends to me; and consider if it is likely I could be so
dishonourable to them as to take advantage of it.”
“I don’t understand you, my darling,” he said, with a puzzled look.
“Not understand?” I reiterated, in surprise, “when your engagement to
Amy Rodwell was only settled this morning, and the preliminaries for
your marriage are already being talked of! Would you break her heart
in the attempt to heal mine? Bruce, we must never see each other again
after this evening.”
“Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie!” he said, shaking his head, “we are playing at
dreadful cross-purposes. Did it never enter into your wise little pate
to inquire _which_ Mr. Armytage was going to marry Amy Rodwell? I can
assure you I have no desire or intention to risk getting a pistol-shot
through my heart for stepping into my cousin Frederick’s shoes.”
“And is it really--is it really, then, _Frederick_ whom she is going
to marry?” I exclaimed, breathless with the shock of this new
intelligence. “Oh, how can she?”
“It is indeed,” he answered, laughing. “Lizzie, did you seriously
think that it was I? Why, what a taste you must give me credit for, to
choose that pretty little piece of white-and-pink china, after having
had the chance of such a woman as yourself! And now, what is my
answer?”
What it was I leave for my readers to guess. Let those who have
thirsted until life’s blood lay as dry dust in their veins, thrust the
chalice of sparkling wine from their parched lips if they will: I am
not made of such stern stuff as that.