IS SOPHY ALIVE?
"Leave Sidney alone with me to-night, Margaret; I have business to talk
about," said Colonel Cleveland one evening, about a year after his
accident. He had never been able to set his foot upon the ground since
his fatal fall; and when Martin entered his room, and looked at the
wasted frame and pallid face of the man who had once been so strong and
full of life, tears of sympathy and pity stood in his eyes; and he
grasped his thin and meager hand in silence.
"I want a long talk with you alone," said Colonel Cleveland in a
mournful voice. "Sit down, Sidney. Good Heavens! to think what a
wreck I am! And not yet fifty! I was just your age when my Margaret
was born; and I never guessed what she would grow to be for me.
Margaret will be one-and-twenty next month. She is all the world to
me."
"And to me!" said Sidney to himself.
"There must be some kind of settlement of affairs when she comes of
age," continued her father, "and I'm afraid to let her know them. I've
been a bad manager for her. What we are living on now is the interest
of her mother's money, and the rent of Apley Hall, which I let six
years ago for seven years. I could not afford to live in it any
longer. My speculations always turned out badly, and Apley is heavily
mortgaged. Margaret is not the great heiress the world thinks her. Do
you think she will care, Sidney?"
"Not a straw," he answered; "you need not be afraid of Margaret."
"God bless her!" said Colonel Cleveland sadly. "I fancied I could
double her fortune; but Margaret doesn't care about money, or what
money brings; and she'll never think she has anything to forgive me.
Ought I to tell her all, Sidney?"
"Why?" he asked. "Women do not understand about money; and you could
make a general statement that would satisfy her."
"I might," said Colonel Cleveland, sighing and falling into a silence
which lasted some minutes. "Sidney!" he exclaimed at last, sharply and
hotly, "is it possible you don't see what a treasure my Margaret is? I
know you have the reputation of not being a marrying man; and that was
why I first ventured to ask you to come to see us. But I did not want
to lose my girl then. Now I want to find somebody to take care of my
darling when I'm gone. For I'm going, going; every day brings the end
nearer. In another year I shall be lying in the vault at Apley beside
her mother, and Margaret will be very lonely. Sidney, I thought you
were in love with my girl."
Sidney shaded his eyes with his hands, and little of his face could be
seen. In love with her! The phrase seemed poor and commonplace. Why!
she was dearer to him than all the world besides; he counted all he had
as nothing in comparison with her love, if he could win it. But the
memory of his great mistake stood between her and him. The mention of
Apley, where he had first seen Sophy, brought vividly to his mind the
narrow street, and the little shop, and Sophy's pretty face as it was
when he first looked upon it. Oh, what a fool he had been!
"I fancied you loved her," said Colonel Cleveland in an accent of
bitter disappointment as Sidney remained silent; "and she is fit to be
the wife of a prince. It is not the money you care about, Sidney? And
such a marriage would have pleased your uncle; he spoke of it more than
once, for he was very fond of Margaret; only I could not bear to think
of such a thing then. Surely I can see what she is, though I am her
father."
"She is more than all you think her," answered Sidney vehemently. "You
cannot value her more than I do. It is I who am unworthy. God knows I
could not put my life beside her life--so pure and good and noble."
"Is that all?" asked her father. "Of course a man's life cannot be as
unsullied as a girl's. One must sow one's wild oats. Margaret will
not think you unworthy; not she. She knows nothing of the world,
absolutely nothing. It is a pure heart and a true one; and it is
yours, if I'm not an old blunderhead. She loves you, and she has never
given a thought to any other man. Think of that, Sidney! If you marry
her I shall die happy."
But once more a silence fell between them like a cloud. For a minute
or two Sidney felt an unutterable joy in the thought that Margaret
loved him. All at once the utter loneliness of all his future years,
if he must give her up, flashed across him. For when Colonel Cleveland
died this friendly and intimate intercourse between them must cease;
and Margaret would in time become the wife of some other man. The
mingled sweetness and bitterness of this moment were almost more than
he could bear. Margaret loved him, and it was an exquisite happiness
to know it; but behind her beloved image stood another forbidding his
happiness. It was more than seven years since he had deserted Sophy;
and he had been content to let the time slip away, uncertain of her
fate, and dreading to learn that she was still alive. Why had he been
such a coward? What could he now say to Margaret's father? To have
that which he most longed for pressed upon him, and yet be unable to
accept it, was torture to him. No path seemed open to him; it seemed
impossible to confess the truth. For in the clear light shining upon
his conduct at this moment he saw how dastardly and selfish it had
been. He had forsaken a young and friendless girl in a moment of
passion, and had left her in a strange land, far from her own people,
when the hour of woman's sharpest peril was at hand. It was a horrible
thing to have done; one which no true woman could forgive. And how
would Margaret look upon him if she ever knew the truth?
"I love Margaret," he said at last in a faltering voice, "but I cannot
speak of it yet; and I cannot think of marriage for a while. Trust me,
Colonel Cleveland. Margaret shall always find a friend in me; and if
ever I can ask her to be my wife, it will be the happiest day in my
life to me."
"I regret I mentioned it to you," answered Colonel Cleveland stiffly.
Sidney left him sooner than usual, and rode slowly back over the
Common, as he had done last autumn, on the night when he first saw
Margaret. But it was a month earlier in the year; and the leaves still
hung thick upon the trees, which looked black and dense against the
sky. The birds had not yet forsaken the Common in search after winter
quarters, and a drowsy twitter from the low bushes answered the sound
of his horse's hoofs as he rode along. A soft, westerly wind was
blowing, and bringing with it the fresh air from all the open lands
lying west of London. As he looked round at the house he saw Margaret
standing on the balcony belonging to her window, a tall, slim, graceful
figure, dressed in white, with the pale moonlight falling on her. His
heart ached with a deep and heavy pain.
"God bless her and keep her from sorrow," he said to himself.
If it was true that Margaret loved him, a bitter sorrow lay before her,
one of his making. He had done wrong in going so frequently to see
her, and in making so much of her friendship. It had been an
unconfessed pleasure to them both; but he ought to have foreseen for
her, as well as for himself, what danger lay in its indulgence.
Margaret was not brought into contact with any other men, excepting
George, who was just married; and Sidney was obliged to own to himself
that he had done all he could to win her affection. But he repented it
now. Margaret's love could only bring her sorrow.
He could have gone back and confessed to her his boyish folly, if it
had been mere folly. Had Sophy died, he could have told Margaret all
about it. But what he could not own was that for seven years he had
left himself in absolute ignorance of her fate. No true woman could
forgive a crime like that. It was a dastardly crime, he said to
himself. He repented of it bitterly; but for some sins there seems no
place of repentance, though it is sought carefully, with tears.
Sidney passed the night in close and troubled thought. At last the
time had come when he must turn back to the moment when he abandoned
his young wife to her fate; and he must trace out what that fate had
been. He must at least ascertain whether she was living or dead. What
he would do if she was living he need not yet decide. It was
impossible for him to undertake this search himself; a search which
ought to have been made years before, and without which it was hopeless
to think of Margaret as his wife. But he had an agent at hand to whom
he could intrust this difficult and delicate mission. There was a
clerk in his office who had been in his uncle's employ for over
thirty-five years, to whom had been intrusted several important
investigations, and who had given many proofs of his ability and
probity. He would send Trevor to the Ampezzo Valley, where he had left
Sophy seven years ago; giving to him such directions and indications as
were in his power for tracing her movements after his desertion of her.
He arranged and wrote some notes for Trevor's guidance, with shrewd and
clear-sighted skill, careful not to incriminate himself more than was
absolutely necessary; and yet finding himself compelled to admit more
than it was wise for any man save himself to know. He was conscious
that he was placing too close a confidence in his clerk's hands, and
might have to pay heavily for it in years to come. But he must run the
risk; there was no alternative. He could not carry through these
investigations in person; and the time had come when he must learn the
fate of his young wife.
"Take the next train to Paris, Trevor," he said, the following morning,
giving to him a sealed letter; "those are your instructions, and you
can study them on your way."