Turn to the watery world; but who to thee
(A wonder yet unviewed) shall paint the sea!
Various and vast, sublime in all its forms,
When lulled by zephyrs, or when roused by storms,
Its colours changing, when from clouds and sun,
Shades after shades, upon the surface run.
CRABBE.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain.
SHAKESPEARE.
Two or three weeks now elapsed, without the occurrence of
anything worth relating; but in which I was much struck with
two entirely new features in Henry's character, which were
gloom and irritability. At times he was still as agreeable as
ever, but the least coldness on my part, or the commonest kind
of attention paid me by others, seemed to exasperate him
beyond any attempt at self-government. He was once on the
verge of insulting Sir Edmund Ardern, because I had talked to
him for an hour together; and there was nothing touching in
the fierce jealousy which he showed on these occasions. When
under its influence, he seemed absolutely to hate me, and
sometimes he quite frightened me by his violence. However,
when that had been the case, he would suddenly recollect
himself, and then, by his ardent expressions of passionate
affection; by the grief, the misery, he pleaded in
justification of his violence; by the words of eloquent
appeal, of tender entreaty, which seemed to spring from the
very depths of his heart; he moved, he agitated, he persuaded
me; and, half in weakness, half in self-deception, partly from
the fear of losing the excitement of being adored by one who
fascinated my mind, though he did not touch my heart, I
tacitly encouraged him in the belief that I returned his
affection.
On the 7th of July, after I had been about a month at Brandon,
I received a letter from Mrs. Middleton, the purport of which
was, that my uncle desired me to return immediately to
Elmsley; that she was sorry that he was so positive about it,
as she saw by my letters that I was amused there; that she
would have been more able to withstand him on the subject, and
to obtain for me a prolongation of my visit, had it not been
that the very circumstance which had occasioned his decision,
was one which, from motives which I could well understand, she
could not discuss with him, and in which she could take no
part; "and that, my love (she added), is my brother's
unexpected visit to Brandon. I have seldom seen your uncle so
much irritated as when he heard of his going there; and it was
with difficulty that he refrained from writing by return of
post to desire you instantly to come home. This would,
however, have caused a sort of sensation, which, he felt
himself, was undesirable; but now, he will hear of no delay,
and my maid will arrive at Brandon the day after you receive
this letter, and you will set off with her on the following
morning. I think it right to tell you, dearest child, that Mr.
Middleton, in speaking to me of Henry the other day, expressed
his determination never again to allow him to make up to you,
or you to encourage in him the least hope of a marriage, which
he is perfectly resolved never to give his consent to. He has
desired me to tell you so, and to write to Henry to the same
effect. You know (as we have often said to each other,) your
uncle dislikes Henry, and that makes him, no doubt, more
positive still on the subject than he might otherwise be; but
I must admit myself, that my brother having no fortune
whatever, and not having ever set about in earnest following
up any profession, a marriage with him would be not only
undesirable for you, but, in fact, impossible.
"You may be surprised, my own dearest child, at my speaking to
you in this way of an affair which, perhaps, you yourself have
not taken into consideration. I earnestly wish that Henry may
not have made such an impression upon you, as to make this
warning necessary; but, after what I saw here--though perhaps
too late--and what I have heard goes on at Brandon, I scarcely
venture to hope so.
"I will not talk to you, my own Ellen, of the happiness which
your return will give me: you are the joy of my life; the star
in my dark night; my best beloved, my precious child. If your
tears should flow, if your young heart should ache, come to
me, dearest, and lay your head on my bosom, and find in my
love, which shall know no change, 'a shelter from the storm, a
refuge from the tempest.'"
I pressed to my lips Mrs. Middleton's letter, but remained
agitated by a number of conflicting feelings. She seemed
unhappy, and I could not help thinking, that besides the
anxiety she expressed about the state of my feelings, she was
also grieved at my uncle's harsh decision against her brother.
I was vexed too at being _ordered_ back to Elmsley, I had been
spoiled by unlimited indulgence, and unvarying tenderness, and
though bitter sorrow had come upon me, and I had gone through
severe suffering, it had not come in the form of discipline,
or been turned to its salutary use. I dreaded the monotony,
the associations of Elmsley, from which I saw, by this letter,
that Henry was henceforward to be banished; and, altogether,
when I walked into Mrs. Brandon's room, and announced to her
my approaching departure, tears of vexation stood in my eyes.
She said a great deal of her own regret, and proposed writing
immediately to Mr. Middleton to entreat him to let me stay on
longer, and urged me to wait for his answer, but this I could
not venture to do. My uncle was a man who seldom gave an
order, but when he did, I knew it was not to be trifled with.
I did not state to Mrs. Brandon the _real_ reason of my
recall; but she gave me to understand that she knew it, and I
did not repulse as much as usual, her implied sympathy.
We went down into the drawing-room together; and when Henry
appeared, I watched his countenance to try and gather from it,
if he too had received the letter which his sister had been
desired to write to him; but he puzzled me completely. He was
absent and pre-occupied, but did not seem the least depressed;
on the contrary, there was a kind of excitement about him,
that gave him the appearance of being in high spirits. When
Mrs. Brandon spoke of my summons to Elmsley, and the rest of
the company were, in their different ways, making civil
speeches to me, he said nothing, but in his turn watched me
narrowly.
He did not sit next to me at dinner, which I thought, with a
little contrivance, he might have done; nor did he come near
me during the first part of the evening, but seemed entirely
engrossed by a long eager whispering conversation which he
kept up with Mrs. Brandon.
At tea-time, she came up to Lady Wyndham and Mrs. Ernsley, and
asked if it would suit them to make a party the next day to
the sea-side. There was a beautiful little bay about twenty
miles off, which would make an excellent object for an
expedition, and which she would like to show me, before I left
Dorsetshire. It so happened that I had never in my life seen
the sea, except from a distance, and this made the idea of
this excursion particularly agreeable to me. Everybody
approved of it; for once everybody was like Mrs. Hatton, and
liked nothing so much as an expedition, and more especially
one to the sea-side, so it was settled that we were to be off
at eight the following morning. Except in general
conversation, Henry did not speak to me that evening, till, as
he was lighting a candle for me, near the refreshment table,
he said in a low voice, "Have you ever been so interested in a
book that you have been obliged to shut it up, and to pause
before you opened it again?"
"No," (I answered,) "I always look at the last page."
"I dare not look at my last page," he said, and his voice
trembled. At that moment I thought I liked him.
At six o'clock the next morning, in my dressing-gown and
shawl, I was at the window of my bedroom anxiously examining
the state of the weather, and trying to stretch my head beyond
the comer of the house, in order to find out whether there
might not be a very little bit of blue sky visible behind an
ominous mass of gray clouds; but either my head would not go
far enough, or else there was no blue sky to be seen, and each
survey only tending to discourage me more thoroughly, I laid
down again, and tried to go to sleep. At seven my maid came
in, and informed me that it was a dull morning, but the
carriages were to come round all the same, and the ladies were
getting up. We met in the breakfast-room, with the weary,
cross, sick-looking faces, which early rising, especially on a
gloomy day, is apt to produce. In the first carriage went Lady
Wyndham, Mrs. Brandon, Mr. Ernsley, and Mr. Moore. In the
second, Mrs. Ernsley, the two Miss Farnley's, and Sir Edmund
Ardern; Rosa Moore and myself had a pony-chaise to ourselves,
and the rest of the men rode. By the time we had reached the
gates of the park, the clouds began to break, and to sail
across the sky, in white fleecy shapes. Soon the sun himself
appeared after a desperate struggle with the clouds that hung
about him. Then the birds began to sing in the hedges, and
every leaf to glitter in the sunshine, while Rosa, who had
been yawning most unmercifully, and, in the intervals, holding
her pocket-handkerchief fast upon her mouth to keep the fog
out of it, brightened up, and began talking and laughing, as
if she had not been forced out of her bed at an unusual hour.
We drove through lanes, such lanes as Miss Mitford loves and
describes; through villages, each of which might have been
_her village_, in which the cottages had gardens full of
cabbages and sun-flowers, and the grass plots had geese and
pigs and rosy children; through which little girls were
walking to school in their straw bonnets and blue checked
aprons, and stopped to stare and to curtsey to the grand
people that were driving by; in which boys were swinging on
gates, and urchins were dabbling in ponds in company with
ducks that seemed hardly more amphibious than themselves, and
then we drove by parks and lawns,--parks sloping, wooded,
wild; lawns studded with beds of flowers, the red geranium or
the glowing carnation, forming rich masses of dazzling
brilliancy on the smooth surface of the soft green grass. How
beautiful they were on that day, that July day, "the ancestral
homes of England," as Mrs. Hemans calls them; streams of
sunshine gilding their tall elms, their spreading oaks and
stately beeches. How that bright sunshine danced among their
leaves, and upon the grass amidst their roots, and how the
berries of the mountain ash glowed in its light,--the mountain
ash, that child of the north, which with its sturdy shape, its
coral fruit, and the gray rock from which it springs, looks
almost like a stranger in the midst of the more luxuriant
foliage of the south. But scarcely two hours had elapsed, when
we turned a comer in the road, and for the first time the sea
lay stretched before my eyes. It was rough; the waves were
crested with foam; and already I heard them break with that
sullen roar, with that voice of the ocean, in which, as in the
thunder of Heaven, we instinctively recognise the voice of
God. We drove up to the little inn where the horses were to be
put up; I could hardly wait for the step of the carriage to be
let down, and hastened alone to the beach; the sea was not, as
I have seen it since, blue and calm, glittering with a
thousand sparks of light; not like some quiet lake which
ripples on the shore, and murmurs gently, as it bathes the
shining pebbles in its limpid wave; no, it was as I would have
chosen to see it for the first time, stormy, wild, restless,
colourless from the everlasting fluctuation of colour, brown,
purple, white, yellow, green, in turns; billows over billows
chased each other to the shore, each wave gathering itself in
silence, swelling, heaving, and then bursting with that roar
of triumph, with that torrent of foam, that cloud of spray,
that mixture of fury and of joy, which nothing in nature, but
chafed waters combine.* [* See Coleridge's beautiful lines on
the Avalanches.] O God, I have suffered much; terror, remorse,
agony, have wrung my heart, have shattered my nerves; I have
been guilty; I have been wretched; I dare not thank thee for
the tumultuous joys of passion, for the feverish cup of
pleasure, hastily snatched, and as suddenly dashed to earth;
but I will thank thee, for the swelling of the heart, for the
lifting up of the soul, for the tears I have shed, for the
ecstacy I have known on the sea-shore, in the forest, on the
mountain. The heart knoweth its own bitterness; but there is
also a joy with which the stranger intermeddles not.
We wandered for some time on the beach, and then began
scrambling among the cliffs, and clambering up to the various
rocky points from whence the little bay and its wooded coast
were seen to most advantage. In doing so, we gradually
separated into different parties, and Mrs. Brandon, Rosa,
Henry, and myself, went to explore a small cavern, where there
were some curious sands of various colours, which Mr. Brandon
had described to us the day before.
Rosa was on her knees upon the ground, collecting specimens of
each; I was looking at the sea through a natural window in the
rock; when Mrs. Brandon asked her if she had got all she
wanted, and begged her, if she had, to walk back with her to
the inn, as she wished to order luncheon, and speak to Mr.
Brandon about the arrangements for our return.
I was preparing to follow them, when Henry laid his hand on my
arm, and said in so serious a voice that it quite startled me,
"For my sister's sake, Ellen, stay with me here a few moments;
we will walk back by the downs; I have much to say to you, and
this is my last opportunity."
I stopped immediately, and leant against the entrance of the
cavern.
Henry was as pale as death, his lip was quivering, and his
hand shook violently as he took hold of mine.
"Ellen," he said, abruptly, "do you know that I love you, as
much as a man can love,--more than words can express? Do you
know, do you feel it, Ellen?" And he wrung my hand with
nervous violence.
"Has your sister written to you?" I asked, with a trembling
voice.
"She has. What will you do?"
"What can I do?"
"Do you care for me?"
"I am sorry to part with you."
As I said these words, I hid my face in my hands, and from
nervous agitation, burst into tears.
"Then we shall never part!" he exclaimed. "Then to-morrow, at
this hour, you shall be mine--mine for ever, beyond all human
power to part us!--mine, to worship, to adore, to live for, to
die for! Ellen, do you hear me? Speak to me! Answer me! Shall
this be? Shall it be? Why do you look so pale and so cold?"
"You are raving, Henry, you are raving; you frighten me, you
hurt me; let me go."
I rushed out of the cavern, and sitting down on a stone by the
sea-side, cried bitterly.
When I looked up, Henry was standing before me, waiting for my
next words with forced calmness; but as I remained silent, he
made a strong effort over himself, and said quietly, "I will
explain to you what I mean; lam not going to make love to you
now; I have not time to tell you what I feel, and what you
know as well as I do; but thus much I must tell you, my sister
is right when she says that your uncle will never consent to
our marriage: he never will, Ellen; and if we part now, we
part for ever; and God only knows the misery which hangs over
both our heads if we do."
I raised my head at these words, and looked at him with
surprise; he had no right to assume that such a separation
would make me miserable; my pride was wounded, and spoke in my
eyes: he read their language, and went on:--
"This is no time for girlish resentment; forgive me, Ellen; I
make you angry, but when the fate of a whole life, and more
than one life, hangs on the decision of an hour, it is no tune
for weighing words; and mine must be few. Mrs. Brandon knows
that I love you, and _how_ I love you! she thinks too that you
love me. She is well acquainted with her brother's inflexible
prejudices, with his stubborn character; she received from
your dying mother a charge to shield and protect you; should
he ever turn against you, and make you unhappy by the
sternness of his conscientious but iron nature, she will obey
that charge; she will go with you to-morrow to the church at
Henley, and stand by us while we--"
"Stop, Henry, stop, I cannot, will not, listen to such words
as these. You ask me to marry; to seal my fate, against my
uncle's will, without my aunt's consent; you ask me to add
another drop of sorrow to the cup already too bitter and too
full. That _I_ should do this! Oh, my God, he asks me to do
this, and I sit by and listen; Henry, I almost hate you for
the thought."
"Can you believe," he rejoined, "that _she_ would not bless
you for the act? Can you think that when she hears that the
child of her adoption, the child of her love, has saved from
anguish, from despair, from guilt, the brother whom she nursed
in his cradle, whose mother she was, as she has been
yours,--can you think that she will not pronounce a secret but
fervent blessing on your head? She obeys her husband's stern
commands, Ellen, but her heart aches for us. Oh! for her sake,
in the name of your dying mother, whose letter Mrs. Brandon
will show you; for my sake, for your own; I implore you not
to drive me to despair! for again I repeat it, unutterable
misery, which you do not, which you cannot, now understand
or foresee, awaits you, if you should revise to yield to my
entreaties."
"Henry, you speak a strange language, and I must know the
truth. I am tired of doubts; I am tired of fears; I am weary
of my life; and I must speak. What unknown misery do you
threaten me with? What are your secrets? Ay, I must know
them!" And in my turn, I seized his arm, and pushing away the
hair from my forehead, I looked him full in the face. "Why am
I to avoid the Tracys? Why do vulgar ruffians use your name to
terrify me into a marriage with you? Why am I now to be forced
into a secret marriage, and at a day's notice? and if your
ungovernable passions are not instantly gratified, why are you
to plunge into guilt and into despair?"
Frightened at my own violence, I sat down breathless and
trembling. He on the contrary had grown calm, and there was
almost a sneer on his lips as he answered, "Those vulgar
ruffians are relatives of the Tracys, and, for their sakes, I
wished to spare them an exposure which would have been of no
use to any one. I believe that they meant no more than a
foolish practical joke, of which the account was highly
coloured by Rosa Moore; but you can easily understand that
such people would not be desirable acquaintances to make, and
I, therefore, recommended you to keep away from a house where
you might meet them. As to the misery that you may bring upon
yourself, Ellen, if you return to Elmsley, I may not, perhaps,
fully make you feel it; but when I tell you, that your uncle,
determined as he is to prevent your marrying me, is as much
determined to make you marry Edward Middleton, you may,
perhaps, form some idea of it."
"Marry Edward," (I muttered to myself,) and then shuddering at
the recollection of the words he was reported to have said--I
cried, "No, no; that can never be."
"No, never," said Henry, in a solemn voice. "There is a gulf
between you which can never be filled up."
"What, what?" I cried with a sensation of terror.
"Did you not say just now yourself, Ellen, that such a
marriage never could be? But you know not what persecution
would be employed in order to bring it about. Poor Julia's
death was, in a worldly sense, a great advantage to you. It
made you at once a rich heiress." (I could not stifle a groan
of anguish, but Henry went on as if he had not heard it.) "I
happen to know that your uncle has settled the whole of his
property upon you in the event of your marrying Edward; but I
also know that he will disinherit either of you who should
refuse to comply with that condition."
"I never will consent to it. Let him have my uncle's fortune;
let me be banished from Elmsley; but nothing shall ever make
me agree to what would degrade him and myself."
"Then, Ellen," eagerly exclaimed Henry; "then, Ellen, if such
is your resolution, do not hesitate an instant more. Once
married to me, you are safe in my arms from dangers which you
do not dream of, which I dare not point out to you. Ellen, I
tremble for myself and for you if you should refuse me.
Together, we may have trials to meet; but parted, they will be
fearful. We must meet them together. Our fates are linked in a
strange mysterious manner. There is a similarity in our
destinies, and if you leave me now--"
He paused, his voice was choked with the violence of his
emotion; the reckless, the daring Henry Lovell was weeping
like a child. Oh, then again I thought I liked him, for I
knelt down by his side, I took his hand in mine, I bathed it
with my tears, and I whispered to him that I would promise
anything, that I would plight my faith to him, do anything but
consent to the secret marriage he proposed.
Again and again, he urged it with increasing vehemence, with
ardent supplications. Once he said, "Ellen, you are destroying
my happiness and your own; but not ours alone; you know not
what you do. The fate of a pure and innocent existence is at
this moment in your hands; do not doom it to secret anguish,
to hopeless sorrow. Have mercy on yourself, on me, on her!"
In vain I pressed him to explain himself; he only protested,
over and over again, with still greater agitation, and even
swore that we must be married now or never; that it was
useless to speak of the future. He spurned every alternative,
and every promise I offered to make; till, at last, indignant
and irritated, I exclaimed, as I got up and turned towards the
town, "Well, then, let it be so; let us part for ever;
everything is at an end between us."
He rushed before me, stopped me, held both my hands in his
iron grasp, and with a countenance that one could hardly have
recognised as his own, so dreadful was its expression of rage,
he said, "No; all is _not_ at an end between us. We do not
part for ever. _Now_, even at this moment, I could bring you
on your knees at my feet; I could force you to implore my
pity, my forbearance, ill-fated, unhappy girl, whom I love
with that fierce love, which idolises one hour and hates the
next. No, we do not part for ever; through life I shall be at
your side, either to worship and adore you, to be all in all
to you, in spite of man and laws, and duties and ties; or else
to haunt your path, to spoil your joys, to wring your soul.
Ellen, I must be the blessing or the curse of your life.
_Never_ shall I be indifferent to you. You have refused, in
ignorance, in madness, you have refused to be my wife. You
shall be my victim! Either you shall love me as wildly, as
passionately as I love you, and weep with tears of blood that
you spurned me to-day; or if ever you love another, I will
stand between him and you, and with each throb of love for
him, there will be in your heart a pang of fear, a shudder of
terror, a thought of me. This is our parting--you would have
it so--farewell!"
He rushed back to the sea-shore; I walked on, unable to
collect my thoughts. When I arrived at the inn, I found
everybody at luncheon. There was a great deal of conversation
going on, and discussions as to the time and manner of our
return; I felt bewildered, and scarcely understood the meaning
of what was said.
Mrs. Brandon, in pity for me, I suppose, took Rosa's place in
the pony-chaise; she did not say much to me, but had the
kindness to allow me to lean back, and cry in quiet. She
evidently thought that never had there been a girl so in love,
or so broken-hearted before. She was very good-natured, but
there was a shade of pique in her manner, which probably arose
from my refusal to avail myself of her help for the secret
marriage which had been proposed.
We arrived late at Brandon. I was obliged to go to bed with a
raging head-ache--found that Mrs. Swift, my aunt's maid, had
arrived--took leave of Mrs. Brandon, and of the other women in
the house, in my room that night--did not see Henry again--and
at seven o'clock the following morning was already at some
distance from Brandon, on my way to Elmsley.