"Some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters
Point to rich ends."
SHAKESPEARE.
The next morning, after breakfast, I asked Mrs. Middleton what
were her plans for the day. She told me she had got a note
from Henry after I had gone to bed the evening before, to ask
her when and where she wished to see him; that she had sent
him word to come to her before two o'clock, but that she
thought I had better not be present at their first interview.
I instantly proposed to her to go to Alice as soon as I could
be sure that Henry had left his house, and prepare her for the
visit which I knew my aunt intended to make to her in the
afternoon, or else to bring her back with me to Brookstreet. I
felt I had better meet Henry again in her presence than alone.
Mrs. Middleton agreed to all this; and I went to my room to
wait there for his arrival, which was to be the signal for my
departure. In about an hour's time I heard a knock at the
house-door, and having ascertained that Henry was with his
sister, I got into the carriage, and drove off to--Street.
I remember that accidentally I had in my hands a card of
address which my maid had just given me for some shop in
Regent-street, with a long list, in small print, at its back,
of the various articles to be procured there, and that I read
it over and over again, with that nervous attention which we
give to anything that will fix our eyes, and the mechanical
part of our thoughts, when we are in a state of restless
impatience. The carriage stopped at No. 3, in--Street, and I
told the servant to inquire if Mrs. Lovell was at home. The
door was opened by a man who had been Henry's servant since he
went first to Oxford, and who, on seeing me, came up to the
carriage, and told me that Mrs. Lovell was in the square; but
that if I would walk in, and wait a few minutes, he would go
and tell her that I was come.
I followed him up the narrow carpeted stairs; he opened the
door of the back drawing-room, and left me there. For a moment
I sat down on the nearest chair to subdue the quick beating of
my heart. I then looked about me, and examined Alice's room.
It was furnished just as most rooms in London are furnished,
where no particular care has been taken to superintend their
arrangement. There were blue striped sofas and chairs, a large
table and a little table, blue and muslin curtains, and that
was all. Everything was in the nicest order possible. On the
small table which was placed near the window, with a chair
before it, were laid, one upon the other, the same Bible and
Prayer Book which I had seen in the closet at Bridman; in a
bookcase between the chimney and the window were ranged the
same books which had stood there on the wooden shelf; on the
round table were a few flowers in a glass, and a basket
containing some hemming. There was no fire in the chimney, and
the room felt rather cold.
After a few minutes had elapsed, the door opened and Alice
came in. As she came up to me, her perfect calmness gave me at
once that self-possession which I had vainly struggled for
before-hand. As I kissed her, and sat down by her side, it
felt to me like entering a church on a hot and dusty summer's
day; like leaving behind me the glare and the noise of the
busy world without; like plunging into those
"Arched retreats, where passion's thirst is calmed,
And care's unthankful gloom." *
[* Lyra Apostolica.]
She was simply dressed in a brown silk gown. As she took off
her straw bonnet, and laid it, and a handful of daisies by it,
on the table, she turned to me with one of those grave smiles
which were peculiar to her, and said--
"I have longed to see you again, I am so glad you are come. It
seemed to me as if the trees would never get their leaves in
London; but they are growing at last, and you are come. But
you are looking pale. You are not ill, I hope?"
"No; only very tired, Alice. I am unused to London, and the
noise stuns and bewilders me. You look just as you did a year
ago at Bridman."
A slight colour rose in her cheek at the name of Bridman. "I
was a child _then_, though an old one, and now--"
As she paused I said, "Now a woman, and a happy one I hope,
dear Alice."
She turned her large blue eyes full upon me, something like a
sigh rose in her throat, and she only said, in so low a voice
that I could hardly catch the sound, "God is everywhere!"
After this answer I did not feel courage to speak to her of
Henry, of her own relations, of the circumstances attending
her marriage, of anything, in short, that could cause her pain
or disturbance, and I therefore asked her how she spent her
time in London.
"That will be easily described," she said; "for in London one
day exactly resembles another,--in its employment, at least."
"Does it really?" I exclaimed; for this was certainly not my
idea of a London life.
"Yes," she replied. "I get up every day at six o'clock; and,
after attending to some of my household concerns, I walk to
Church, at St. Margaret's, where there is a service every
morning. It feels almost like the country to walk at that
hour."
"You must have found it piercingly cold in the winter?"
"It was cold enough sometimes; but lately it has been so mild
that I walk slowly by the balconies to smell longer the
mignonette which fills them. After Church comes breakfast; and
then I go to the square."
"To walk there?"
"Yes; a kind of a walk."
"Alone?"
"Oh, no; I have plenty of companions--but never mind that. I
will tell it you all another time."
"No; tell it me now; it interests me so much."
"It will make you think me a child still, though we said I was
a woman just now. Well, then, first there are the birds,--the
black, starved, unhappy-looking London birds; you cannot think
how pleased they are with the seed and the crumbs which I take
them every morning. I have chosen a particular old thorn-tree
for our meeting-place; its leaves are beginning now to peep
out, and it will be a great day for the birds and me when its
white blossoms appear. As it is, they flock to it quick enough
when I come into the square, and seem almost to call to me to
make haste."
"You love them, Alice, as you used to love your Passion
Flower?"
"Not exactly; I loved my Passion Flower because it did me
good; my birds I love because I do _them_ good. But I have
greater friends than these in the square; friends that run to
me too when I come in--the darling children."
"How do you love _them_, Alice?"
"Oh, as God's own chosen ones, whose Angels behold his face in
Heaven. They seem so very _near_ Heaven. Will you come some
day into the square with me, Miss Middleton?"
"Call me Ellen, and I will go with you wherever you like."
"Well, then, dear Ellen, you must come and see those I love
best. There is one so like Johnny!" (her eyes filled with
tears as she said this) "only that he looks as if he belonged
to some noble race, like those that the verses talk about; and
another looks like the picture in my prayer-book of young
David going to fight Goliath. I am so happy with them that I
sometimes forget myself, and stay longer in the square than I
ought."
"Why, what have you to do afterwards?"
"Oh, then, it is time to go to the hospital."
"What do you mean? What hospital?"
"The hospital in--Place. I go there every day for five or six
hours."
"What to do?"
"Whatever they give me to do."
"I don't understand you, Alice."
"You mean how I got leave to go there? I will tell you;--one
of the nurses, sisters they call them now, knew me when we
lived at Bromley, and two or three times I had met her in the
street, and talked with her. She took me one day with her into
the hospital to see a poor woman who had broken her leg; she
was in sad distress of mind, and could not bear to be left
alone, and, as the sisters had too much to do to sit much by
her bed-side, they were glad enough to leave me with her. Ever
since, I have gone there almost every day, and they always
find something or other for me to do."
"And when you leave the hospital, what do you do?"
"Generally I go to the square again for an hour, and then to
evening prayers; but sometimes, if Mr. Henry is at home, he
walks with me for a little while."
"And does Mr. Henry," I said with a smile, "approve of your
long visits to the hospital, and your walks in the square, and
all your solitary proceedings? He must be rather lonely at
home all the morning without you?"
"He gets up late," answered Alice, "and always goes out
immediately after breakfast."
"And then at dinner, or in the evening, I suppose, you give
him an account of the proceedings of the day?"
"No, Mr. Henry does not care for birds and flowers, or
children. He is very kind to poor people; twice, when I have
asked him, he has given me some money for them, but he does
not like to hear about them."
"Mrs. Middleton wishes very much to see you to-day, Alice."
"Does she? I shall be so glad to see her. When may I go to
her? Is she like Mr. Henry?"
"In some ways she is, but you will find that she does care for
birds and flowers" (I was going to add children, but something
at my heart stopped me). "Come, dear Alice, put on your
bonnet, and we will go to her immediately if you will come
with me."
While she was tying on her bonnet, I went up to the book-case,
and, looking over it said, "I do not see any new books here. I
should have thought you would have added to your stock in
London?"
"Mr. Henry has plenty of books in his study," answered Alice;
"and when I was first married, as he had given me leave to
take them when I liked, I read some of them."
"And liked them?"
"Some not enough--some too much."
When we were in the carriage I aske Alice which of the books
that she had read she liked too much.
"Some books of verses," she answered. "I do love verses so
much. They give me the same sort of feeling as a fine day, or
like the birds when they sing more sweetly than usual, or when
in a storm the thunder is very loud."
"Whose poems are you speaking of?"
"Lord Byron's; and as I read them, I felt all this more than I
had ever done before, and it was very pleasant. He writes such
beautiful things about the sky and the fields, and the country
and children, that it made me quite happy to read them and
think about them. But then I found that he wrote too of
terrible and wicked things, things that made one tremble and
shudder to think of, so I put that book away, and read it no
more."
"And what did you try next?"
"Some long stories written by Sir Walter Scott."
"You must have liked them?"
"Yes, indeed I did; they are full of good and right things;
and I spent many pleasant hours in reading them. But then,
Ellen, somehow they made me think too much. They gave me
thoughts that were not wrong perhaps, but which were not good
for me. Thoughts that did not help to make me, what St. Paul
says we ought to be, 'content with that state of life in which
God has put us.'"
"So then you left off reading altogether?"
"No, I read my own old books again; I picked out verses and
stories for the happy children in the square, and hymns and
chapters in the Bible for the sick people at the hospital, and
all was right again."
As we drove into Brook-street, I told Alice that we were now
close to Mrs. Middleton's house; but I did not see in her the
least sign of nervousness or agitation at the idea of the
approaching interview. I felt calmer myself than I had
expected, for it seemed to me that, in her presence, Henry
must forget the past; that her husband could not be the Henry
I had known, and whom I so much dreaded to meet again; and
yet, at the same time, I hardly felt as if she was his wife.
As it generally happens when one has speculated much
before-hand, on a person's probable conduct and appearance
under certain circumstances, Alice, as a wife, though exactly
like herself, was quite unlike the various pictures which my
imagination had drawn of her during the last few months. At
times I had fancied her beaming with happiness, loving and
beloved, and in the full enjoyment of those early days of
bliss which a young wife so often dreams away in enviable
unconsciousness of its transient nature. At other times, and
oftener, I had feared that her cheek might be pale, and her
spirits broken; that disappointment might have fastened its
poisonous fang in her heart; and that I should read in her
eyes the fatal secret of an unhappy marriage. But I had found
her calm as the surface of a summer sea; and no Virgin Martyr
walking with a firm step to the fiery trial: no dying saint
closing his eyes in the joyful hope of a certain resurrection,
ever seemed more free from earthly passions, earthly cares, or
earthly hopes, than the beautiful bride of eighteen who sat by
my side.
When we entered the drawing-room in Brook-street, Henry was
sitting by his sister. She got up hastily, came up to Alice,
and kissing her affectionately, drew her to a couch at the end
of the room, and entered into conversation with her, in that
kind and eager manner which was peculiar to her. Henry made a
step towards them, and then turned back; and, holding out his
hand to me, said in a low voice, "You are very kind to her,
and so you ought to be."
I returned the pressure of his hand, and answered in the same
tone, "Who in the world could be otherwise than kind to her?"
"Poor Alice!" he said, and drew his hand across his brow, as
if in pain.
He was pale, and he had grown very thin since I last had seen
him. He drew me to the furthest window by some insignificant
question, and then told me that his father was expected in
town the next day; and now that his sister had seen Alice, he
supposed that he would do so too.
"I am glad, very glad of it, Henry; I am not sure if he will
appreciate her thoroughly; but I know she will," I said
looking at Mrs. Middleton.
"She will do her harm," he muttered.
"Harm!"
"Yes, as she has done you harm."
"What harm has she ever done me?"
"Made you what you are,--too good to be bad, and ..."
"Too bad to be good? True; but that has not been her doing."
"Has it not?" he retorted, and fixed his eyes upon me, as if
he would have read into my soul.
After a pause, he said, glancing at Alice, "Take care what you
do with _her_. She lives in a dream; and if you show her but
once life as it is--as it ought to have been for her,--she
will wake, break her heart, if she has one, or that of someone
else, if she has not."
I could hardly command myself sufficiently to speak; but,
laying my head against the window pane, and without looking at
him, I said in a low voice, "Surely, Henry, you try to make
her happy--you _must_ feel affection for her?"
"Enough to wish, with all my soul, that I had never set eyes
on her, or on you.--Don't go--don't stir from where you are.
Once for all, hear it--you _must_ listen to whatever I may
choose to say to you. Once you would not believe me, when I
told you that, by your obstinacy, you would sacrifice the
happiness of three persons. You have done it; for mine" (he
said this with a bitter laugh) "and your own and hers hang
upon a thread. If you think to brave me, do so; go away now,
and never speak to me again; but then, by Heaven, the thread
snaps; and you will believe me this time, I hope!"
I did _not_ stir; and that mute ackowledgment of Henry's
secret power, which my soul rebelled against, but dared not
defy, humbled me more bitterly than anything I had yet gone
through.
After a few minutes of this speaking silence,--for, alas! how
much the compliance of that hour revealed,--he himself walked
away, joined his sister and his wife; and, after a few
moments' conversation, he took his leave, and Alice went home
in our carriage.
It was settled before they went, that on the next day they
should dine in Brook-street; and Mrs. Middleton told me
afterwards that she had arranged with Henry to use her best
endeavours to persuade Mr. Lovell to meet them. He had charged
her not to say before Alice that there would be any difficulty
in obtaining this, as she had not the slightest idea that
their marriage had been disapproved of by his family.
"Nothing seems to me so useless," added Mr. Middleton, "as to
reproach, to remonstrate, or even to wonder, over an act which
is past recall; but it is impossible to see Henry look so
miserable, to hear him speak so coldly of that beautiful young
wife of his, and at the same time conceal from her with
nervous anxiety that it was a step which nothing but the most
violent passion could justify, without feeling bewildered at
the strangeness of the whole affair."
"What has he said to you, Ellen? and what impression has your
visit to her left upon your mind?"
"I think," was my answer, "what I always have thought of her;
that she is more like an angel, in spirit as well as in face,
than any other human being I ever saw; she seems happy, but it
is hardly the happiness of this world which she seems to
enjoy; but, whether it is that of the saint who has built upon
a rock, or that of a child which a breath can destroy, I
hardly know."
"I felt," said Mrs. Middleton, "while I was talking to her, as
if she hardly belonged to this world. Do you know, Ellen," she
continued, with a smile, "I could not have asked her if she
was in love with Henry. I should have feared to see her vanish
away like that beautiful apparition in the German Legend,
which dissolved into air, if a word of mortal love reached her
ears. But this is all nonsense," she said with a sigh; "I hope
they are happy; yet, after having looked forward so much to
seeing them, I now have a more vague feeling of discomfort
about them than I had before."
My uncle came in just then; and I was glad to leave the room,
and thus escape a repetition of the question which I bad left
unanswered with respect to Henry's conversation with me.