When I behold a genius bright and base,
Of towering talents, and terrestrial alms,
Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere,
The glorious fragments of a soul immortal
With rubbish mixed, and glittering in the dust.
YOUNG'S NIGHT THOUGHTS.
When I arrived, and was shown into the drawing-room, I found,
for the first time, Alice and Henry sitting together; she was
looking very pale, and her head was resting on her hand; but
when I came in, she smiled, and asked me to sit by her. She
said her head ached very much, but that it did not signify; it
would be better soon.
I advised her not to keep near her a large nosegay of lilacs
and seringa, the odour of which was overpowering.
"I do not think they hurt me," she said; "and it was so kind
of him" (looking at Henry) "to get them for me this morning,
that it is a pleasure to look at them."
He coloured slightly, as she said this; and taking the jug in
which they were, he carried it to the open window.
"I was not aware that they were bad for you, Alice," he said;
"but if they are, you must keep them at a distance."
"She is really very unwell," he continued, turning to me; "she
has overtired herself completely. Ellen, you must persuade her
to give up going to that horrid hospital; she stayed there so
many hours yesterday, that it has brought on this feverish
attack. The doctor saw her this morning, and says that it
comes from nervous exhaustion. You will give it up, Alice;
won't you?"
"If you wish it," she answered, in a tone of voice which had a
note of sadness in it.
"She stayed there till twelve o'clock last night," (he
whispered to me; and there was some emotion in his voice;) "in
a little close room, with a dying woman."
"While we were at the ball," I thought to myself; and taking
Alice's hand, I kissed it with a feeling like remorse; though,
God knows, I had not wronged her, in word or in thought.
After a few minutes, during which she made a few languid
attempts at conversation, her head sunk back on the pillow of
the couch, and she fell asleep. Her hands were joined
together, and supported her cheek; the transparent paleness of
her complexion made her delicately-chiselled features appear
as if they were carved out of the purest marble, and in that
attitude of perfect repose she looked more beautiful than I
had ever yet seen her.
Henry and I sat silently for some time, by the side of her
couch. When her regular breathing and her divided lips showed
that she had fallen into a deep slumber, he got up and partly
closed the shutters; then opening the door of the back
sitting-room, he beckoned to me to follow him. I did so; but,
putting on my bonnet and shawl at the same time, I prepared to
go away immediately.
On which he said to me in a low voice, "Now, Ellen, for once I
can speak to you alone, and without interruption, and you must
listen to me."
I answered in the same tone, but with the most determined
accent, "This tyranny is intolerable, and I cannot submit to
it; if, as you have often hinted to me, you have the power and
the will to make me miserable,--to destroy the small remnant
of happiness which I can ever enjoy,--do so! I am at your
mercy."
"At _my_ mercy!" he exclaimed, "at _my_ mercy! Ellen, the time
is come when everything must be revealed to you, when there
must be no secrets between us; and all I implore is, that you
will hear me. It is of the utmost importance to you, even more
than for me, that you should do so. I saw by your manner
yesterday, and by Edward Middleton's also, that subjects of
such vital importance as those we have to discuss together
cannot be carried on in common conversation, without conveying
an impression which might be injurious to your reputation; and
you cannot imagine how much this idea has tormented me. Your
peace of mind, your reputation, Ellen, are dearer to me than
life itself; and such love as mine cannot be selfish--"
"Henry, Henry, your very words belie you. I am indeed fallen
low in your eyes, since you, the husband of another, dare to
speak of love to me."
"Not of such love as mine. You do not think, Ellen, you cannot
believe that I am such a wretch as here, in my own house, with
my wife ill in that next room, to speak to you of my love with
any object but that of proving to you, that to the uttermost
of my power I will guard you from the evils which hang over
your head. Be calm, Ellen; be reasonable, I implore you (he
continued, as I wrung my hands, and then clasped them in an
attitude of despair;) Alice did not close her eyes last night.
After undergoing great fatigue, she is now fallen asleep, and
will probably slumber on for some hours. We may never have
another such opportunity of speaking without restraint or
interruption; and nothing can seem more natural than that you
should remain here, and be ready to comfort and amuse her when
she does wake."
"Deceit! deceit! everlasting deceit!" I exclaimed, as I sunk
down on a chair which he had placed for me near the window.
"How my soul loathes it, how I hate and despise myself!"
"But will it not be some comfort to you, Ellen, to open your
heart to me? Have I not been a friend to you? You see how
guarded I am--how careful to choose words that can neither
shock nor offend you. Show me confidence, show me kindness,
and you can obtain from me every effort that a man can make,
every sacrifice which a woman can require from one whose whole
soul is bound up in her, whose existence but one long dream of
her... But this is not what I meant to say," he exclaimed,
abruptly, and getting up, he walked up and down the room, and
passed his hand over his eyes: then sitting down again, he
said, "I had better begin by giving you an account of the
circumstances of my life, which will explain the difficulties
I have been entangled in, the sufferings I have endured,
aggravated by remorse, and by the consciousness that I had
brought them on myself."
"Have _you_ suffered in this way, Henry? Oh, then, speak on,
for I shall understand you, I shall feel for you though no one
else in the world should."
"I know it, Ellen; I am persuaded of it. Circumstances have
raised a barrier between us, which ought never to have
existed; but there must always be a bond of sympathy in our
feelings which nothing ever can or will annihilate. Do you
remember that when I left college I went to Elmsley, and spent
three or four weeks there?"
"Yes, I do: it was then that you and Edward began to treat me
as a grown up woman, and that we took those long walks in the
country which first made me feel intimate with you both."
"It was," he resumed; "and those days were the last that I
ever spent free from care and anxiety. I sometimes look back
to them and live them over again in thought, till I long to
blot out from my life and my memory all that has intervened
between that time and this. But the one is not more impossible
than the other," he added with a sigh, and for a moment leant
his face on his hand, and remained silent. "Well," he resumed
after a pause, "I left Elmsley, and went to London; there I
immediately plunged into the wildest dissipation, and led a
life, the details of which I am ashamed to describe in
speaking to you. With an income scarcely sufficient to enable
me to live as a gentleman, I indulged in every species of
extravagance and lavish expenditure; but, above all, my
passion for gambling was at that time such, that it seemed to
me as if life was not worth having, without the means of
gratifying it. For weeks I lived in a state of continual
fever; my nights were turned into days; and, during the few
hours of sleep--but not of repose--which gave me strength to
return to the gaming-table, the rattling of the dice and the
shuffling of the cards haunted me in my dreams, with
alternations of exultation and despair, as vivid though not as
distinct, as in my waking hours. At first, (the old history of
all such cases,) I won immensely, and this encouraged me to
play higher and higher stakes, which, when the tide of fortune
turned, involved me, almost before I was conscious of it, in
debts of honour, far exceeding in amount what I could even
contemplate ever having the power to discharge. Still I played
on; a gleam of success now and then giving me a feverish hope
that I might regain at least a part of what I had lost. I
played on till the case grew so desperate, that I dared no
longer look it in the face; and I lived under a sort of
perpetual nightmare.
"As long as I had any money left, I paid what I lost; then I
ran into debt to the masters of the different clubs, and
borrowed money of such of my acquaintance as were kind or
imprudent enough to lend it. To others I lost large sums on
credit, under promises to pay them on a future day. When the
day arrived and found me unable to meet my engagements, I was
induced to give bills to my creditors for other and distant
days. Again those days came, and again they found me
insolvent. I will not, I need not, go through all the
miserable details of the difficulties in which I was
entangled, of the humiliating excuses I had to make, and the
more humiliating threats and reproaches I had to endure. It is
enough to say that, with desperate infatuation, I made a
solemn promise to my creditors to satisfy them all on the
first day of the ensuing month, and on the fulfilment of that
promise it depended, whether my character as a gentleman was
still preserved or irretrievably lost. Ellen, I cannot attempt
to describe to you what I suffered at that time. The wrestling
with an impossibility, the struggle after what was
unattainable, the incapability of resigning myself to what
seemed inevitable, the powerless rage, the smarting pride, the
agonised self-reproach; it was dreadful, and no one to speak
to, or turn to..."
"And why, in the name of Heaven, why did you not appeal to my
uncle? Why did you not speak to Edward Middleton?"
An expression of sudden pain and a burning flush spread over
Henry's countenance at this question. After a moment's
hesitation he said, "I must tell you _all_, though to tell you
this gives me a pang which would almost atone for any degree
of guilt. You must know, then, that it was at Oxford that I
acquired a taste for gambling, and that there, I ran in some
measure the same course of imprudence, and went through the
same suffering that I have just described to you, except that
the sums which I lost amounted to hundreds instead of
thousands. Edward, at that time, observed that something
weighed on my spirits, and easily drew from me a confession of
my folly, and my embarrassments. After lecturing me for some
days on the subject, he brought me a draught for the amount of
what I had lost, which he had obtained for me from Mr.
Middleton, but only on the condition that I would give them
both my most solemn word of honour that I would never play
again. Mr. Middleton's letter was not only stern, it was also
contemptuous; and had I then been able to devise any mode of
extricating myself from my difficulties, I would have refused
the money and the promise exacted from me; but it was vain to
seek for any such; and with feelings more wounded than
grateful, I gave the promise required. _How_ I kept it, you
have seen; and now you can understand that I would sooner have
fled to America, and never shown my face in England again,
than have turned to Mr. Middleton for aid or assistance. To my
father it would have been useless to apply; he has, as you
know, no income but what he derives from the Navy Pay
Office--"
Here Henry paused, and drew a long breath as if to gain
courage to proceed. He went to the door of the next room to
ascertain if Alice was still fast asleep; and, having done so,
he again sat down by my side, and went on with his history:--
"At about six o'clock on the day on which I had pledged myself
to pay my debts, after several hours of weary pacing up and
down the dusty and sultry streets, in which I had met with
several acquaintances, who had turned their heads away when
they saw me coming, I walked into my father's office and found
him dressed for dinner, with his hat and his gloves in his
hand, and a strong expression of impatience in his
countenance.
"'Oh, how-do-you-do, Henry, my boy,' he said as I came in, 'Do
you know, my dear fellow, you could do me a great kindness. I
had appointed the chief clerk to be here at half-past six upon
business, quite forgetting that I was engaged to dine and
sleep at Percy Cross. Now, if you have nothing particular to
do and could wait for him here, I should still be in time for
dinner.'
"'But what is the business to be done?' I asked, and threw
myself at full length on one of the benches of the office. 'Am
I competent to perform it?'
"'It only consists in unlocking that drawer,' he replied, 'and
putting into his hands bank-notes to the amount of L5,000,
which are wanted for some payments to be made to-morrow
morning. There is nobody here at this moment with whom I
should like to leave this key; but if you can stay--'
"'Oh I can stay; I have nothing to do.'
"'I held out my hand for the key, put it in my pocket, wished
my father good-night, and returned to my pleasant meditations.
I had been alone for about a quarter of an hour, when the
porter of the office came in and told me, as he handed me a
card, that a gentleman was without and wished to speak to me.
As I glanced at the name on the card, a disagreeable sort of
feeling came over me; and as I desired the porter to show the
gentleman into my father's private room, and followed him
there, I mentally resolved to pick a quarrel with this
individual, and to give him an opportunity of blowing my
brains out--about the best thing that could happen to me, as I
thought, at that moment.
"Mr. Escourt, the person in question, had been one of my
intimates on my first arrival in London, and more than any one
else had encouraged me in every species of extravagance, and
especially in my passion for gambling. Often, when I was on
the point of checking myself in the insane course I was
pursuing, he had urged me on by a few dexterous words, and
laughed at those fears which the desperate condition of my
affairs suggested. Latterly he had won from me large sums of
money; and I now owed him between three and four thousand
pounds. He had always kept on good terms with me; but I had
reason to know that he was one of those who had been most
active in circulating reports against my character; and that
he had secretly, and in the unfairest manner, used his
influence with my other creditors to deter them from granting
me any further indulgence. Possessed with this idea, I walked
into the room where he was waiting. I cannot exactly describe
to you what passed between us; that it drove me mad for the
time is all I can say. He did not utter one word for which I
could personally call him to account; he even maintained the
character of my friend throughout; but he contrived at the
same time to wound, insult, and exasperate me into a state
bordering on frenzy. He informed me that, in spite of his
efforts to prevent it, my creditors had come to the resolution
of taking no more excuses; and if their claims were not
satisfied on that very day, to make my conduct known to the
world, and to take such measures as should lead to my
expulsion from the clubs of which I was a member. He ended by
expressing his pity for me, and his willingness, as far as his
own case went, to forego all claim for what I owed him. How
can I describe to you the insulting sneer that pierced through
the hypocritical sympathy of his countenance? How shall I tell
you--how will you understand--what passed through me in that
moment? I drew up haughtily; I desired him to spare his pity,
to reserve his forbearance for another occasion; that if he
would wait five minutes I would satisfy him that his _friends_
had been over-hasty in their conclusions; and that, having so
satisfied him, I hoped he would take the opportunity of
stating to them that very evening, that, as far as his case
was concerned, there was nothing to complain of in my conduct
as a _man of honour_. I said all this in a calmer tone than I
now repeat it to you, and I walked out of the room with a
steady step. Do you guess where I went? I went to the drawer
in the office, unlocked it, counted out the money that I
wanted, L3,500, and said to myself while I did it, 'At twelve
o'clock to-night I shall shoot myself.' I locked the drawer
again, put the key in my pocket, went back to Escourt, and
handed to him the bank-notes. He bowed, offered to shake hands
with me, hoped I did full justice to his good intentions,
would make a point of stating at --'s that very evening what
had passed between us, and walked away. I walked away too;
but, as I was opening the door of the office to take away my
hat and stick, I met Harding, who I must tell you (if you do
not know it already) is a half-brother of Mrs. Tracy, and
consequently _her_ uncle," he said, pointing to the next room.
"He bowed, and told me that, having met my father in
Piccadilly, who had stopped in his gig to inform him I was
waiting at the office for him, he had come on as fast as he
could in case I was in a hurry. I looked at him in a strange
manner I suppose, for he seemed puzzled and said, 'I'm afraid
you are not well, Sir.'
"'Not very well,' I stammered out, and walked towards the
door.
"He followed me and said, 'I had understood Mr. Lovell to say,
Sir, that he had left with you the key of------'
"'Oh, the key,--yes, I have the key at my lodgings; my father
called on me, and left it there. Can you come and fetch it
to-morrow morning?'
"'Why, Sir, if it suited you as well,' he began.
"'I am not going home at present, and as it comes to the
same--' I rejoined.
"'I must come early then, Sir?'
"'As early as you please,' I said, and walked into the street,
where the air appeared to me to have grown ten times more
sultry than it was an hour before. The pavement seemed
literally to burn under my feet: and the sky had that heavy
leaden look, 'dark as if the day of doom hung o'er Nature's
shrinking head;' which produces a feeling of intolerable
oppression. When I reached my lodgings it was beginning to
rain. I threw open the window of my room, and then flung
myself on my bed in a state which baffles all description. The
prisoner in Newgate, who has just had his sentence read to
him, cannot feel himself more inevitably condemned to death
than I did at that moment. If before the next morning I did
not destroy myself, I was nothing but a common thief. I knew
that the only circumstance which distinguished the act I had
committed from other crimes of the same sort, was, that
detection was so inevitable, the evidence against me so
indisputable, that it could only have been the act of a man
who had made up his mind to die.
"I was to die, then, and by my own hand. Ellen, I do not
believe that I am a coward; I know I am not, and yet I
trembled dreadfully when death, real, actual, bloody death,
stood before me in unavoidable, almost tangible, shape; a
deadly sickness crept over my heart, and such a feebleness
into my limbs, that a worse terror seized me lest I should
faint and not recover till the moment when Harding should
arrive; that perhaps I should not have strength to load and
discharge the pistol; then a horrible vision passed before me
of arrest, trial, execution; of scenes to which all that had
tortured me some hours ago seemed but as child's play. I
started wildly from my bed, and flung my arms about to prove
to myself that I had yet life and strength enough to kill
myself. A racking pain shot across my head; I ground my teeth,
and then I felt a sudden impulse to laugh and to make mouths,
which felt very like going mad. I saw a bottle of laudanum on
the chimney-piece, and seized hold of it with desperate
eagerness; had it been full, I should have drunk every drop in
it; but as it was, there was only a small quantity, which
quieted me. I sat down by the window shivering with cold. The
heavy rain was driven in by sudden gusts of wind, and I
remained there till gradually, as the night grew darker and
the sedative began to take effect, I sunk into a heavy, stupid
kind of calmness. I started when the clock struck ten; and,
groping about the room, I found the match-box and struck a
light. I then went to my bureau; and, taking out of the drawer
my pistol-case, I placed it on the table, and then sat down to
write a few lines to my father. I gave him a short and
tolerably coherent account of what I had done, and begged him
to avert inquiry until he had procured the means of replacing
the sum I had taken. Mr. Middleton will not refuse (I added)
to save my name from public disgrace; for Mary's sake--
"When I wrote that last sentence--when I came to my sister's
name, I threw down the pen, and gave myself up for a few
minutes to a burst of grief, in which I forgot everything but
the misery I was going to bring upon her. As I was searching a
drawer for some sealing-wax, my hand touched a book which had
lain there for many a day unopened. It was a small New
Testament, which she had given me before I went to Oxford. I
must hurry on with my story, Ellen, or I would tell you how
this accidental circumstance gave a new turn to my thoughts;
how I suddenly remembered that when I was a child I had
believed what that book taught, and that since, I had never
once thought whether I did believe it or not. I knew I was
going to die; and there was a certain phrase in that book
which seemed very plain to me at that moment, 'It is appointed
to all men once to die, and after that the judgment.' I don't
know how it happened that I recollected it so well, for it was
years since I had read it; but somehow I did; and again I
thought that my brain would give way, for kill myself I must;
and if _that_ was true, it would not do to think any more; and
so I got up and walked to the table. Now, Ellen, listen to me
quietly; don't agitate yourself in this manner; for God's sake
be calm. If Alice should wake, what would she think?"
I struggled with myself, conquered my agitation, and made a
sign to him to go on.
"Just as I was loading the pistol," he said, "some one knocked
at the door; I instinctively seized on the case; and putting
it into the bureau locked it up, and went to the door. I had
expected to see the housemaid or my own servant, and almost
staggered back when, on opening it, I saw Mrs. Tracy, Alice's
grandmother. Her coming took me so entirely by surprise that I
did not attempt at first to send her away, or to conceal from
her that I was in a state of mental agitation. I sat down on
the nearest chair, and stared at her in silence. She locked
the door; and, sitting down opposite to me, said in a calm and
perfectly resolute tone of voice:
"'Mr. Henry, you have done something dreadful to-night, and
now you intend to do something worse; but you shall not.'
"I tried to rouse myself. I stammered out that she was out of
her mind--beside herself; that I was busy, worried; that I
begged she would go; that I insisted upon it; and I tried to
work myself into a passion. She got up; and looking me full in
the face, said sternly,
"'Don 't lie to me, Henry. I know you; I know what you have
done; I know what you mean to do, but God has sent me to save
you.'
"'None of your cant, Tracy,' I now exclaimed in a violent
passion; 'leave me; this moment leave me.'
"'Mr. Henry,' she said, 'do you remember _this?_' and she put
something into my hands.
"What a strange change is sometimes wrought in us in an
instant, Ellen! It was a small picture of my mother--of her
who died in giving me birth--of her whose image had often
stood between me and temptation, and delayed the ruin it could
not avert. I had given this miniature to Tracy, and had
charged her to keep it for me on the day when I first left
home for school. It brought back to my mind a train of
childish recollections, and vague reminiscences, which
completely overcame me. I pressed the picture to my lips. My
pride gave way; tears burst from my eyes; and in that moment
of emotion I confessed the whole truth to her. She had guessed
it all before.
"Her brother had been aware for some time past how deeply I
was involved in debt. He knew the state of my affairs, and
that I neither possessed, nor had the means of raising a
single shilling. Escourt, with whom he had some previous
acquaintance, had informed him, as they met at the door of the
office, that I had just paid him the large sum of L3,500.
These facts, coupled with my paleness and incoherence; my
pretending that the key was at my lodgings, while he perfectly
knew that my father had given it me a moment before in the
office; above all, my telling him that I was not going home,
and appointing him for the next morning, while, by dodging me
in the streets, he ascertained that I had gone straight
home;--all this had left no doubt in his mind as to the state
of the case; and his sister happening to be in town, and at
his house, he had imparted to her his surmises. All this she
repeated to me; and then, crossing her arms and standing
before mo, she said, 'And now what is to be done?'
"Upon this followed a conversation, all the details of which I
need not give you. It began by her suggesting a variety of
plans for extricating me from my difficulties, each one more
hopeless and more unfeasible than the other. It ended by her
proposing an arrangement, which she had long previously had in
contemplation, and which the events of that evening had only
hurried into maturity.
"And now that I am arrived at this point in my history, Ellen,
it is necessary that I should explain to you some
circumstances which can alone account for this strange
proposal. My sister has told you, I believe, that I owed my
life as a child to this woman's unwearied devotion. The kind
of passionate attachment which she showed me, and the
influence of a strong though uncultivated mind, kept up in me
an habitual regard for her which lasted beyond my childish
years. When a boy at Eton, and even when I was at Oxford, I
used often to write to her, and always to visit her whenever I
went through London. On these occasions I always saw her
beautiful little grand-daughter, whom she brought up in the
strictest seclusion, and with the most anxious care. Even
then, I detected the dawning of a scheme which she had
evidently formed, and dwelt upon, and cherished, till it had
grown into a passionate desire to see Alice married to me. She
used occasionally to throw out hints on the subject, which I
treated as jokes; and when she confided to me, two years
before the time which I am speaking of, that her
brother-in-law, an old miserly grocer at--, had left Alice
L1,500, she looked anxiously into my face, and seemed
disappointed at the indifference with which I received this
communication, which she charged me to keep a secret. She
lived so much alone, and the nature of her character was such,
that whatever idea suggested itself strongly to her mind, took
by degrees such a hold of it, that it absorbed all other
considerations, and acquired a disproportionate magnitude. She
admitted to herself no possibility of happiness for Alice but
in a marriage with me. She had a superstitions conviction that
such an event was predestined: she had dreamt dreams and had
visions on the subject, and would gladly, I believe, have
sacrificed her life to accomplish it.
"When, therefore, by a singular train of circumstances, she
found me in a situation of hopeless difficulty and danger,
from which nothing but the immediate possession of a large sum
of money could rescue me, she offered me Alice's fortune and
hand; but annexed to this proposal the following conditions.
She said--
"'Give me a written promise, signed by yourself, and witnessed
by two persons whom I shall bring with me here, that you will
marry her, when I call upon you to do so. Give me, besides
that, a written statement of all the circumstances which have
led to this arrangement between us. Let it be signed and
witnessed in the same manner. Execute a deed, by which, in the
event of your dying before this marriage takes place, Alice
will be entitled to whatever you possess, and in which you
will give me full sanction to reveal all the particulars of
this transaction to your family, and call upon them to make up
to me for the sum which I shall now place at your disposal.
Give me your promise that Alice shall never, as long as she
lives, be made acquainted with the circumstances which have
led to this compact, and neither before or after her marriage
have any reason to suppose that such an arrangement was
entered upon. Do this, Mr. Henry, and by to-morrow morning
L10,000, paid into your hands, will enable you to discharge
your debts, and to reassume your position in the world.'
"I need not tell you, Ellen, how much my pride, how much my
feelings, revolted against the sale of myself which this
bargain involved, and, above all, how hateful it was to me to
place myself in the power of this woman and of her brother;
but situated as I was, there was no choice between death or
disgrace on the one hand, and a blind acceptance of her
conditions on the other.
"'I strongly remonstrated, however, against the second of her
stipulations, which seemed to have no other object but that of
keeping me continually in her power; but she was determined to
carry this point; and at last I consented to give up to her
the letter I had already written to my father, which, together
with the other papers, to be drawn up the next day, made out a
case against me, such as would enable her at any moment to
expose me to the world, and blast my reputation. These papers
are no doubt to this day in her possession. I have never
offended or displeased her without her recalling this fact to
my recollection. _Now_ it signifies comparatively little to me
whether she has destroyed them or not. I told her she was in
honour bound to do so on the day I married Alice; but whether
she has or not, I have not been able clearly to ascertain.
_Now_, she cannot use them against me without doing an injury
to her; and on this subject I have ceased to trouble myself.
Well, she left me that evening, having, a second time, saved
my life; and grateful I should have been to her, had it not
been for the spirit of distrust, and hard bargaining, which
she had evinced throughout, and which modified my gratitude in
a way which I regretted myself. The next morning she returned
with her brother, and a lawyer, who drew up my will, and saw
me sign it, as well as my promise of marriage. John Harding
looked gloomy and dark; he evidently disapproved of the whole
affair, and thought his niece had the worst of the bargain, as
I heard him muttering to himself; but he was always completely
governed by his sister; and though he has since attempted to
annoy me in different ways, he has never yet ventured to act
for himself, except in that foolish attempt to frighten you at
Brandon, which his son forced him into, and which he thought,
if successful, might be more profitable to himself than the
arrangement as it then stood. Now, Ellen, can you understand,
that, after all this, in spite of Alice's beauty and of her
merits (for I do not attempt to deny them), the idea of
marrying her was always connected in my mind with so much that
was painful and disgraceful in my past life, that I shrunk
from it with a morbid repugnance, which I vainly tried to
conquer?
"Now, Ellen--now I am come to the time when every feature of
my history is closely connected with yours. Dearest Ellen,
listen to me calmly; and if I speak of feelings which must not
now be proclaimed to the world; if, in going over the ground
which we once trod together, words of love and of regret
escape my lips; forgive me! bear with me! and forget
everything but that I have loved and lost you--that I deserve
to be pitied."
After a pause, he said, "I have not asked you for a promise of
secrecy; I am not afraid of being in _your_ power; but, dear
Ellen, there are facts which I am now going to reveal to you,
which concern you personally; and yet which you must give me a
solemn promise never to reveal to any one."
"If they concern me personally," I hastily replied, "surely I
can decide for myself on that point; I will bind myself by no
promise. You are not afraid of being in my power, and you are
right; but you wish--forgive me, Henry, I must speak the
truth--you wish to keep me in yours; and this is ungenerous."
"When you know the truth," he answered coldly, "you will
retract this unkind accusation. If you intend, which I suppose
is the case, to marry Edward Middleton, you are no doubt
anxious to keep no secret from him; but I protest unto you,
Ellen, that if you do marry him, especially in ignorance of
the real nature of your position, you will bring upon
yourself,--I said it to you once before,--incalculable misery!
You do not believe me,--I see you do not!" he exclaimed, with
impatience; "but you _must_ believe me if I swear!" and
snatching up Alice's Bible from the table near us, he laid his
hand upon it, and swore that he spoke nothing but the truth.
"I do not intend to marry Edward Middleton," I said; "I never
will inflict upon him a wife, whose heart and whose life
cannot be laid open before him. I would sooner die than reveal
to him the dissimulation I have already practised, the threats
I have heard from your lips, the words of love I have been
compelled to endure from you,--from you, the husband of Alice,
of whom you are as unworthy, as I am of him. No, I shall never
be Edward's wife; I never will bring sorrow and disgrace upon
_him_. I have stooped to deceit; I am entangled in falsehood;
I must drink of the poisoned cup which you hold to my lips;
but, with _you_ at least, I will be true! Since there are to
be no secrets between us, Henry Lovell, I will tell you what I
have never told any human being; and that is, that I love
Edward with all the powers of my soul; with all the passion,
and all the tenderness, which outlives hope, and feeds upon
despair!"
As this burst of wounded feeling escaped from me, I laid my
hand on the sacred book before me, and, turning to Henry with
flashing eyes and glowing cheeks, I said, "What are your
conditions?--dictate them."
Again I saw in his face the fearful expression which recalled
to me the scene on the sea-shore at--Bay.
"I make none," he replied, with a withering sneer; "I leave
you to the tender mercies of those whom you love. When Edward
learns, not from me, but from one who shares with me the
secret of Julia's death, the details of that catastrophe; you
may then seek for consolation and tenderness at his hands."
I saw, by a sudden change in Henry's countenance, how deadly
pale, how dreadfully agitated mine must have been, for he
looked almost as terrified as I felt; and, giving one rapid
glance into the next room, he seized on some water that was on
the table, and held it to my lips. I swallowed a few drops;
and in a hoarse voice articulated--"Speak, speak!"
"Swear solemnly," he cried; "call God to witness, that you
will never reveal to Edward the facts that I will now disclose
to you, nor the history of Julia's death."
"I do; so help me God! and may He judge between you and me!
Speak, while I have strength to hear you!"
"Your strength is not likely to fail you," he retorted, with a
sneer; "for your courage and your eloquence seem always equal
to the task of braving and insulting me: when you hear what I
have now to tell, perhaps you will regret the harshness of
your language."
He paused for a moment, and then, in a more natural tone of
voice, he said, "A few months after the occurrences which I
related to you just now, I went to Elmsley. You know as well
as I do in what way we spent that summer. You were grown into
a woman: but you were still a child, a child in spirits, and
in careless gaiety; and I scarcely thought of you but as such.
I hardly was conscious of my own feelings, till I was
enlightened as to their nature by the increasing dislike and
repugnance with which I turned from the idea of my engagement
to Alice. One day, to my great surprise, my sister told me
that Mrs. Tracy had been with her to consult her as to her
future abode; and, to my inexpressible annoyance, she also
informed me that she had offered her the cottage at Bridman,
and that she had readily accepted it. From the moment that I
heard this, I was in continual dread of a meeting, that might
bring to light our relative positions; for I still had a vague
hope that something or other might occur to prevent the
accomplishment of this hateful marriage. I wrote to Mrs.
Tracy, to urge her, in the strongest manner, not to come to
Bridman, a step which, I assured her, would answer to none of
the parties. She instantly conceived the idea that I had
fallen in love with you; and she wrote me letters full of the
most violent reproaches and upbraidings; and, a short time
after, having come alone to Bridman, to inspect the
arrangement of the cottage, she walked over to Elmsley, and
made her way to my room, unobserved, as it turned out, by any
one in or about the house, with the exception of my own
servant. _That_ day," continued Henry in a hurried and nervous
manner, "was the 15th of July. You know my room at
Elmsley--the window was open--we heard voices and footsteps on
the verandah--we looked out--I need not tell you what we
saw--dreadful words burst from Tracy's lips--"
"O God! O God!" I exclaimed, as Henry paused in the excess of
his agitation, "O God of mercy, my punishment is greater than
I can bear!"
Henry went on--"I know not what inspired me to act as I did. I
locked the door of the room inside, and, springing from the
window on to the verandah, and then down the bank, I was in a
moment where at one glance I saw the hopeless result of what
had occurred. I felt terrified for you--"
"Would to God!" I cried out in so loud a voice, that, with a
look of terror, Henry laid his hand on my mouth; "would to
God!" I repeated in a lower tone, "that you had then
proclaimed to them all what I had done. Would to God! that you
had dragged me into my uncle's presence, and denounced me
as--"
"Hush, hush, be quiet and listen to me: I rushed back to my
room; I found Tracy pale with horror; and when I told her that
the child was dead, she wrung her hands, and again cried out
that you had killed her--murdered her. My rage then grew so
dreadful, that it overpowered hers. You know, alas! you know,
how fearfully I can give way to anger; but it must have been
horrible that day, for that iron-nerved and ungovernable woman
trembled like a leaf before me. I forced her to promise, that
if you did not accuse yourself, she would never reveal what
she had seen, or let it be known that she had been at Elmsley
that day. I made her leave the house in secret, and laid the
strictest commands upon my servant not to tell any one that
she had been with me, which, as he evidently suspected me of a
love affair with Alice, seemed to him quite natural. Hitherto
she has kept her word to me; but I cannot conceal from you
that no efforts of mine have ever succeeded in rooting out of
her mind the conviction that Julia's death was not accidental.
In the stupid and malicious obstinacy of her nature, she
persists in believing that you intentionally removed the
obstacle that stood between you and the eventual possession of
Mr. Middleton's fortune. She had been unfortunately told by
some of the servants of the house, at her previous visit to
Elmsley, that there were constant disputes between you and
Julia; and her suspicious jealousy on Alice's account had
worked her up into such animosity against you, that she even
then carried home with her the idea that you hated and
persecuted my sister's child. She has, however, as I have
already told you, kept her word to me; but there is one
circumstance under which I am perfectly certain that she would
break it; and that is, if, by a marriage with Edward, she saw
you on the point of obtaining those worldly advantages, which
she supposes that you sought in so dreadful a manner. She is
haunted by the idea that Mr. Middleton will leave his fortune
to you; and, by a strange mixture of vengeance and
conscientiousness, she is really tormented by the belief that
she is committing a heinous sin in keeping the truth from him;
and the only way which I could find of calming her scruples,
was by informing her of the conditions under which I happen to
know that your uncle has settled his property, and by solemnly
assuring her that you will never submit to them."
"Thank you," I answered coldly, and got up to go. Everything
in that moment seemed turned to stone. I owed Henry an immense
debt of gratitude according to this account, but not an atom
of it could I show or feel. On the contrary, ail the evil in
my nature was stirred up, and I felt more than I had ever done
before, as if I hated him. Perhaps it was that he had proved
to me what I had hitherto never in reality believed, though I
had often said it to myself, and that was, that a barrier
indeed existed between me and Edward, which no effort of mine
could remove.
"Do not go yet," he said; "there is more that I must say to
you. You have a right to ask me--"
"I have nothing to ask you," I hastily replied; "from the
fatal hour when, by an unpremeditated act, I put the seal to
the misery of my whole life; when by the most unfortunate
union of circumstances, you and your tyrant became the
witnesses of that act, I have lost the power of free agency--I
have lost the power, the right to resent, what every woman
should and does resent."
"Ellen!" exclaimed Henry, "your coldness, your calmness, make
me more miserable than your violence did just now. Do not you
_now_ understand, why with tears, with threats, with
supplications, with the energy of despair, I implored you to
become my wife--and in secret? I thought you loved me; had I
not a right to believe it, too? Had not your words and your
actions given me that right? Once married to you, your
fortune--(I could not say this to many women, but to you I
can)--your fortune transferred to Alice freed me at least from
that part of my engagement to her; and, as your husband, would
I not have toiled day and night to supply its place? Would we
not have both scorned all that calumniators, or enemies, could
do against us? If in her anger Tracy had spoken out--which was
not likely, when she saw nothing to be gained by it--would I
not have carried you away from all that could have marred your
peace? Would I not have cherished you, and worshipped you
through life, and to the hour of death, and warded away from
you every harsh word or unkind look? Ay!" he exclaimed
suddenly, as I turned coldly away from him, "hate me as much
as you choose, but do not set me at defiance! It is not
Edward, your excellent, your conscientious lover, who would
take to his arms, and cherish in his bosom--"
"Do not talk of _him_, Henry," I exclaimed; "do not for God's
sake talk of him. I have told you already that I shall never
marry him; I have made all the promises that you required. I
am _here_, where I should not be, if I wished to set you at
defiance; but in mercy do not taunt me; do not torture me by
alluding--"
A loud rap at the door startled us both, and awakened Alice.