"Oh there's a fatal story to be told,
Be deaf to that as Heaven has been to me.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
How wilt thou curse thy fond believing heart,
Tear me from the warm bosom of thy love,
And throw me like a poisonous weed away.
Can I bear that? hear to be curst and torn
And thrown out of thy family and name--
Like a disease? Can I bear this from thee?
I never can, no, all things have their end,
When I am dead, forgive and pity me."
FATAL MARRIAGE.
"I must be patient till the Heavens look
With an aspect more favourable * * * * * *
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance, shall dry your pities, but I have
That honourable grief lodged here, which bums
Worse than tears drown."
SHAKESPEARE.
The next day I did not attempt to get up; it seemed to me that
Edward's absence, and his last words, had taken from me all
energy--all power of thinking or acting. It was as a dream
that I could not shake off, though at the same time I felt all
its dreadful reality. I dared not stir in body or in spirit;
the quiet of a sick-room--the silence around me--the exclusion
of light and noise--harmonised with the extraordinary state in
which I was. Strange delusions haunted me; I often saw figures
pass and repass before my bed; and when it was Edward's form
that I discerned, I held my breath, and prayed that the
illusion might last. But sometimes they were dreadful; the
visions I had--the voices I heard! I dare not think of them
now; for the night is coming--my room is dark--my sight is
weak--and my brain is on fire.
* * * *
On the third morning after Edward's departure a letter was
brought to me. The direction was in his handwriting, and a
mist obscured my sight. I pressed it to my heart, and closed
my eyes for an instant. _Now_, I should know all. _Now_, I
should know my sentence. Alice's rival--Henry's accomplice--I
stood condemned by my own heart; and as I broke the seal of
Edward's letter, I felt as if I should read my death-warrant.
EDWARD'S LETTER.
"CALAIS, _Saturday_.
"This is the first time I have written to you since our
marriage. This is better for yourself and for me, and makes it
easier to write now in the way in which henceforward we must
act and feel towards each other. I will not upbraid you. God
has visited upon me the sin of my heart, and I pray to Him
that yours may never find you out. To save you from the last
step in guilt, and all its misery, is now my only object.
"I shall return to you as soon as the sacred duty I am now
engaged in is fulfilled; I shall return to you, for I wish
your reputation to be preserved. The only request I make is,
that you will never again attempt to act the part which you
have hitherto so ably performed. I shall expect from you
respect and submission, for without them, how can I save you?
but one of those looks--one of those words which once made my
happiness, would _now_ drive me from you for ever. Attempt no
defence; offer no explanations; if you repent, mourn over the
past in silence, and silently resign yourself, as I do, to the
life which lies before us. Write to me, but do not answer this
letter. That you may not be tempted to do so, I will go
through the painful task of explaining to you the manner in
which my eyes have been opened to what I might have seen long
ago, had it not been for the deep hypocrisy of your life, and
of your character. I said I would not upbraid you; but the
simple mention of facts must become the most cutting reproach.
When I look back to the last two years, and remember the many
proofs I have had of your secret and powerful interest in
Henry's fate, and of the tenacity with which you have clung to
his society, I ask myself how you could ever have deceived me
as you have done? But when I recollect what you have
professed, the way in which you have acted, all that you have
said to me, I almost doubt the evidence of my senses.
"Vague but painful doubts had latterly shot across me; and had
I believed it to be in human nature, or in woman's power, to
feign such love as you seemed to feel for me, I should have
_feared_ what I _now know_. From the moment when, in
accidental conversation, I heard that in defiance of my
advice, you had spent the day alone with Henry, to that in
which I received anonymously the notes I now send you, the
truth was gradually disclosed to me. I saw you change colour;
I saw your lip quiver, and heard your voice tremble. I saw you
in ungovernable passion upbraid the man who you fancied had
betrayed you, and then, in the excess of your agitation, you
fainted at my feet. When I went to your bedside, and gazed on
your pale face, with the faint hope that I had been mistaken,
that I had not read right your uncontrollable agitation--even
then your lips opened and uttered a passionate adjuration to
Henry, not to leave or forsake you, which drove me from your
side with thoughts and feelings that time and prayer alone can
subdue. When, on the following day, in a cover, directed by an
unknown hand, I received the confirmation of what was already
too sure, in the first agony of grief and indignation, I
resolved to part from you for ever; and it was not till I had
gone through the severest struggles with myself, that I came
to my present determination. The summons I received a few
hours afterwards to your uncle's death-bed, confirmed it. I
would not carry to his dying ears the intelligence of your
guilt, and of its results; nor would I load my conscience with
promises which, had I discarded you, could never have been
fulfilled. You have not yet been criminal save in thought and
in heart; you have sworn it, and I believe you. God have mercy
upon you, if in this too you have deceived me; but if you are
not perjured--if you have not called upon God Almighty to
witness a lie--then kneel to Him each day of your life, and
bless Him that he has saved you. And now listen to the
commands I lay upon you, and obey them strictly, as you
value--what shall I say? What have you ever valued? What have
you ever respected? You have profaned the most sacred
feelings--the holiest emotions of our nature; and I know not by
what tie, by what hope, or by what fear to adjure you. If you
would not become a mark for the finger of scorn to point at; if
you would not die of a broken heart, or live with a hardened
one; if you have any horror of the lowest depths of vice, or
any lingering sense of duty, weigh the importance of this
moment of your life, and throw not away this last hope of
salvation. I have written to Mrs. Moore to propose to her that
as soon as you are well enough to move, you should go to
Hampstead, and remain there till my return. I forbid you, in
the most positive manner, to receive a single visit from Henry,
or to open a letter from him. I not only request, but command
you, neither by letter or by word to make any answer to _this_
letter, or to allude to the subject of it. By your strict
compliance with these injunctions, I shall judge of your
desire to enter upon a new course, and, save in the secret
penitence of your heart, to discard the remembrance of the
past.
"E. MIDDLETON."
Inclosed in this letter were the following notes:
"Do not go, I implore you; I forgive, and will bear with
you,--_Thursday_."
"You left me in anger three days ago, and I feel a nervous
dread of what will happen next. I cannot bear this suspense;
write or come.--_Sunday_."
"I shall have no rest till I have seen you; since that woman
is arrived, I feel as if all would be discovered.--_Friday_."
The chain of evidence against me was overpowering, and I
clasped my hands in silent despair. I read Edward's letter
upon my knees; and murmured blessings were choked in their
utterance, by the convulsive emotion which mastered me. At
that moment it seemed to me agony past endurance that he
should accuse and judge me falsely; that he should call my
love hypocrisy; I thought I would rather die, than meet him in
the way he prescribed, as life could have no greater misery in
store for me than this; but by degrees I grew conscious that
there was not so heavy a load on my breast, so racking an
anguish in my brain, as I had known in those hours when,
tortured with anxiety, I had been commanded to smile; when,
degraded in my own eyes, and condemned by my own heart, I had
been placed by him on a pinnacle, from which I dreaded each
moment to be hurled. His praises had often run like daggers
into my heart; but now his reproaches, his upbraidings, were
answered by the mute consciousness of a love, which in the
midst of guilt and misery, and bitter humiliation, had
remained pure, sacred, and entire. Then flashed for an instant
through my mind, like a ray of light and hope, the thought of
_confession_, full, ample, and complete confession! What
depths of repose in that word! What pledge of peace! What
renewal of confidence! What possibility of happiness! I rose
suddenly and threw the window open; and as the cold air fanned
my cheek, I felt that I might be happy still. Again I seized
his letter, and as I opened it, my eyes fell on the passage
where he said, "If you are not perjured, if you have not
called upon Almighty God to witness a lie." It froze in its
current the source of hope, which for an instant had sprung up
in my breast, for it reminded me of the oath by which I had
bound myself never to reveal the truth to Edward. It was as if
a hand of ice had chilled the warm blood that had begun to
circulate freely about my heart. I set my teeth together, and
muttered to myself that I would break that fatal oath; but
even while I said it, I felt I dared not do it. I needed all
my strength, all my courage; I needed God's help, and God's
mercy, even now to confess to Edward the dreadful secret of my
life, the horrible trials, the bitter humiliations I had gone
through; and in the face of a broken oath, with the guilt of
perjury on my soul, how could I hope for mercy or for peace? I
struggled with my conscience; I bade it be silent; but in
vain. This new form of crime staggered and confounded me; I
dared not add fuel to the flame, or a new kind of remorse to
the dark visions that already haunted my days, and visited my
dreams. I gazed upon those blotted scraps of paper before me,
the records of weakness and misery, but not of guilt; and the
veins of my temple swelled, and my hands were clenched with
powerless rage as I thought of the part which Henry had
throughout acted by me, and of which this was the close. He
had either betrayed me himself; or by a cruel carelessness, a
heartless negligence, he had failed to destroy the proofs of
our fatal intimacy, and had left them in the power of my
_relentless_ enemy.
A servant came in, and putting down a letter on the table, he
said, "Mr. Lovell has been very often to inquire after you,
Ma'am, and he begs to know if he can see you now; or if he
shall call again this afternoon."
I would have given worlds to have admitted Henry, to have
poured forth in words the burning anger of my soul, or
implored a release from my fatal oath; but Edward's command
was before my eyes; his letter was in my hand; and I said, in
as calm a voice as I could command, "Tell Mr. Lovell that I am
engaged now, and that I shall not be at home this afternoon."
I glanced at the letter on the table, and saw that it was not
from Henry, but from Mrs. Moore, who, with a thousand regrets
and apologies for having been suddenly obliged to leave home
for the sea-side, put her villa at my disposal, and hoped I
would stay there as long as might suit me. This opened a new
source of embarrassment to me. I could not resolve with myself
whether to accept this offer or to refuse it. If Henry was
determined to force his visits upon me, I felt that I should
be more unprotected at Hampstead, less able to exclude him
there than in town, and yet I was afraid that Edward should
suppose I was not prepared in everything to follow his
directions. I determined at last to write to him that Mrs.
Moore had left Hampstead, and that I should therefore remain
in town till I heard from him again, or till the blessed
moment of his return. As I looked over my letter I seized the
pen and scratched oat that word _blessed_, which he would have
branded with hypocrisy. Never did a letter of a few lines cost
such painful labour or such anxious thought as that I sent to
Edward in return for his. Many and many a foul copy I wrote,
in which protestations and prayers, self-accusations and
passionate justifications, succeeded each other with frantic
vehemence; but as I read over these bursts of feeling, these
impassioned appeals, I tore them up and gave them to the
flames; for to disobey him _now_, was to endanger the frail
tenure by which I clung to him, and, as he had said himself,
to drive him from me; and yet to accept the conditions of
pardon, to submit humbly to the terms held out to me, was a
tacit admission of the truth of his accusations and of the
justice of my condemnation.
At one moment I resolved to brave his anger; boldly and
earnestly to declare to him my innocence, not from crime only,
but from a feeling or a thought inconsistent with the truest
and most ardent affection that ever woman felt, or man
inspired; and, in defiance of his orders, but in the strictest
integrity of heart, to seek Henry, and by prayers, by
reproaches, by upbraidings, by all the power which a strong
will, and the consciousness of his unconquerable passion for
me, could give, to obtain from him a release from my oath, and
liberty to kneel at Edward's feet, and to clasp his knees,
with a confession of every sin, but that of not loving him.
But then, again, I shrank from the rash efforts, from the
fatal risks, which this plan involved, and it seemed to me
best to submit in humble resignation to his will; to accept
his mistaken severity, his coldness, and his scorn, as a just
expiation for a course of sin and deceit; and to trust that,
in a life spent by his side, in compliance with his will, in
submission to his dictates, in absolute devotion, and
unremitting tenderness, which my lips would never express, but
which my conduct would reveal, I should at last have my
reward--his belief in that love which could bear, believe,
endure, and hope all things.
Tossed by these conflicting thoughts, jaded by this incessant
and racking anxiety, at last I sent a few lines which I had
copied out several times--for sometimes a word had seemed to
me too cold, or too abrupt, too like, or too unlike those
which were struggling to escape from my heart and from my pen,
or else my tears had stained the paper.
In conclusion, I said, "If, on his dying bed, my uncle names
me, do not ask him to say 'God bless her!' but 'God forgive
her.'"
I also wrote to Mrs. Middleton, and when these two letters
were gone, I felt relieved.
The state in which I lived during the next few days was
strange. In the midst of London I was in perfect solitude.
Rather than forbid the servants to let Henry in, I gave a
general order to deny me to every one, without exception.
Early in the morning, I drove into the country for some hours,
and the rest of the day I spent in my back drawing-room buried
in thought, and alternately giving way to the gloomiest
anticipations, or the most vague and groundless visions of
future happiness.
Every day I sent a servant to inquire after Alice; and the
report of her continued to be favourable.
On the third day after Edward's departure, and after Henry had
made several fruitless attempts to see me, a letter was
brought to me, and I immediately felt it was from him. My
first impulse was to seize a cover and enclose it back to him,
without a word of explanation; but, on cooler reflection, I
determined to write to him.
Edward had not forbidden me to do so; and to explain my
present conduct, was the only chance of keeping up that power
over him, on which so much depended. I therefore wrote as
fellows:--
"The crisis of my fate is come. Henceforward, if I take one
more step in the downward course in which I have been so
cruelly entangled, I am lost for ever. If you feel any of that
regard for me which you have so long professed, I need not
make any comments upon the fact which I now disclose to you.
"The notes which at different times I have sent you, and which
so fatally misrepresent our relative positions, have been sent
to Edward; and this letter, of which I inclose you a copy, is
the result. I will not attempt to make you understand what I
have suffered--what I suffer. I dare not see you; I dare not
receive a letter from you; and yet, before Edward's return, I
_must;_ for there is an oath which you once imposed upon me,
which must be cancelled--you _must_ absolve me from it, if you
do not wish to drive me to despair--to perjury on the one
hand, or to a life of hopeless misery on the other.
"Henry! you who have been my best friend, and my worst enemy,
have pity upon me. Do not condemn me to fresh remorse--to
further struggles--to eternal hypocrisy. Do not write to me
any sophistry on this subject; do not try to blind my eyes
again; to deceive me to my ruin. If you have the cruelty to
steel yourself against my prayers, against my earnest
supplications, then leave me to myself; and take with you the
consciousness that you have filled up the measure of your
iniquities, and heaped upon my head all the miseries which the
most savage hatred could devise.
"Would to God that I could find words to touch you! Would to
God that I could reach your heart! and carry to it the
conviction, that you would be happier yourself by giving way
to my entreaties, than by maintaining a tyranny which is as
criminal as it is cruel.
"By all that you hold sacred, hear me, Henry! In the name of
your sister--in the name of your child--hear me! As you would
not bring misery upon them, hear me! My whole soul is in this
prayer--the fate of my whole life is in its issue--have mercy
upon me, as you ever hope for mercy yourself.
"Yours,
"Ellen Middleton."
This was my letter, and day by day I watched and trembled each
time that the sound of the bell or a knock at the door roused
a hope that its answer might come. During that period I
received two short and hurried letters from Edward, dated from
the towns where he stopped for an hour or two on his way to
Hyeres. The solitude of my life became at last intolerable; I
began to feel an impetuous desire to change something in the
course of my days; to see some one, to speak to some one, and
yet I shrunk from the sight of a common acquaintance, or of a
commonplace friend. At last, one morning, a note was brought
to me, but the direction was written not by Henry but by
Alice. It only contained these words:--
"My dear Ellen,
"I wish to see you, and I beg of you to come to me.
"Yours, Alice Lovell."
I knew not whether Mrs. Tracy was gone--I knew not whether I
should see Henry--I was in total ignorance of what this visit
might produce: but it was a relief to do something--to change
something in the order of my day; and as Edward had not
forbidden me to visit Alice, I felt justified in going to her,
and prepared to do so. As I arrived at her door and walked
up-stairs to her, for the first time I felt a sensation of
bodily weakness, which gave me a sudden apprehension that my
physical strength was giving way under such protracted mental
suffering. The door was opened, and I found Alice alone. As I
looked at her I felt one of the severest pangs I had ever yet
experienced. Never in my life had I seen anybody so altered.
There was not a single speck of colour in her cheek; her eyes
looked unnaturally large, and the black under them was deeply
marked She came to meet me, but did not offer to kiss me; she
held out her thin pale hand; and, slightly pressing mine, made
me sit down by her. She inquired about Mr. Middleton; and
after I had answered her questions, there was a pause, which I
broke by saying, in a trembling voice, "How is your child,
Alice? May I not see him?"
She opened the door of the next room, and showed me the
cradle. The child was asleep, and as I gazed upon it the tears
which I struggled to repress almost choked me. "He is
beautiful," I said.
"Yes, he _is_ beautiful," she murmured, as she knelt down by
the cradle. "He _is_ beautiful, but he does not thrive; he is
not strong." She took the tiny hand pressed it to her pale
lips; and then she rose, and we returned to the drawing-room.
"How you must love him, Alice," I said, with a sigh.
"I do," she answered; and then she put her hand to her
forehead, and a sudden flush overspread her face, her brow,
her neck. Her breathing was quick; and she added, in a voice
of intense emotion, "But if you think I do not love his
father, you are mistaken."
"Alice, I never said--I never thought--"
"Oh yes you did, and you were right to think so; for when I
married him I loved him as a child, not as a woman loves; but
real love and real sorrow came in time, and strength and
courage are come with them. Ellen, I love him; and I charge
you not to stand between him and me. I suppose I am doing a
strange thing now, but it seems to me right. I have none to
help me, none to counsel me but my own heart, and the sorrow
which has long been secretly buried within it. I married, and
the world before me was a blank, but a blank in which the
spirit of God seemed to me to move as it did in the beginning
of time, on the face of the waters. All was outside then in my
life, inside in my brain in my heart there was nothing but
peace and joy--joy that the sky was bright, and the earth gay
with flowers in the summer, and white with pure snow in the
winter. I _learnt_ what life and love are in the books Henry
gave me. I _felt_ what they were the first time I saw him with
you. I shut the books--I shut my eyes--I was a coward--I was
afraid of my own heart--afraid of the life I saw before me,
till strength was given me to encounter it. I saw that mine
was Leah's and not Rachael's portion, and I prayed for grace
not to shrink from my cup of sorrow. I do not shrink from it
now; but, for Henry's sake, for the sake of my child, I must
struggle with you and with your strange power, and God will be
with me, Ellen, for you seek to put asunder what He has joined
together."
"Alice, Alice, spare me, for I am miserable. Spare me, for
your sorrows are no more like my sorrows than the martyr's
sufferings resemble the dying criminal's agony. Let me hide my
face on your knees--cover me with the them of your garment,
and let the tears that fall on my head plead for me to the God
whom you adore, for they are like those which the angels in
Heaven shed over a sinner who repents. Pray--pray that his
heart may be softened; pray for him, for yourself, for me.
Pray that I may prevail or die; God forgive me, I dare not
die, but I cannot live as I have lived--"
"Ellen, do not talk so wildly. I dare not speak words of hope
or of comfort if you do not cast this weakness from you--if
you do not struggle with a passion begun in sin, and which can
only end in destruction."
"Alice, I swear by all that is most sacred,--I swear it as I
would on my dying bed,--that I do not love your husband; and
that now--"
"Oh, then you have done wickedly! You have never loved him,
and yet you have sought his love, and worked on his feelings,
till his nature, which was kind, has grown fierce; and his
pale cheek has grown paler still. You have never loved him?
and yet you have made him forget every duty and every tie. You
have taken his heart from me, from his child, from his home,
and you value it not. In wantonness you have taken his love
and my happiness away--you have played with it and destroyed
it. Oh, Ellen, God have mercy upon you, for you are very
wicked!"
"I have been guilty, I have been wicked, Alice, but not in the
way you think. Believe me, there is a mystery in all this
which I dare not explain."
"Oh, yes; there has been a mystery in the air we breathe, in
the words we have all spoken to each other, in our lives, and
in our hearts. My grandmother trembles and turns pale when you
are named, or when your carriage drives by in the street; and
even now the colour forsakes your cheek, and your lips quiver
as I speak of her. Henry married _me_ an ignorant child--as I
have learnt since that men wed brides who are rich and noble,
for their rank and for their riches, without loving me or
trying to make me love him. He hates Robert Harding and curses
him in a low voice when we meet him, and yet he speaks to him
civilly, and offers him money which he spurns, and presents
which he refuses. You say you do not love Henry, you swear it,
and yet day after day you spend hours with him, and when he
has been absent from you, you have called him back. You have
written to him in secret, and turned pale when your letters
have been discovered. Oh, there is a deep and terrible mystery
in all this, and we have walked in darkness till we have
almost forgotten what light is."
I hid my face in my hands, overcome by the force of Alice's
words, and unable to meet the searching power of her glance.
There was a long deep silence between us, and then I rose to
go, and said to her as I did so, with my eyes fixed on the
ground, "You pray for your enemies, pray for me. You pray for
those who suffer in body and in mind--pray for me. You may
never learn how right and how wrong you have been to-day; but
you cannot be wrong in praying to God for me, for He has vexed
me with all His storms, all His waves have gone over me, and I
am well-nigh overwhelmed. My only hope is in the mercy of one
who has never yet showed mercy either to you or to me."
I left her, and never again have I seen that angel face, that
pale and blighted form, or heard the accents of her low and
solemn voice; but if there is a saint who pleads for me on
earth, or an angel who intercedes for me in Heaven, it is she
whose life I have blighted, and whose heart I have broken.