ACCEPTED.
When a man sets his happiness in the balance, he is apt to be contented
with a very slight turning of the scale. He is not likely to be
critical as to the wording of the verdict which gives him the prize he
has asked for.
Mr. Gilbert Monckton had no contemptible opinion of his own judgment
and deliberation, his perceptive faculties and powers of reasoning; but
as blindly as Macbeth accepted the promises of the oracular voices in
the witches’ cave, so did this grave and eminent lawyer receive those
few cold words in which Eleanor Vane consented to be his wife.
It was not that he refrained from reflecting upon the girl’s manner of
accepting his offer. He did reflect upon it; and proved to himself,
by unerring logic, that she could scarcely have spoken in any other
way. There were a thousand reasons why she should have employed those
very words, and pronounced them in that very tone. Maidenly modesty,
innocent surprise, inexperience, girlish timidity:—he ran over a whole
catalogue of causes, naming every possible cause, save one, and that
one was the thing he had most dreaded—indifference, or even repugnance
to himself. He looked into her face. His professional career had
given him the faculty of putting together the evidences of smiles and
frowns, involuntary contractions of the eyebrows, scarcely perceptible
compressions of the lips, every tone and semi-tone in the facial
diapason. He looked at Eleanor Vane’s face, and said to himself:
“This girl _cannot_ be mercenary. She is as pure as an angel; as
unselfish as Jephtha’s daughter; as brave as Judith, or Joan of Arc.
She _cannot_ be anything but a good wife. The man who wins her has
reason to thank God for his bounty.”
It was with such thoughts as these that the lawyer received the
feminine decision which was to influence his future life. He bent over
the girl’s fair head—tall as she was, her face was only on a level
with Gilbert Monckton’s shoulder—and pressed his lips to her forehead,
solemnly, almost as if setting a seal upon his own.
“My darling,” he said, in a low voice, “my darling, you have made
me very happy; I dare not tell you how much I love you. I struggled
against my love, Eleanor. I once meant to have kept the secret till I
went down to my grave. I think I could have kept silence so long as
you remained within my reach, protected and sheltered by people whom
I could trust, happy in the bright years of your innocent girlhood.
But when you left Hazlewood, when you went out into the world, my
courage failed. I wanted to give you my love as a shield and a defence.
Better that I should be deceived, I thought; better that I should be
miserable, than that she should be undefended.”
Eleanor Vane listened to the lawyer’s happy talk. He could have talked
to her for ever, now that the ice was broken, and the important step—so
long considered, so long avoided—actually taken. It seemed as if his
youth came back to him, bestowed by some miraculous power; invisible,
but most palpably present in that shabby Bloomsbury dwelling. His
youth came back; the intellectual cobwebs of twenty years were swept
away by one stroke of some benevolent witch’s broomstick. Cherished
prejudices, fondly nursed doubts and suspicions, were blotted out of
his mind, leaving the tablet fair and bright as it had been before the
coming of that shadow which had darkened so much of this man’s life.
Sudden almost as the conversion of Saul, was this transformation of the
misanthropical solicitor under the master influence of a true and pure
affection.
For twenty years he had sneered at women, and at men’s belief in them;
and now, at the end of twenty years, he believed; and, escaping out of
the prison which he had made for himself, he spread his recovered wings
and was free.
A sigh escaped from Eleanor’s lips as she listened to her lover. The
time in which she could have hoped to pay him back all this great
debt which he was heaping upon her, was past and gone. She felt a
sense of oppression beneath the load of this obligation. She began
to perceive—as yet only dimly, so intense was the egotism engendered
out of the single purpose of her life—that she was binding herself to
something that she might not be able to perform; she was taking upon
herself a debt that she could scarcely hope to pay. For a moment she
thought this, and was ready, under this new impulse, to draw back
and say, “I cannot become your wife; I am too much tied and bound
by the obligations of the past, to be able to fulfil the duties of
the present. I am set apart from other women, and must stand alone
until the task I have set myself is accomplished, or the hope of its
fulfilment abandoned.”
She thought this, and the words trembled on her lips; but in the next
moment the image of her father arose angry and reproachful, as if to
say to her, “Have you so little memory of my wrongs and my sorrows that
you can shrink from any means of avenging me?”
This idea banished every other consideration.
“I will keep my promise first, and do my duty to Gilbert Monckton
afterwards,” thought Eleanor. “It will be easy to be a good wife to
him. I used to like him very much.”
She recalled the old days in which she had sat a little way apart from
the lawyer and his ward, envying Laura Mason her apparent influence
over Mr. Monckton; and for a moment a faint thrill of pleasure and
triumph vibrated through her veins as she remembered that henceforth
her claim upon him would be higher than that of any other living
creature. He would be her own—her lover, her husband—adviser, friend,
instructor; everything in the wide world to her.
“Oh, let me avenge my father’s cruel death,” she thought, “and then I
may be a good and happy wife.”
Mr. Monckton could have stood for ever by the side of his betrothed
wife in the sunny window looking out upon the mews. The prospect of
the half-open stable doors; the lounging grooms smoking and drinking
in the intervals of their labour; the scantily draperied women hanging
out newly-washed linen, and making as it were triumphal arches of
wet garments across the narrow thoroughfare; the children playing
hop-scotch, or called away from that absorbing diversion to fetch damp
steaming quartern loaves and jugs of beer for their elders,—all these
things were beautiful in the eyes of the owner of Tolldale Priory. An
overplus of that sunshine which filled his own breast glorified these
common objects, and Mr. Monckton gazed upon the angular proportions of
the bony Roman-nosed horses, the classic outlines of decrepit Hansom
cabs, and all the other objects peculiar to the neighbourhood of the
Pilasters, with such a radiance of contentment and delight upon his
countenance as might have induced the observer, looking at the lawyer’s
face, and _not_ at the prospect, to believe that the bay of Naples was
spread out in purple splendour under the open window of Miss Vane’s
sitting-room.
Signora Picirillo returned from her day’s labours, and found Eleanor’s
visitor thus absorbed; but he understood directly who she was,
and greeted her with a cordiality that very much astonished the
music-mistress. Eleanor Vane slipped out of the room while Mr. Monckton
was explaining himself to the Signora. She was only too glad to get
away from the man to whom she had so rashly bound herself. She went to
the glass to brush her hair away from her hot forehead, and then threw
herself on the bed, prostrated by all the excitement she had undergone,
powerless even to think.
“I almost wish I could lie here for ever,” she thought: “it seems so
like peace to lie still and leave off thinking.” Her youth had held out
bravely against the burdens she had put upon her strength and spirits,
but the young energies had given way at last, and she fell into a heavy
dreamless slumber: a blessed and renovating sleep, from which nature
takes compensation for the wrongs that have been done her.
Gilbert Monckton told his story very briefly and simply. He had no
occasion to say much himself, for Eleanor had written a great deal
about him in her letters to the Signora, and had often talked of him
during her one holiday at the Pilasters.
Eliza Picirillo was too entirely unselfish to feel otherwise than
pleased at the idea that Eleanor Vane had won the love of a good man,
whose position in life would remove her from every danger and from
every trial. But, mingled with this unselfish delight, there was a
painful recollection. The music-mistress had fathomed her nephew’s
secret; and she felt that Eleanor’s marriage would be a sad blow to
Richard Thornton.
“I don’t believe poor Dick ever hoped to win her love,” Signora
Picirillo thought; “but if he could have gone on loving her and
admiring her, and associating with her, in a frank brotherly way, he
might have been happy. Perhaps it’s better as it is, though; perhaps
that very uncertainty might have blighted his life, and shut him out
from some possible happiness.”
“As my dear girl is an orphan,” Gilbert Monckton said, “I feel that
you, Madame Picirillo, are the only person I need consult. I have heard
from Eleanor how much she owes you; and believe me that when I ask her
to become my wife, I do not wish her to be less your adopted daughter.
She has told me that in the greatest miseries of her life, you were as
true a friend to her as her own mother could have been. She has never
told me what those miseries were, but I trust her so fully that I do
not care to torment her with questions about a past which she tells me
was sorrowful.”
Eliza Picirillo’s eyelids fell under the earnest gaze of the lawyer:
she remembered the deception that had been practised upon Mrs. Darrell
in deference to the pride of Eleanor’s half-sister.
“This Mr. Monckton must know Nelly’s story before he marries her,”
thought the straightforward Signora. She explained this to Eleanor the
next morning, when the girl rose, invigorated by a long sleep, and
inspired by a desperate hopefulness—the hope of speedily avenging her
father’s wrongs.
For some time Miss Vane passionately combated the Signora’s arguments.
Why should she tell Gilbert Monckton her real name? she demanded. She
wished to keep it a secret from Mr. de Crespigny: from the people at
Hazlewood. She must keep it a secret, she said.
But little by little Eliza Picirillo overcame this determination. She
explained to the passionate girl that if her marriage was to be legally
unassailable, she must be married in her true name. She explained this:
and she said a great deal about the moral wrong which would be done if
Eleanor persisted in deceiving her future husband.
The marriage was pushed on with terrible haste, as it seemed to Richard
Thornton and the Signora; but even the brief delay that occurred
between Gilbert Monckton’s declaration of his love and the day fixed
for the wedding was almost intolerable to Eleanor. The all-important
step which was to make her the lawyer’s wife seemed nothing to her.
She ignored this great crisis of her life altogether, in her desire
to return to Hazlewood, to discover and denounce Launcelot Darrell’s
treachery before Maurice de Crespigny’s death.
There were preparations to be made, and a trousseau to be provided. It
was a very simple trousseau, fitter for the bride of some young curate
with seventy pounds a year, than for a lady who was to be mistress
of Tolldale Priory. Eleanor took no interest in the pretty girlish
dresses, pale and delicate in colour, simple and inexpensive in texture
and fashion, which the Signora chose for her protégée. There was a
settlement to be drawn up also; for Gilbert Monckton insisted upon
treating his betrothed as generously as if she had been a woman of
distinction, with an aristocratic father to bargain and diplomatize for
her welfare; but Eleanor was as indifferent to the settlement as about
the trousseau, and could scarcely be made to understand that, on and
after her wedding-day, she would be the exclusive possessor of a small
landed estate worth three hundred a year.
Once, and once only, she thanked Gilbert Monckton for his generosity;
and this was when, for the first time, the thought flashed into her
mind, that this three hundred a year, to which she was so indifferent,
would enable her to place Eliza Picirillo in a position of independence.
“Dear Signora,” she cried, “you shall never work after I am married.
How good it is of you to give me this money, Mr. Monckton,” she added,
her eyes filling with sudden tears; “I will try to deserve your
goodness, I will indeed.”
It was upon the evening on which Eleanor spoke these few grateful and
earnest words to her betrothed husband, that the revelation of her
secret was made.
“I am going to Doctors’ Commons to-morrow morning, Signora,” the lawyer
said, as he rose to leave the little sitting-room—he had spent his
evenings in the Pilasters during his brief courtship, perfectly at home
and unspeakably happy in that shabby and Bohemian colony. “Eleanor and
I have determined that our marriage is to take place at St. George’s,
Bloomsbury. It is to be a very quiet wedding. My two partners,
yourself, and Mr. Thornton, are to be the only witnesses. The Berkshire
people will be surprised when I take my young wife back to Tolldale.”
He was going away, when the Signora laid her hands on Eleanor’s
shoulder.
“You _must_ tell him to-night, Nelly,” she whispered; “he must not be
allowed to take out the license in a false name.”
The girl bent her head.
“I will do as you wish, Signora,” she said.
Five minutes afterwards, when Gilbert Monckton gave Eleanor his hand,
she said, quietly:
“Do not say good night yet. I will come down stairs with you; I have
something to say to you.”
She went down the narrow staircase, and out into the colonnade with
Mr. Monckton. It was ten o’clock; the shops were closed, and the
public-house was quiet. Under the August moonlight the shabby tenements
looked less commonplace, the dilapidated wooden colonnade was almost
picturesque. Miss Vane stood with her face turned frankly towards her
lover, her figure resting slightly against one of the slender pillars
before the shoemaker’s emporium.
“What is it that you want to tell me, Eleanor dearest?” Mr. Monckton
asked, as she paused, looking half-doubtfully in his face, uncertain
what she should say to him.
“I want to tell you that I have done very wrong—I have deceived you.”
“Deceived me! Eleanor! Eleanor!”
She saw the lawyer’s face turn pale under the moonlight. That word
deception had such a terrible meaning to him.
“Yes, I have deceived you. I have kept a secret from you, and I can
only tell it to you upon one condition.”
“Upon what condition?”
“That you do not tell it to Mr. de Crespigny, or to Mrs. Darrell, until
you have my permission to do so.”
Gilbert Monckton smiled. His sudden fears fled away before the
truthfulness of the girl’s voice, the earnestness of her manner.
“Not tell Mr. de Crespigny, or Mrs. Darrell?” he said; “of course not,
my dear. Why should I tell them anything which concerns you, and that
you wish me to keep from them?”
“You promise, then?”
“Most certainly.”
“You give me your solemn promise that you will not tell Mr. de
Crespigny, or any member of his family, the secret which I am going to
confide to you; under no circumstances whatever will you be tempted to
break that promise?”
“Why, Nelly,” cried Mr. Monckton, “you are as serious as if you were
the chief of a political society, about to administer some terrible
oath to a neophyte. I shall not break my promise, my dear, believe
me. My profession has accustomed me to keeping secrets. What is it,
Eleanor; what is this tremendous mystery?”
Miss Vane lifted her eyes, and looked full in her lover’s face, upon
the watch for any change of expression that might indicate displeasure
or contempt. She was very fearful of losing the lawyer’s confidence and
esteem.
“When I went to Hazlewood,” she said, “I went in a false name, not at
my own wish, but to please my sister, who did not want Mrs. Darrell to
know that any member of her family could be in a dependent position.
My name is not Vincent. I am Eleanor Vane, the daughter of Mr. de
Crespigny’s old friend.”
Gilbert Monckton’s astonishment was unbounded. He had heard George
Vane’s history from Mrs. Darrell, but he had never heard of the birth
of the old man’s youngest daughter.
“Eleanor Vane?” he said; “then Mrs. Bannister is your sister.”
“She is my half-sister, and it was at her wish that I went to Hazlewood
under a false name. You are not angry with me for having done so, are
you?”
“Angry with you? No, my dear, the deception was harmless enough; though
it was a piece of foolish pride upon your sister’s part. My Eleanor was
in no way degraded by having to turn her accomplishments to use and
profit. My poor, self-reliant girl,” he added, tenderly, “going out
into the world with a secret to keep. But why do you wish this secret
to be still preserved, Eleanor; you are not ashamed of your father’s
name?”
“Ashamed of his name? Oh, no, no!”
“Why keep your real name a secret, then?”
“I can’t tell you why. But you’ll keep your promise. You are too
honourable to break your promise.”
Mr. Monckton looked wonderingly at the girl’s earnest face.
“No, my dear, I won’t break my promise,” he said. “But I can’t
understand your anxiety for this concealment. However, we will say
nothing more about it, Nelly,” he added, as if in reply to an appealing
look from Miss Vane; “your name will be Monckton when you go back to
Berkshire; and nobody will dare to question your right to that name.”
The lawyer put his lips to the girl’s forehead, and bade her good night
upon the threshold of the shoemaker’s door.
“God bless you, my own darling!” he said, in a very low voice, “and
preserve our faith in each other. There must be no secrets between you
and me, Nelly.”