“Paradise Place, July 27th.
“I have just got your last letter. The brazen impudence of it has roused
me. I am to be treated like a child, am I?--to be threatened first, and
then, if threatening fails, to be coaxed afterward? You _shall_ coax me;
you shall know, my motherly friend, the sort of child you have to deal
with.
“I had a reason, Mrs. Oldershaw, for the silence which has so seriously
offended you. I was afraid--actually afraid--to let you into the secret
of my thoughts. No such fear troubles me now. My only anxiety this
morning is to make you my best acknowledgments for the manner in which
you have written to me. After carefully considering it, I think the
worst turn I can possibly do you is to tell you what you are burning to
know. So here I am at my desk, bent on telling it. If you don’t bitterly
repent, when you are at the end of this letter, not having held to your
first resolution, and locked me up out of harm’s way while you had the
chance, my name is not Lydia Gwilt.
“Where did my last letter end? I don’t remember, and don’t care. Make it
out as you can--I am not going back any further than this day week. That
is to say, Sunday last.
“There was a thunder-storm in the morning. It began to clear off toward
noon. I didn’t go out: I waited to see Midwinter or to hear from him.
(Are you surprised at my not writing ‘Mr.’ before his name? We have got
so familiar, my dear, that ‘Mr.’ would be quite out of place.) He had
left me the evening before, under very interesting circumstances. I had
told him that his friend Armadale was persecuting me by means of a hired
spy. He had declined to believe it, and had gone straight to Thorpe
Ambrose to clear the thing up. I let him kiss my hand before he went. He
promised to come back the next day (the Sunday). I felt I had secured my
influence over him; and I believed he would keep his word.
“Well, the thunder passed away as I told you. The weather cleared up;
the people walked out in their best clothes; the dinners came in from
the bakers; I sat dreaming at my wretched little hired piano, nicely
dressed and looking my best--and still no Midwinter appeared. It was
late in the afternoon, and I was beginning to feel offended, when a
letter was brought to me. It had been left by a strange messenger
who went away again immediately. I looked at the letter. Midwinter at
last--in writing, instead of in person. I began to feel more offended
than ever; for, as I told you, I thought I had used my influence over
him to better purpose.
“The letter, when I read it, set my mind off in a new direction. It
surprised, it puzzled, it interested me. I thought, and thought, and
thought of him, all the rest of the day.
“He began by asking my pardon for having doubted what I told him. Mr.
Armadale’s own lips had confirmed me. They had quarreled (as I had
anticipated they would); and he, and the man who had once been
his dearest friend on earth, had parted forever. So far, I was not
surprised. I was amused by his telling me in his extravagant way that he
and his friend were parted forever; and I rather wondered what he would
think when I carried out my plan, and found my way into the great house
on pretense of reconciling them.
“But the second part of the letter set me thinking. Here it is, in his
own words.
“‘It is only by struggling against myself (and no language can say how
hard the struggle has been) that I have decided on writing, instead of
speaking to you. A merciless necessity claims my future life. I must
leave Thorpe Ambrose, I must leave England, without hesitating, without
stopping to look back. There are reasons--terrible reasons, which I have
madly trifled with--for my never letting Mr. Armadale set eyes on me, or
hear of me again, after what has happened between us. I must go, never
more to live under the same roof, never more to breathe the same air
with that man. I must hide myself from him under an assumed name; I
must put the mountains and the seas between us. I have been warned as
no human creature was ever warned before. I believe--I dare not tell you
why--I believe that, if the fascination you have for me draws me back to
you, fatal consequences will come of it to the man whose life has been
so strangely mingled with your life and mine--the man who was once
_your_ admirer and _my_ friend. And yet, feeling this, seeing it in my
mind as plainly as I see the sky above my head, there is a weakness in
me that still shrinks from the one imperative sacrifice of never seeing
you again. I am fighting with it as a man fights with the strength of
his despair. I have been near enough, not an hour since, to see the
house where you live, and have forced myself away again out of sight
of it. Can I force myself away further still, now that my letter is
written--now, when the useless confession escapes me, and I own to
loving you with the first love I have ever known, with the last love
I shall ever feel? Let the coming time answer the question; I dare not
write of it or think of it more.’
“Those were the last words. In that strange way the letter ended.
“I felt a perfect fever of curiosity to know what he meant. His loving
me, of course, was easy enough to understand. But what did he mean by
saying he had been warned? Why was he never to live under the same roof,
never to breathe the same air again, with young Armadale? What sort of
quarrel could it be which obliged one man to hide himself from another
under an assumed name, and to put the mountains and the seas between
them? Above all, if he came back, and let me fascinate him, why should
it be fatal to the hateful lout who possesses the noble fortune and
lives in the great house?
“I never longed in my life as I longed to see him again and put these
questions to him. I got quite superstitious about it as the day drew on.
They gave me a sweet-bread and a cherry pudding for dinner. I actually
tried if he would come back by the stones in the plate! He will, he
won’t, he will, he won’t--and so on. It ended in ‘He won’t.’ I rang
the bell, and had the things taken away. I contradicted Destiny quite
fiercely. I said, ‘He will!’ and I waited at home for him.
“You don’t know what a pleasure it is to me to give you all these little
particulars. Count up--my bosom friend, my second mother--count up the
money you have advanced on the chance of my becoming Mrs. Armadale, and
then think of my feeling this breathless interest in another man. Oh,
Mrs. Oldershaw, how intensely I enjoy the luxury of irritating you!
“The day got on toward evening. I rang again, and sent down to borrow a
railway time-table. What trains were there to take him away on Sunday?
The national respect for the Sabbath stood my friend. There was only
one train, which had started hours before he wrote to me. I went and
consulted my glass. It paid me the compliment of contradicting
the divination by cherry-stones. My glass said: ‘Get behind the
window-curtain; he won’t pass the long lonely evening without coming
back again to look at the house.’ I got behind the window-curtain, and
waited with his letter in my hand.
“The dismal Sunday light faded, and the dismal Sunday quietness in the
street grew quieter still. The dusk came, and I heard a step coming with
it in the silence. My heart gave a little jump--only think of my having
any heart left! I said to myself: ‘Midwinter!’ And Midwinter it was.
“When he came in sight he was walking slowly, stopping and hesitating at
every two or three steps. My ugly little drawing-room window seemed to
be beckoning him on in spite of himself. After waiting till I saw him
come to a standstill, a little aside from the house, but still within
view of my irresistible window, I put on my things and slipped out
by the back way into the garden. The landlord and his family were at
supper, and nobody saw me. I opened the door in the wall, and got
round by the lane into the street. At that awkward moment I suddenly
remembered, what I had forgotten before, the spy set to watch me, who
was, no doubt, waiting somewhere in sight of the house.
“It was necessary to get time to think, and it was (in my state of
mind) impossible to let Midwinter go without speaking to him. In great
difficulties you generally decide at once, if you decide at all. I
decided to make an appointment with him for the next evening, and to
consider in the interval how to manage the interview so that it might
escape observation. This, as I felt at the time, was leaving my own
curiosity free to torment me for four-and-twenty mortal hours; but what
other choice had I? It was as good as giving up being mistress of Thorpe
Ambrose altogether, to come to a private understanding with Midwinter in
the sight and possibly in the hearing of Armadale’s spy.
“Finding an old letter of yours in my pocket, I drew back into the lane,
and wrote on the blank leaf, with the little pencil that hangs at my
watch-chain: ‘I must and will speak to you. It is impossible to-night,
but be in the street to-morrow at this time, and leave me afterward
forever, if you like. When you have read this, overtake me, and say as
you pass, without stopping or looking round, “Yes, I promise.”’
“I folded up the paper, and came on him suddenly from behind. As he
started and turned round, I put the note into his hand, pressed his
hand, and passed on. Before I had taken ten steps I heard him behind me.
I can’t say he didn’t look round--I saw his big black eyes, bright and
glittering in the dusk, devour me from head to foot in a moment;
but otherwise he did what I told him. ‘I can deny you nothing,’ he
whispered; ‘I promise.’ He went on and left me. I couldn’t help thinking
at the time how that brute and booby Armadale would have spoiled
everything in the same situation.
“I tried hard all night to think of a way of making our interview of the
next evening safe from discovery, and tried in vain. Even as early
as this, I began to feel as if Midwinter’s letter had, in some
unaccountable manner, stupefied me.
“Monday morning made matters worse. News came from my faithful ally,
Mr. Bashwood, that Miss Milroy and Armadale had met and become friends
again. You may fancy the state I was in! An hour or two later there came
more news from Mr. Bashwood--good news this time. The mischievous
idiot at Thorpe Ambrose had shown sense enough at last to be ashamed of
himself. He had decided on withdrawing the spy that very day, and he and
his lawyer had quarreled in consequence.
“So here was the obstacle which I was too stupid to remove for myself
obligingly removed for me! No more need to fret about the coming
interview with Midwinter; and plenty of time to consider my next
proceedings, now that Miss Milroy and her precious swain had come
together again. Would you believe it, the letter, or the man himself (I
don’t know which), had taken such a hold on me that, though I tried and
tried, I could think of nothing else; and this when I had every reason
to fear that Miss Milroy was in a fair way of changing her name to
Armadale, and when I knew that my heavy debt of obligation to her was
not paid yet? Was there ever such perversity? I can’t account for it;
can you?
“The dusk of the evening came at last. I looked out of the window--and
there he was!
“I joined him at once; the people of the house, as before, being too
much absorbed in their eating and drinking to notice anything else. ‘We
mustn’t be seen together here,’ I whispered. ‘I must go on first, and
you must follow me.’
“He said nothing in the way of reply. What was going on in his mind
I can’t pretend to guess; but, after coming to his appointment, he
actually hung back as if he was half inclined to go away again.
“‘You look as if you were afraid of me,’ I said.
“‘I _am_ afraid of you,’ he answered--‘of you, and of myself.’
“It was not encouraging; it was not complimentary. But I was in such
a frenzy of curiosity by this time that, if he had been ruder still, I
should have taken no notice of it. I led the way a few steps toward the
new buildings, and stopped and looked round after him.
“‘Must I ask it of you as a favor,’ I said, ‘after your giving me your
promise, and after such a letter as you have written to me?’
“Something suddenly changed him; he was at my side in an instant. ‘I beg
your pardon, Miss Gwilt; lead the way where you please.’ He dropped back
a little after that answer, and I heard him say to himself, ‘What _is_
to be _will_ be. What have I to do with it, and what has she?’
“It could hardly have been the words, for I didn’t understand them--it
must have been the tone he spoke in, I suppose, that made me feel a
momentary tremor. I was half inclined, without the ghost of a reason for
it, to wish him good-night, and go in again. Not much like me, you will
say. Not much, indeed! It didn’t last a moment. Your darling Lydia soon
came to her senses again.
“I led the way toward the unfinished cottages, and the country beyond.
It would have been much more to my taste to have had him into the house,
and have talked to him in the light of the candles. But I had risked it
once already; and in this scandal-mongering place, and in my critical
position, I was afraid to risk it again. The garden was not to be
thought of either, for the landlord smokes his pipe there after his
supper. There was no alternative but to take him away from the town.
“From time to time, I looked back as I went on. There he was, always at
the same distance, dim and ghost-like in the dusk, silently following
me.
“I must leave off for a little while. The church bells have broken out,
and the jangling of them drives me mad. In these days, when we have
all got watches and clocks, why are bells wanted to remind us when
the service begins? We don’t require to be rung into the theater. How
excessively discreditable to the clergy to be obliged to ring us into
the church!”
----------
“They have rung the congregation in at last; and I can take up my pen,
and go on again.
“I was a little in doubt where to lead him to. The high-road was on one
side of me; but, empty as it looked, somebody might be passing when
we least expected it. The other way was through the coppice. I led him
through the coppice.
“At the outskirts of the trees, on the other side, there was a dip
in the ground with some felled timber lying on it, and a little
pool beyond, still and white and shining in the twilight. The long
grazing-grounds rose over its further shore, with the mist thickening on
them, and a dim black line far away of cattle in slow procession going
home. There wasn’t a living creature near; there wasn’t a sound to be
heard. I sat down on one of the felled trees and looked back for him.
‘Come,’ I said, softly--‘come and sit by me here.’
“Why am I so particular about all this? I hardly know. The place made an
unaccountably vivid impression on me, and I can’t help writing about
it. If I end badly--suppose we say on the scaffold?--I believe the last
thing I shall see, before the hangman pulls the drop, will be the
little shining pool, and the long, misty grazing-grounds, and the cattle
winding dimly home in the thickening night. Don’t be alarmed, you worthy
creature! My fancies play me strange tricks sometimes; and there is a
little of last night’s laudanum, I dare say, in this part of my letter.
“He came--in the strangest silent way, like a man walking in his
sleep--he came and sat down by me. Either the night was very close, or
I was by this time literally in a fever: I couldn’t bear my bonnet on;
I couldn’t bear my gloves. The want to look at him, and see what
his singular silence meant, and the impossibility of doing it in the
darkening light, irritated my nerves, till I thought I should have
screamed. I took his hand, to try if that would help me. It was burning
hot; and it closed instantly on mine--you know how. Silence, after
_that_, was not to be thought of. The one safe way was to begin talking
to him at once.
“‘Don’t despise me,’ I said. ‘I am obliged to bring you to this lonely
place; I should lose my character if we were seen together.’
“I waited a little. His hand warned me once more not to let the silence
continue. I determined to _make_ him speak to me this time.
“‘You have interested me, and frightened me,’ I went on. ‘You have
written me a very strange letter. I must know what it means.’
“‘It is too late to ask. _You_ have taken the way, and _I_ have taken
the way, from which there is no turning back.’ He made that strange
answer in a tone that was quite new to me--a tone that made me even more
uneasy than his silence had made me the moment before. ‘Too late,’ he
repeated--‘too late! There is only one question to ask me now.’
“‘What is it?’
“As I said the words, a sudden trembling passed from his hand to mine,
and told me instantly that I had better have held my tongue. Before I
could move, before I could think, he had me in his arms. ‘Ask me if I
love you,’ he whispered. At the same moment his head sank on my bosom;
and some unutterable torture that was in him burst its way out, as it
does with _us_, in a passion of sobs and tears.
“My first impulse was the impulse of a fool. I was on the point of
making our usual protest and defending myself in our usual way. Luckily
or unluckily, I don’t know which, I have lost the fine edge of the
sensitiveness of youth; and I checked the first movement of my hands,
and the first word on my lips. Oh, dear, how old I felt, while he was
sobbing his heart out on my breast! How I thought of the time when he
might have possessed himself of my love! All he had possessed himself of
now was--my waist.
“I wonder whether I pitied him? It doesn’t matter if I did. At any rate,
my hand lifted itself somehow, and my fingers twined themselves softly
in his hair. Horrible recollections came back to me of other times, and
made me shudder as I touched him. And yet I did it. What fools women
are!
“‘I won’t reproach you,’ I said, gently. ‘I won’t say this is a cruel
advantage to take of me, in such a position as mine. You are dreadfully
agitated; I will let you wait a little and compose yourself.’
“Having got as far as that, I stopped to consider how I should put the
questions to him that I was burning to ask. But I was too confused,
I suppose, or perhaps too impatient to consider. I let out what was
uppermost in my mind, in the words that came first.
“‘I don’t believe you love me,’ I said. ‘You write strange things to
me; you frighten me with mysteries. What did you mean by saying in your
letter that it would be fatal to Mr. Armadale if you came back to me?
What danger can there be to Mr. Armadale--?’
“Before I could finish the question, he suddenly lifted his head and
unclasped his arms. I had apparently touched some painful subject which
recalled him to himself. Instead of my shrinking from _him_, it was he
who shrank from _me_. I felt offended with him; why, I don’t know--but
offended I was; and I thanked him with my bitterest emphasis for
remembering what was due to me, _at last_!
“‘Do you believe in Dreams?’ he burst out, in the most strangely abrupt
manner, without taking the slightest notice of what I had said to him.
‘Tell me,’ he went on, without allowing me time to answer, ‘were you, or
was any relation of yours, ever connected with Allan Armadale’s father
or mother? Were you, or was anybody belonging to you, ever in the island
of Madeira?’
“Conceive my astonishment, if you can. I turned cold. In an instant I
turned cold all over. He was plainly in the secret of what had happened
when I was in Mrs. Armadale’s service in Madeira--in all probability
before he was born! That was startling enough of itself. And he had
evidently some reason of his own for trying to connect _me_ with those
events--which was more startling still.
“‘No,’ I said, as soon as I could trust myself to speak. ‘I know nothing
of his father or mother.’
“‘And nothing of the island of Madeira?’
“‘Nothing of the island of Madeira.’
“He turned his head away, and began talking to himself.
“‘Strange!’ he said. ‘As certainly as I was in the Shadow’s place at the
window, _she_ was in the Shadow’s place at the pool!’
“Under other circumstances, his extraordinary behavior might have
alarmed me. But after his question about Madeira, there was some greater
fear in me which kept all common alarm at a distance. I don’t think I
ever determined on anything in my life as I determined on finding out
how he had got his information, and who he really was. It was quite
plain to me that I had roused some hidden feeling in him by my question
about Armadale, which was as strong in its way as his feeling for _me_.
What had become of my influence over him?
“I couldn’t imagine what had become of it; but I could and did set to
work to make him feel it again.
“‘Don’t treat me cruelly,’ I said; ‘I didn’t treat _you_ cruelly just
now. Oh, Mr. Midwinter, it’s so lonely, it’s so dark--don’t frighten
me!’
“‘Frighten you!’ He was close to me again in a moment. ‘Frighten you!’
He repeated the word with as much astonishment as if I had woke him from
a dream, and charged him with something that he had said in his sleep.
“It was on the tip of my tongue, finding how I had surprised him, to
take him while he was off his guard, and to ask why my question about
Armadale had produced such a change in his behavior to me. But after
what had happened already, I was afraid to risk returning to the
subject too soon. Something or other--what they call an instinct, I dare
say--warned me to let Armadale alone for the present, and to talk to
him first about himself. As I told you in one of my early letters, I had
noticed signs and tokens in his manner and appearance which convinced
me, young as he was, that he had done something or suffered something
out of the common in his past life. I had asked myself more and more
suspiciously every time I saw him whether he was what he appeared to be;
and first and foremost among my other doubts was a doubt whether he was
passing among us by his real name. Having secrets to keep about my own
past life, and having gone myself in other days by more than one assumed
name, I suppose I am all the readier to suspect other people when I find
something mysterious about them. Any way, having the suspicion in
my mind, I determined to startle him, as he had startled me, by an
unexpected question on my side--a question about his name.
“While I was thinking, he was thinking; and, as it soon appeared, of
what I had just said to him. ‘I am so grieved to have frightened you,’
he whispered, with that gentleness and humility which we all so heartily
despise in a man when he speaks to other women, and which we all so
dearly like when he speaks to ourselves. ‘I hardly know what I have been
saying,’ he went on; ‘my mind is miserably disturbed. Pray forgive me,
if you can; I am not myself to-night.’
“‘I am not angry,’ I said; ‘I have nothing to forgive. We are both
imprudent; we are both unhappy.’ I laid my head on his shoulder. ‘Do you
really love me?’ I asked him, softly, in a whisper.
“His arm stole round me again; and I felt the quick beat of his heart
get quicker and quicker. ‘If you only knew!’ he whispered back; ‘if you
only knew--’ He could say no more. I felt his face bending toward mine,
and dropped my head lower, and stopped him in the very act of kissing
me.
“‘No,’ I said; ‘I am only a woman who has taken your fancy. You are
treating me as if I was your promised wife.’
“‘_Be_ my promised wife!’ he whispered, eagerly, and tried to raise my
head. I kept it down. The horror of these old remembrances that you know
of came back and made me tremble a little when he asked me to be his
wife. I don’t think I was actually faint; but something like faintness
made me close my eyes. The moment I shut them, the darkness seemed to
open as if lightning had split it; and the ghosts of _those other men_
rose in the horrid gap, and looked at me.
“‘Speak to me!’ he whispered, tenderly. ‘My darling, my angel, speak to
me!’
“His voice helped me to recover myself. I had just sense enough left to
remember that the time was passing, and that I had not put my question
to him yet about his name.
“‘Suppose I felt for you as you feel for me?’ I said. ‘Suppose I loved
you dearly enough to trust you with the happiness of all my life to
come?’
“I paused a moment to get my breath. It was unbearably still and close;
the air seemed to have died when the night came.
“‘Would you be marrying me honorably,’ I went on, ‘if you married me in
your present name?’
“His arm dropped from my waist, and I felt him give one great start.
After that he sat by me, still, and cold, and silent, as if my question
had struck him dumb. I put my arm round his neck, and lifted my head
again on his shoulder. Whatever the spell was I had laid on him, my
coming closer in that way seemed to break it.
“‘Who told you?’ He stopped. ‘No,’ he went on, ‘nobody can have told
you. What made you suspect--?’ He stopped again.
“‘Nobody told me,’ I said; ‘and I don’t know what made me suspect. Women
have strange fancies sometimes. Is Midwinter really your name?’
“‘I can’t deceive you,’ he answered, after another interval of silence;
‘Midwinter is _not_ really my name.’
“I nestled a little closer to him.
“‘What _is_ your name?’ I asked.
“He hesitated.
“I lifted my face till my cheek just touched his. I persisted, with my
lips close at his ear:
“‘What, no confidence in me even yet! No confidence in the woman who
has almost confessed she loves you--who has almost consented to be your
wife!’
“He turned his face to mine. For the second time he tried to kiss me,
and for the second time I stopped him.
“‘If I tell you my name,’ he said, ‘I must tell you more.’
“I let my cheek touch his again.
“‘Why not?’ I said. ‘How can I love a man--much less marry him--if he
keeps himself a stranger to me?’
“There was no answering that, as I thought. But he did answer it.
“‘It is a dreadful story,’ he said. ‘It may darken all your life, if you
know it, as it has darkened mine.’
“I put my other arm round him, and persisted. ‘Tell it me; I’m not
afraid; tell it me.’
“He began to yield to my other arm.
“‘Will you keep it a sacred secret?’ he said. ‘Never to be
breathed--never to be known but to you and me?’
“I promised him it should be a secret. I waited in a perfect frenzy of
expectation. Twice he tried to begin, and twice his courage failed him.
“‘I can’t!’ he broke out in a wild, helpless way. ‘I can’t tell it!’
“My curiosity, or more likely my temper, got beyond all control. He had
irritated me till I was reckless what I said or what I did. I suddenly
clasped him close, and pressed my lips to his. ‘I love you!’ I whispered
in a kiss. ‘_Now_ will you tell me?’
“For the moment he was speechless. I don’t know whether I did it
purposely to drive him wild. I don’t know whether I did it involuntarily
in a burst of rage. Nothing is certain but that I interpreted his
silence the wrong way. I pushed him back from me in a fury the instant
after I had kissed him. ‘I hate you!’ I said. ‘You have maddened me into
forgetting myself. Leave me. I don’t care for the darkness. Leave me
instantly, and never see me again!’
“He caught me by the hand and stopped me. He spoke in a new voice; he
suddenly _commanded_, as only men can.
“‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘You have given me back my courage--you shall know
who I am.’
“In the silence and the darkness all round us, I obeyed him, and sat
down.
“In the silence and the darkness all round us, he took me in his arms
again, and told me who he was.”
----------
“Shall I trust you with his story? Shall I tell you his real name? Shall
I show you, as I threatened, the thoughts that have grown out of my
interview with him and out of all that has happened to me since that
time?
“Or shall I keep his secret as I promised? and keep my own secret too,
by bringing this weary, long letter to an end at the very moment when
you are burning to hear more!
“Those are serious questions, Mrs. Oldershaw--more serious than you
suppose. I have had time to calm down, and I begin to see, what I
failed to see when I first took up my pen to write to you, the wisdom of
looking at consequences. Have I frightened myself in trying to frighten
_you_? It is possible--strange as it may seem, it is really possible.
“I have been at the window for the last minute or two, thinking. There
is plenty of time for thinking before the post leaves. The people are
only now coming out of church.
“I have settled to put my letter on one side, and to take a look at my
diary. In plainer words I must see what I risk if I decide on trusting
you; and my diary will show me what my head is too weary to calculate
without help. I have written the story of my days (and sometimes the
story of my nights) much more regularly than usual for the last week,
having reasons of my own for being particularly careful in this respect
under present circumstances. If I end in doing what it is now in my
mind to do, it would be madness to trust to my memory. The smallest
forgetfulness of the slightest event that has happened from the night of
my interview with Midwinter to the present time might be utter ruin to
me.
“‘Utter ruin to her!’ you will say. ‘What kind of ruin does she mean?’
“Wait a little, till I have asked my diary whether I can safely tell
you.”