Once More at Portray
On the very day of the trial Mr. Emilius travelled from London to
Kilmarnock. The trial took place on a Monday, so that he had at his
command an entire week before he would be required to appear again
in his church. He had watched the case against Benjamin and Smiler
very closely, and had known beforehand, almost with accuracy, what
witnesses would appear and what would not at the great coming event
at the Old Bailey. When he first heard of Lady Eustace's illness, he
wrote to her a most affectionately pastoral letter, strongly adjuring
her to think of her health before all things, and assuring her that
in his opinion, and in that of all his friends, she was quite right
not to come up to London. She wrote him a very short but a very
gracious answer, thanking him for his solicitude, and explaining to
him that her condition made it quite impossible that she should leave
Portray.
"I don't suppose anybody knows how ill I am; but it does not matter.
When I am gone, they will know what they have done." Then Mr. Emilius
resolved that he would go down to Scotland. Perhaps Lady Eustace was
not as ill as she thought; but it might be that the trial, and the
hard things lately said of her, and her loneliness, and the feeling
that she needed protection, might, at such a moment as this, soften
her heart. She should know at least that one tender friend did not
desert her because of the evil things which men said of her.
He went to Kilmarnock, thinking it better to make his approaches
by degrees. Were he to present himself at once at the castle and
be refused admittance, he would hardly know how to repeat his
application or to force himself upon her presence. From Kilmarnock he
wrote to her, saying that business connected with his ministrations
during the coming autumn had brought him into her beautiful
neighbourhood, and that he could not leave it without paying his
respects to her in person. With her permission he would call upon
her on the Thursday at about noon. He trusted that the state of her
health would not prevent her from seeing him, and reminded her that
a clergyman was often as welcome a visitor at the bedside of the
invalid, as the doctor or the nurse. He gave her no address, as he
rather wished to hinder her from answering him, but at the appointed
hour he knocked at the castle-door.
Need it be said that Lizzie's state of health was not such as to
preclude her from seeing so intimate a friend as Mr. Emilius? That
she was right to avoid by any effort the castigation which was to
have fallen upon her from the tongue of the learned serjeant, the
reader who is not straight-laced will be disposed to admit. A lone
woman, very young, and delicately organised! How could she have stood
up against such treatment as was in store for her? And is it not the
case that false pretexts against public demands are always held to be
justifiable by the female mind? What lady will ever scruple to avoid
her taxes? What woman ever understood her duty to the State? And this
duty which was required of her was so terrible, that it might well
have reduced to falsehood a stouter heart than her own. It can hardly
be reckoned among Lizzie's great sins that she did not make that
journey up to London. An appearance of sickness she did maintain,
even with her own domestics. To do as much as that was due even to
the doctor whom she had cajoled out of the certificate, and who
was afterwards frightened into maintaining it. But Mr. Emilius was
her clergyman,--her own clergyman, as she took care to say to her
maid,--her own clergyman, who had come all the way from London to be
present with her in her sickness; and of course she would see him.
Lizzie did not think much of the coming autumnal ministration at
Kilmarnock. She knew very well why Mr. Emilius had undertaken the
expense of a journey into Scotland in the middle of the London
season. She had been maimed fearfully in her late contests with the
world, and was now lame and soiled and impotent. The boy with none of
the equipments of the skilled sportsman can make himself master of
a wounded bird. Mr. Emilius was seeking her in the moment of her
weakness, fearing that all chance of success might be over for him
should she ever again recover the full use of her wings. All this
Lizzie understood, and was able to measure Mr. Emilius at his own
value of himself. But then, again, she was forced to ask herself what
was her value. She had been terribly mauled by the fowlers. She had
been hit, so to say, on both wings, and hardly knew whether she would
ever again be able to attempt a flight in public. She could not live
alone in Portray Castle for the rest of her days. Ianthe's soul and
the Corsair were not, in truth, able to console her for the loss of
society. She must have somebody to depend upon;--ah, some one whom,
if it were possible, she might love. She saw no reason why she should
not love Mr. Emilius. She had been shockingly ill-treated by Lord
Fawn, and the Corsair, and Frank Greystock. No woman had ever been so
knocked about in her affections. She pitied herself with an exceeding
pity when she thought of all the hardships which she had endured.
Left an early widow, persecuted by her husband's family, twice
robbed, spied upon by her own servants, unappreciated by the world at
large, ill-used by three lovers, victimised by her selected friend,
Mrs. Carbuncle, and now driven out of society because she had lost
her diamonds, was she not more cruelly treated than any woman of whom
she had ever read or heard? But she was not going to give up the
battle, even now. She still had her income, and she had great faith
in income. And though she knew that she had been grievously wounded
by the fowlers, she believed that time would heal her wounds. The
world would not continue to turn its back altogether upon a woman
with four thousand pounds a year, because she had told a fib about
her necklace. She weighed all this; but the conviction strongest upon
her mind was the necessity that she should have a husband. She felt
that a woman by herself in the world can do nothing, and that an
unmarried woman's strength lies only in the expectation that she may
soon be married. To her it was essentially necessary that she should
have the protection of a husband who might endure on her behalf some
portion of those buffetings to which she seemed to be especially
doomed. Could she do better with herself than take Mr. Emilius?
Might she have chosen from all the world, Mr. Emilius was not,
perhaps, the man whom she would have selected. There were, indeed,
attributes in the man, very objectionable in the sight of some
people, which to her were not specially disagreeable. She thought him
rather good-looking than otherwise, in spite of a slight defect in
his left eye. His coal-black, glossy hair commanded and obtained her
admiration, and she found his hooky nose to be handsome. She did not
think much of the ancestral blood of which he had boasted, and hardly
believed that he would ever become a bishop. But he was popular, and
with a rich, titled wife, might become more so. Mr. Emilius and Lady
Eustace would, she thought, sound very well, and would surely make
their way in society. The man had a grasping ambition about him,
and a capacity, too, which, combined, would enable him to preach
himself into notoriety. And then in marrying Mr. Emilius, should she
determine to do so, she might be sure, almost sure, of dictating her
own terms as to settlement. With Lord Fawn, with Lord George, or even
with her cousin Frank, there would have been much difficulty. She
thought that with Mr. Emilius she might obtain the undisputed command
of her own income. But she did not quite make up her mind. She would
see him and hear what he had to say. Her income was her own, and
should she refuse Mr. Emilius, other suitors would no doubt come.
She dressed herself with considerable care,--having first thought of
receiving him in bed. But as the trial had now gone on without her,
it would be convenient that her recovery should be commenced. So she
had herself dressed in a white morning wrapper with pink bows, and
allowed the curl to be made fit to hang over her shoulder. And she
put on a pair of pretty slippers, with gilt bindings, and took a
laced handkerchief and a volume of Shelley,--and so she prepared
herself to receive Mr. Emilius. Lizzie, since the reader first knew
her, had begun to use a little colouring in the arrangement of her
face, and now, in honour of her sickness, she was very pale indeed.
But still, through the paleness, there was the faintest possible
tinge of pink colour shining through the translucent pearl powder.
Any one who knew Lizzie would be sure that, when she did paint, she
would paint well.
The conversation was at first, of course, confined to the lady's
health. She thought that she was, perhaps, getting better, though, as
the doctor had told her, the reassuring symptoms might too probably
only be too fallacious. She could eat nothing,--literally nothing. A
few grapes out of the hothouse had supported her for the last week.
This statement was foolish on Lizzie's part, as Mr. Emilius was a man
of an inquiring nature, and there was not a grape in the garden. Her
only delight was in reading and in her child's society. Sometimes she
thought that she would pass away with the boy in her arms and her
favourite volume of Shelley in her hand. Mr. Emilius expressed a hope
that she would not pass away yet, for ever so many years. "Oh, my
friend," said Lizzie, "what is life, that one should desire it?" Mr.
Emilius of course reminded her that, though her life might be nothing
to herself, it was very much indeed to those who loved her. "Yes;--to
my boy," said Lizzie. Mr. Emilius informed her, with confidence, that
it was not only her boy that loved her. There were others;--or, at
any rate, one other. She might be sure of one faithful heart, if she
cared for that. Lizzie only smiled, and threw from her taper fingers
a little paper pellet into the middle of the room,--probably with
the view of showing at what value she priced the heart of which Mr.
Emilius was speaking.
The trial had occupied two days, Monday and Tuesday, and this was now
the Wednesday. The result had been telegraphed to Mr. Emilius,--of
course without any record of the serjeant's bitter speech,--and the
suitor now gave the news to his lady-love. Those two horrid men had
at last been found guilty, and punished with all the severity of the
law. "Poor fellows," said Lady Eustace,--"poor Mr. Benjamin! Those
ill-starred jewels have been almost as unkind to him as to me."
"He'll never come back alive, of course," said Mr. Emilius. "It'll
kill him."
"And it will kill me too," said Lizzie. "I have a something here
which tells me that I shall never recover. Nobody will ever believe
what I have suffered about those paltry diamonds. But he coveted
them. I never coveted them, Mr. Emilius; though I clung to them
because they were my darling husband's last gift to me." Mr. Emilius
assured her that he quite understood the facts, and appreciated all
her feelings.
And now, as he thought, had come the time for pressing his suit. With
widows, he had been told, the wooing should be brisk. He had already
once asked her to be his wife, and of course she knew the motive of
his journey to Scotland. "Dearest Lady Eustace," he said suddenly,
"may I be allowed to renew the petition which I was once bold enough
to make to you in London?"
"Petition!" exclaimed Lizzie.
"Ah yes; I can well understand that your indifference should enable
you to forget it. Lady Eustace, I did venture to tell you--that--I
loved you."
"Mr. Emilius, so many men have told me that."
"I can well believe it. Some have told you so, perhaps, from base,
mercenary motives."
"You are very complimentary, sir."
"I shall never pay you any compliments, Lady Eustace. Whatever may
be our future intercourse in life, you will only hear words of truth
from my lips. Some have told you so from mercenary motives."--Mr.
Emilius repeated the words with severity, and then paused to hear
whether she would dare to argue with him. As she was silent, he
changed his voice, and went on with that sweet, oily tone which had
made his fortune for him.--"Some, no doubt, have spoken from the
inner depths of their hearts. But none, Lady Eustace, have spoken
with such adamantine truth, with so intense an anxiety, with so
personal a solicitude for your welfare in this world and the next, as
that,--or I should rather say those,--which glow within this bosom."
Lizzie was certainly pleased by the manner in which he addressed her.
She thought that a man ought to dare to speak out, and that on such
an occasion as this he should venture to do so with some enthusiasm
and some poetry. She considered that men generally were afraid of
expressing themselves, and were as dumb as dogs from the want of
becoming spirit. Mr. Emilius gesticulated, and struck his breast, and
brought out his words as though he meant them.
"It is easy to say all that, Mr. Emilius," she replied.
"The saying of it is hard enough, Lady Eustace. You can never know
how hard it is to speak from a full heart. But to feel it, I will not
say is easy;--only to me, not to feel it is impossible. Lady Eustace,
my heart is devoted to your heart, and seeks its comrade. It is sick
with love and will not be stayed. It forces from me words,--words
which will return upon me with all the bitterness of gall, if they be
not accepted by you as faithful, ay and of great value."
"I know well the value of such a heart as yours, Mr. Emilius."
"Accept it then, dearest one."
"Love will not always go by command, Mr. Emilius."
"No indeed;--nor at command will it stay away. Do you think I have
not tried that? Do you believe that for a man it can be pleasant to
be rebuffed;--that for one who up to this day has always walked on,
triumphant over every obstacle, who has conquered every nay that
has obstructed his path, it can have less of bitterness than the
bitterness of death to encounter a no from the lips of a woman?"
"A poor woman's no should be nothing to you, Mr. Emilius."
"It is everything to me,--death, destruction, annihilation,--unless
I can overcome it. Darling of my heart, queen of my soul, empress
presiding over the very spirit of my being, say,--shall I overcome it
now?"
She had never been made love to after this fashion before. She
knew, or half knew, that the man was a scheming hypocrite, craving
her money, and following her in the hour of her troubles, because
he might then have the best chance of success. She had no belief
whatever in his love; and yet she liked it, and approved his
proceedings. She liked lies, thinking them to be more beautiful than
truth. To lie readily and cleverly, recklessly and yet successfully,
was, according to the lessons which she had learned, a necessity in
woman and an added grace in man. There was that wretched Macnulty,
who would never lie; and what was the result? She was unfit even for
the poor condition of life which she pretended to fill. When poor
Macnulty had heard that Mr. Emilius was coming to the castle, and had
not even mentioned her name, and again, when he had been announced on
this very morning, the unfortunate woman had been unable to control
her absurd disappointment. "Mr. Emilius," Lizzie said, throwing
herself back upon her couch, "you press me very hard."
"I would press you harder still to gain the glory I covet." And he
made a motion with his arms as though he had already got her tight
within his grasp.
"You take advantage of my illness."
"In attacking a fortress do not the besiegers take all advantages?
Dear Lady Eustace, allow me to return to London with the right of
protecting your name at this moment, in which the false and the
thoughtless are attacking it. You need a defender now."
"I can defend myself, sir, from all attacks. I do not know that any
one can hurt me."
"God forbid that you should be hurt. Heaven forbid that even the
winds of heaven should blow too harshly on my beloved. But my beloved
is subject to the malice of the world. My beloved is a flower all
beautiful within and without, but one whose stalk is weak, whose
petals are too delicate, whose soft bloom is evanescent. Let me be
the strong staff against which my beloved may blow in safety."
A vague idea came across Lizzie's mind that this glowing language had
a taste of the Bible about it, and that, therefore, it was in some
degree impersonal, and intended to be pious. She did not relish piety
at such a crisis as this, and was, therefore, for a moment inclined
to be cold. But she liked being called a flower, and was not quite
sure whether she remembered her Bible rightly. The words which struck
her ear as familiar might have come from Juan and Haidee, and if so,
nothing could be more opportune. "Do you expect me to give you answer
now, Mr. Emilius?"
"Yes,--now." And he stood before her in calm dignity, with his arms
crossed upon his breast.
She did give him his answer then and there, but first she turned her
face to the wall,--or rather to the back of the sofa, and burst into
a flood of tears. It was a delicious moment to her, that in which she
was weeping. She sobbed forth something about her child, something
about her sorrows, something as to the wretchedness of her lot in
life, something of her widowed heart,--something also of that duty to
others which would compel her to keep her income in her own hands;
and then she yielded herself to his entreaties.
* * * * *
That evening she thought it proper to tell Miss Macnulty what had
occurred. "He is a great preacher of the gospel," she said, "and
I know no position in the world more worthy of a woman's fondest
admiration." Miss Macnulty was unable to answer a word. She could not
congratulate her successful rival, even though her bread depended on
it. She crept slowly out of the room, and went up-stairs, and wept.
Early in the month of June, Lady Eustace was led to the hymeneal
altar by her clerical bridegroom. The wedding took place at the
Episcopal church at Ayr, far from the eyes of curious Londoners. It
need only be further said that Mr. Emilius could be persuaded to
agree to no settlements prejudicial to that marital supremacy which
should be attached to the husband; and that Lizzie, when the moment
came, knowing that her betrothal had been made public to all the
world, did not dare to recede from another engagement. It may be
that Mr. Emilius will suit her as well as any husband that she could
find,--unless it shall be found that his previous career has been
too adventurous. After a certain fashion he will, perhaps, be tender
to her; but he will have his own way in everything, and be no whit
afraid when she is about to die in an agony of tears before his eyes.
The writer of the present story may, however, declare that the future
fate of this lady shall not be left altogether in obscurity.