Lady Palliser not being at home, Alfred was spared the trial of this
first visit, and felt that the respite, even till evening, was a
sensible relief.
Geoffery, after a vain effort to draw Willoughby to the billiard rooms,
repaired thither himself; and the brothers, thus left to each other's
society, wandered on into a quiet walk, and naturally fell into
confidential conversation.
So well had Alfred hitherto acted his part, and so successfully did he
during this interview conceal his emotions, that Willoughby was
gradually led to open his whole heart, to dwell with enthusiasm on his
attachment, and even to speak of his hopes. He would not have approached
this latter part of the subject had he not at length mistaken Alfred's
fortitude for indifference, and persuaded himself that prudential
considerations must have been chiefly influential in tempting his
brother to seek the hand of Caroline.
"I cannot tell you how happy you have made me, Alfred," he said, "by
returning among us, and in such good spirits. And remember," he added,
"that whenever and wherever you may fix your ultimate choice, it will be
my joy to forward your views to the utmost of my power. Whatever
settlement the lady's family shall require, you may command at my hands;
I speak without limit."
Alfred made an evasive, but affectionate and grateful reply.
"That we may be sometimes mistaken in the strength, or rather the
reality and consequent durability of our feelings," continued
Willoughby, "I am now fully aware from my own experience. I thought
myself very sincerely attached to Lady Anne Armadale, and for a short
time after her worthless breach of faith, I believed myself quite
miserable; yet how deeply am I, in point of fact, indebted to her
ladyship for giving me an opportunity of being undeceived before it was
too late! You see, my dear Alfred," he added, smiling, and looking round
in his brother's face, "that a disappointment is not always an
irremediable misfortune." Alfred had not time to assume cheerfulness of
countenance; and Willoughby sighed as he continued, "Not always, I say;
for how widely different are my present feelings. I sometimes shudder
when I think how little they are within my own control! Alfred," he
added, suddenly standing still, and laying his hand on his brother's
arm, "if the hopes to which I have now given up my whole soul prove less
than true, I shall--become a madman!" he subjoined, after a moment's
pause. "You can have no idea," he pursued, "of the wildness of my
thoughts, when I give way to a doubt----" A long silence followed, which
Willoughby at length broke by saying, "I am well aware that suicide is
one of the greatest of crimes; yet without even visible or absolute
insanity, I can imagine the balance of the mind being so entirely upset
on one all-engrossing object, as to render us for the time no longer
accountable beings."
"There are cases," replied Alfred, with mournful solemnity, "which
certainly require a more than common exertion of fortitude to carry us
through the hour of trial. Impulses, however, of a sinful tendency must
not only be resisted, but from the first they must be dismissed from our
very thoughts; they must not be dwelt upon even to be condemned, lest
our minds become, as it were, familiar with crime, and one barrier be
thus broken down."
"Fortitude!--reason!" repeated Willoughby. "Alfred," he added, laying
both his hands on his brother's shoulders, "I fear I am already in a
delirium! I have intoxicating hopes, yet I know not if they are
rational; for there are times when I conjure up fears and calculate
chances, till breathless and with beating pulses I could almost rush on
self-destruction as a refuge from the mere possibility of ultimate
failure!" While uttering the words self-destruction, he looked wildly
round for a moment, as if in search of the means.
Alfred was indescribably shocked: the painful surmise which, on less
important occasions, had frequently crossed his imagination, now struck
him with redoubled force. His sympathy with his brother, mingled as it
was with the strange circumstances of his own case, became a sort of
agony. "Why should you, my dear Willoughby," he said, "who can command
every means of enjoyment this earth has to offer--why should you give
way to dreams, so wild, so incoherent? Banish all such thoughts, and let
me have at least the happiness of seeing you happy." An anxious
inquiring look was Willoughby's only reply to this. He shrank
unconsciously from seeking any unwelcome confession--a selfish feeling,
of which he was not aware, secretly urging him to believe without
probing too deeply, that Alfred was comparatively indifferent. In
silence, therefore, the brothers now bent their steps homewards, Alfred
reflecting the while on the peculiar cruelty of his fate; for if a
miracle could now be wrought in his favour, and Caroline be restored to
him all he had once believed her, his compassion for Willoughby, he
felt, would render the remainder of his own life wretched. Yet how did
his heart sicken at the thought of the scenes he must witness, the
confidences he must hear, the thoughtless railleries he must parry, if
he would act successfully the part which he felt it his duty to
maintain: for why should he wantonly embitter for another the cup of joy
which he was himself forbidden to taste; that other a brother whom he
fondly loved--a brother who he knew loved him with the most enthusiastic
affection? in short, in a futurity now become evidently unavoidable, he
beheld, as it were, all the appalling apparatus of torture displayed
before him, yet felt necessitated to submit his spirit to agony, with
almost the stern fortitude of an Indian chief, yielding his limbs to the
cruelty of his foes.
No sooner did he enter the drawing-room than his sisters began to teaze
him, first about the length of his visit; and when they found he had not
been admitted, one observed that a runaway lover did not deserve the
favour of an audience; another asked archly, if he had commissioned
Willoughby to take the sole charge of Caroline in his absence. Lord
Darlingford, who was holding a skein of silk on the extended fingers of
both hands for Jane to wind, being unconscious how painful the subject
was to Alfred, said that he would not suspect Mr. Arden of conduct so
imprudent, for that love-making by proxy was universally acknowledged to
be extremely perilous.
Louisa declared that with her the lover who was present was always the
favourite. Sir James, who was standing beside her, giggled, and drew a
step nearer. An expression of disgust passed over her countenance,
which, however, she concealed, by stooping closer to her scrap-book,
into which she was writing some passionate lines given her by Henry, of
the ardour of whose manner when he last repeated the said lines she was
reflecting at the moment.
Jane thought, but did not say, that absence would rather add tenderness
to feeling where it did exist; without, however, daring to associate the
thought with the idea of one now absent--and who had once been
remembered with tenderness--for his marriage with another had some time
since appeared in the _Morning Post_.
Madeline, whose heart was free, expressed openly the sentiment Jane had
secretly thought, though not without one of those prophetic blushes
which will suffuse the cheeks of even disengaged young ladies at the
very anticipation of being one time or other in love in their turn.