MILES TREMENHERE.
"For such a love, O Rachel! years are few,
and life is short!"--LOPEZ DE VEGA.
BY ANNETTE MARIE MAILLARD.
AUTHORESS OF "THE COMPULSORY MARRIAGE," "ZINGRA THE GIPSY," ETC., ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
G. ROUTLEDGE & CO., FARRINGDON STREET.
1853.
M'CORQUODALE AND CO., PRINTERS, LONDON.
WORKS--NEWTON.
[Illustration: Minnie parting with Lord Randolph]
MILES TREMENHERE.
CHAPTER I.
Tremenhere did not return to dinner at six, as usual. He was not one of
those careless husbands, who dine out unexpectedly with a friend, and
leave their wives to wait in ignorance of their movements; so he sent a
messenger immediately after Lady Dora had quitted the villa, and Minnie
felt as if his absence _for the first time_ gave her pleasure. It
afforded her time to collect her resolution for meeting him with this
concealment in her heart. The long hours passed sadly enough, for every
thing around her seemed distasteful; the sunny noon of her heart was
growing into twilight. Tremenhere generally returned early from his
occasional parties. Ten o'clock came--a late hour for their quiet
cottage--then half-past. Minnie grew restless--her conscience was not at
rest; moreover, she was quite alone. The servant and the boy they
kept--all their household, had retired. Miles always had his key, when
late. Minnie watched a short time longer, and then, going up-stairs to
her dressing-room, partially undressed, enfolding herself in a long
loose wrapper, of pale pink cashmere, in which she looked even more
beautiful than when richly attired. Next, she unbound her long, fair
hair, and, unweaving it, flung the rich mantle over her shoulders, which
it completely covered; and thus, at perfect ease, she sat down in a
large chair before the fire. She had been unused to much deep thought of
late, and the events of the past two days had wearied her brain.
Gradually the head fell listlessly back, a little on one side--the
clasped hands, so perfect in form, supported it, an elbow resting on the
arm of the chair--the lips were slightly parted, and a warm glow, like a
sleeping infant's, ruddied her cheek, while the fair hair literally
swept the ground. So soundly she slept, that Tremenhere entered the room
unheard; he, too, had passed a day of deep meditation. Matter-of-fact
persons may laugh at the idea; but to sensitive minds, coming events
have often, as _avant courier_, presentiment. He had been thoroughly
wretched all day; so much so, that without knowing any tangible cause of
fear, he entered his home with a beating heart, as if he should find it
vacant! How can we account for such sensations? They are purely
spiritual. A deep sigh of joy trembled his lip, when he saw all he loved
so well, so exclusively in safety, and sleeping calm as an angel might,
rocked in a sailing cloud,--if angels ever sleep. He crept on tiptoe
nearer; involuntarily his hands clasped as in prayer, as he gazed upon
her, then, fearful lest that magnetic influence of an eye watching over
us, which makes us start up affrighted, with throbbing hearts, from our
sleep, should awake her rudely, he bent slowly downwards on his knee,
and looked upon her as on a saint, so pure, so unearthly was his love at
that moment. Some moments he knelt thus, then, unclasping his hands, he
raised the mass of sweeping hair gently, and pressed it to his lips; it
was slightly perfumed, like new-mown grass. Insensibly his hands
commenced turning fold over fold, tress over tress, till it grew to a
rope of brightness in his hands, which they could just clasp; smiling,
he twisted it, wondering at her prolonged sleep--suddenly a thought
flashed through his brain, a demon's thought--jealousy; his fears of the
day were parent to it. If she _ever_ should love another! if those
dreaming thoughts, which he then felt were his, should wander to
another! What temptation had she yet known?--none. What men had she ever
seen, to make her what so many were, even if only in idea--faithless? He
should care but little for actual virtue, if the soul of it were gone;
and as these maddening fancies crept through his mind, tighter and
tighter he twisted the fair hair in his grasp.
"I could still her life with this," he muttered; "once round that small,
fair infant neck, and I should save her from ever having a sinful wish.
She is pure as one of those little things, whose faces are not veiled
even by their own wings, as they say other angels are in heaven. O
Minnie! so much I love you thus, that I could find in my heart almost
to kill you now, and bear the weight of that heavy sin, to save you from
even knowing remorse." And in the agony of that moment of demoniacal
temptation, he rose to his full height, while the livid face and brow
were studded by agonized sweat-drops, his temples throbbed, he felt his
mental power of reflection every moment becoming more condensed, and
almost lost in impulse--impulse to commit murder, and, damning himself,
save her! At that supreme moment a deep sigh struggled through her
parted lips, the brow knit in mental pain, and Minnie awoke. Like a tree
blasted at the roots, Tremenhere dropped on his knees, which gave way
beneath his weight, and, burying his face in the terrified girl's lap,
he sobbed convulsively--it was not weeping, but his heart's bursting,
coming sorrow.
"Miles--dearest Miles--my own love!" cried she in terror, trying to
raise his head--"What has occurred? Are you ill? Speak to me, Miles."
She lifted up the face at last; it was pale as death, and on the fringes
of the closed eyes hung unfalling tears: they were as the heat drops
from the clouds before they burst asunder, sending forth sheet upon
sheet of flame.
"Minnie!" he cried wildly, looking up at last, "I have dreamed a horrid
waking dream while you slept: I was mad; for I thought if a day should
ever come wherein you would not love me, but another----"
"Miles--Miles!" cried the trembling girl. "Do not think of so fearful a
thing; 'tis tempting some demon to try you."
"_Try_ me, Minnie! How so?" There was almost madness in his look.
"By giving you _real_ trouble for this unchecked vision of impossible
things."
"You are right, dearest," he said, rising more calmly, yet he shivered
with emotion. "Heaven keep me from _real_ doubt! I could not support it.
Come, let us leave this room; it chills my heart, Minnie;" and he placed
his arm around her--as he did so, and it came in contact with the living
rope he had so madly twisted, a cold shudder passed over him.
"You are not well, dear Miles," she said, tenderly. "Let us leave this
room; it seems filled with fancies and spirits--I grow superstitious."
She tried to smile up in his face as usual, but the dimpling peace had
left her--she was tacitly deceiving him.
The next day came with a bright sunshine, which imparted its light to
Tremenhere's heart. He looked back upon his mad thoughts of the past
night, half in laughter, half in horror, fully resolving for the future
to check those wild, jealous, unfounded fears. Minnie could not rally,
as he had done; she crept about that cottage like a troubled spirit,
from one room to another, restless and unhappy. She was counting the
moments until Lady Dora should arrive, and she could fling her arms
round Miles's neck, and, telling him all, make him promise to be as ever
towards Lord Randolph, who had in truth not insulted her in any way. The
more she reflected, the less cause could she see for this secresy; and
but for her hasty promise to her cousin, certainly would have told him
at once.
"Minnie, dearest," cried her husband, laughing; "what are you creeping
about in that miserable manner for? Poor child! I startled you out of
your sleep last night--you are quite pale."
She would have looked doubly so had she known his mad thoughts while she
slept; as it was, she blushed painfully when he noticed her.
"I declare," he said, bending over her fondly, "you have been crying,
dear child. What is grieving you?--have I unintentionally pained you?"
And he kissed the bent brow.
"No, dearest Miles," she answered with quivering lips--she felt so
nervous. "You are all kindness, all love. I----" and she was choking
with her efforts to subdue her tears.
"My darling child--my own wife!" he said tenderly, raising her to his
bosom, "do not give way to nervous depression--you can have no cause--I
will not leave you so much alone; but you know, dearest, why it is--not
choice, as heaven hears me--but necessity. Where will be our
long-projected voyage to Gibraltar, for our good object, if I do not
work? Every hour away from you is one of regret; and, as I am painting
some grim portrait, I long to carry my model, easel, and all, to my
quiet painting-room here, with my Minnie to hang over my shoulder."
She was silently weeping most bitter tears; they were standing near the
table in the centre of the room. "Come, come," he said, cheeringly,
"you shall not give way to this--come into my studio; I want you to mix
my colours. Silly child--silly child! to cry so much for nothing."
She was on the point of telling him all, and imploring pardon, when he
turned his head aside, and the eye caught sight of a sheet of paper on
the table. "Since when has Minnie," he said laughingly, as he took it in
his hand, "turned copyist, and whose writing is this she has been
imitating? I have seen it somewhere before--where have I seen it?" She
was almost sinking to earth. It was a note which Lord Randolph had
commenced; yet, in her speechless agony, she clung to his arm. There
were only a few words--they ran thus:--
"Dear Tremenhere,--I am much annoyed at not finding you at home----"
"What does it mean, Minnie?" he cried, still smiling, and yet a strange,
uncertain light bursting over him. "Surely this is not your writing? has
any one been here? I will ring, and ask Bruce." He had his hand on the
bell: she had slid from his arm unperceived to a seat. Before the bell
sounded, the servant boy entered the room with a letter, which he handed
to Tremenhere.
"Has any one called during my----"
Tremenhere said no more, his eye fell on the letter--one glance
sufficed; for in his other hand he held the slip of paper.
"You may go," he said hastily to the boy. Without uttering another word
he tore open the letter, and read, (we have said Lord Randolph had not
much variety of thought; this note was a copy, in the past tense, of
the other one commenced.)
"Dear Tremenhere,--I was much annoyed at not finding you at home
when I called to-day," (it had been posted the previous evening,)
"as I particularly wished to see you. I know, under the emergency of
the case, you will pardon my intrusion at your villa, the fair
inhabitant of which did me the great honour of mistaking me for you,
and, rushing in to meet you, brought me acquainted with the fairest
face and form I ever beheld. 'Pon my life, Tremenhere, you are a
lucky fellow, and a selfish one too, for possessing so fair an
original. Surely you might bestow the copy on a friend, to create
the loveliest Aurora ever seen! I am off to Uplands. As I _most_
particularly wish to see you, come down without delay; I shall
expect you to-morrow night, and you must stop a few days. Make my
best compliments to your fair companion, and believe me to be, ever
yours truly,
"RANDOLPH GRAY."
Miles read the letter through without a word uttered; it was only on his
face his soul broke forth, and there it became, step by step, as he read
on--surprise, grief, cold desolation--a man waking from a dream of home
and love, to the rigid reality of a field of blood and battle. All these
emotions, one by one, passed like shadows over his face, which grew
paler with each. When he looked up, all had given place to a stern
resolution, which sat on his troubled brow as he turned towards his
wife. She, poor child, had covered her face with both hands, and was
weeping bitterly. He laid a cold unearthly hand on her arm--"You have
deceived me," he uttered; and, with that almost inarticulate sound, his
soul seemed to pass, so great was his agony. "Whom can we trust?" he
whispered almost, as though speaking to himself. "She has deceived me!"
and a sigh, almost a sob, burst from his bosom.
Our readers must picture to themselves the jealous temperament of this
man--his intense, all-absorbing love for his wife--and then they may
form some idea of his present agony; for this it was. His heart-strings
seemed tightened as if a breath would snap them, like a lute too finely
strung, over which we pass the fingers in dread.
"Miles!" she cried, clasping his arm, "hear me--hear all! I--I--I was
afraid to tell you!" and the tears gushed from her eyes anew.
He released her grasp, and quietly reseating her, but as some one he
touched with repulsion, said, with his cold, stern eyes bent on her,
"Afraid to tell me! Am I then so much an object of terror to you? I
who----" The tone was unnatural, for his heart was bursting. "I," he
continued, gradually raising his voice till it trembled with various
emotions, "who have been gentle as a woman with you. I thought you so
loving, so timid in your love, I feared to startle you by a rough
tone--and you are afraid of me! All my love for you has only brought
forth this--fear! Oh! when I said my heart was too old for yours, I was
indeed right. I am not old--young still--but old at heart; and there,
where I have given all, I meet only fear!" He passed his hand over his
brow, as if his brain were burning within. "Only fear--only fear!" he
muttered; "and I, fool, thought she loved me!"
"So I do, Miles, my own dear husband," she cried, dropping on her knees,
and holding her trembling hands up to him in supplication, while the
tears rolled heavily down her upturned face; "I do love you, Miles--on
my soul, I do, more than all the world beside; but I feared to tell you,
for Dora frightened me so much about this man's visit."
"Lady Dora!" he cried--"when was she here?"
"Yesterday, Miles," sobbed she. "In my trouble, I forgot to tell you;"
and, rising, she dropped on a seat.
"There was a time, Minnie," he said bitterly, looking at the girl as he
stood with crossed arms before her, where she sat trembling, "you never
_forgot_ or _concealed_ any thing from me. Times are sadly changed; or,
perhaps, 'tis I who have been self-deceived all this long time, and read
you as I hoped, not as you really are. In good truth, we know no one
till we try them. 'Tis your nature, perhaps, child. You tried your young
wings at home, and now you are giving me the advantage of your perfected
flight. I have walked with you against others on this crooked road: I
deserve to meet with a path where you turn round upon--myself!"
"Miles! for pity's sake," she articulated, almost suffocated by emotion,
"have mercy on me; you are unjust and cruel!"
He strode the room with clenched hands, endeavouring to subdue the many
passions in his breast. She rose like a spirit so noiselessly, and,
gliding beside him, grasped his arm again. "Forgive me, Miles," she
whispered with quivering lips. Her touch roused all the indignation he
was endeavouring to subdue.
"Forgive you!" he exclaimed, flinging her hand from him as if it burned
him with its contact. "Forgive you!" and he stood before her with a wild
look of passion. "You, who have so bitterly wounded and deceived me--and
for whom? A man--the stranger of a day! Yet how do I know this? Perhaps
you have met often; and now I think of it, he does not name in his note
having been presented to you by your cousin. Fools!" he laughed--"poor
fools! you have ill-managed your duplicity. I read you all--all--and so
you will discover." So saying, he rushed from the room; and in a few
minutes afterwards quitted the house. Poor Minnie could not stay
him--she had fainted.
It would be difficult to say to what extremities he might not
have proceeded, but a gentler thought came over the Parque who
had raised this first sorrow. As Tremenhere strode onwards towards
town, not looking to the right or left, but in deep thought,
scarcely knowing whither to go, or what to do, a brougham passed
rapidly--stopped--turned, and Lady Dora's voice said, "Mr. Tremenhere,
may I speak one word to you?" Hers trembled--it ever did when addressing
him: there was much warring in that girl's mind. She would have given
worlds never to see his face again, as, by a concatenation of strange
circumstances, she was forced to seek, or meet him. Her voice burst on
his deep reverie, and startled him.
We have shewn that he had quitted home without any actual explanation
from Minnie. As he bowed to Lady Dora, there was more than the ordinary
constraint which marked his manner towards her on all occasions, she at
once remarked it, and a gleam of truth passed through her mind. "May I
speak to you?" she said, opening the door; for in these visits to
Minnie, she only brought her groom with her, on whose discretion, as an
old servant, she knew she could rely--not that she would condescend to
ask silence of any one; but in this man she had confidence.
"If not of immediate moment, Lady Dora," he said bluntly, "I will beg to
be excused the honour you propose to me, of a seat beside you. I have
business of the utmost importance in town--meeting you on this road, I
presume your drive will be extended to Chiswick; Mrs. Tremenhere is at
home." He was moving away, having coldly raised his hat.
Lady Dora was sincerely pained at the trouble she read in those eyes, on
that brow. "I must speak to you!" she cried hastily; "and, if you will
not step in, permit me to accompany you in your walk a short
distance--'tis of poor Minnie I would speak."
The "poor Minnie" touched a chord in his heart which was strung to
harmony; it had been vibrating to the desire of his soul, to prove her
innocent. He stopped:--
"I will not trouble your ladyship so much," he said, stepping in and
closing the door. "Where shall I bid the man drive?" "Any where," she
answered in some confusion, leaning back in the corner. "I will not
detain you very long--let it be slowly towards town; you were going
there."
But he did not continue that route above half a mile. Lady Dora had a
good heart, she really loved Minnie, and once you could, by her better
sentiments, penetrate through her pride, she was a kind, gentle girl.
Unhesitatingly she told Miles how every thing had occurred, every word
his little wife had uttered, her horror at deceiving him, even tacitly;
and _the fear_ explained, was so kindly a one, lest he should fly into
trouble, that his heart expanded with joy, and, involuntarily seizing
Lady Dora's hand, he pressed it to his lips. "You are a messenger of
peace and joy," he cried, looking in her face, which was very pale.
Something like a tear dimmed his eye as the thought of his poor little
wife--it was half love, and half regret.
How very slowly the horse, even at a good long trot, seemed to go, as
the brougham turned once more towards his home! Lady Dora told him, that
having vainly expected Lord Randolph the previous evening, that morning
she sent to his residence, and learned he had gone off to Uplands. What
she had to tell him about Minnie, she could not write, and when Miles
met her, she was coming down to see him, and consult on what had best be
done. It was decided in their short drive, that he should accept Lord
Randolph's invitation, and start for Uplands at once, and himself
explain all. Lady Dora stopped the brougham before arriving at the
villa; nothing could have induced her to be present at the meeting
between the husband and wife: it was a scene she felt it would have
pained her to witness, much as she desired their re-union. Miles did not
urge it upon her, and as the carriage, with its pale occupant, turned
away, he hastily entered his own home. Poor Minnie was lying on her
couch, scarcely recovered from her swoon; when she heard his step, she
started up in terror, and with eyes distended and trembling frame,
awaited his coming.
The door opened, and, before she could articulate, his arms were about
her, and we are not quite certain the tears which fell were all from her
eyes, there is something so soothing, so heavenly in reconciliation--it
is indeed the halcyon from above, descending with peaceful, unfluttering
wings!