Minnie arrived at home, and, hastily taking off her walking-dress, sat
down to think, as calmly as might be, of the events of that day. Despite
all her efforts, a pang shot through her heart at the idea of seeing
Miles. His temper had of late been so uncertain, that she trembled lest
any fault should be imputed to herself; the more narrowly she examined
her heart, the less could she find any thing to blame herself for in
this affair. While she sat thus, Miles appeared at the outer gate. As he
traversed the front garden, she thought she had never seen him look so
pale; and, when he raised his eyes towards the windows, there was an
intense look in them, which made their hazel darkness seem like blackest
night--this was probably owing to the excessive pallor of his cheek and
brow. When he entered the room where she sat, a choking sensation arose
in his throat--he had paused, too, outside the door, to still the
bounding of his heart. She rose to meet him; there was a smile on her
lip, but it was forced, constrained--fear kept it from expanding into
cheerfulness.
"You are home earlier than you promised to be, dear Miles," she said.
His eyes were riveted on her face. "Yes," he answered in a deep, hollow
tone, which he endeavoured to render tranquil; "but I hope not less
welcome for that?"
"Ever welcome--ever the one to come too late, and leave too early," she
answered. "Where have you been, Miles?"
"In several places, Minnie,"--and he stifled almost a groan.
"Are you not well?" she inquired, delaying what she had to say in
terror, and really anxious too about him; his pallor struck her as so
unusual, but without one dawning thought of the truth.
"Quite well, Minnie; but I am weary--very weary," and he sunk exhausted
in a chair--it was the mind which had lost all nerve. She drew a
footstool close to his feet, and, in kneeling upon it, took both his
hands in hers; but, in so doing, she did not feel the thrill which
passed over them; it was horror--the horror of doubt--no, she did not
feel it; but holding them tightly, and leaning on his knees, she looked
up in the face, whose rigid, intense gaze was fixed upon her uplifted
countenance.
"Miles, I have something to tell you," she said at last; but her lip
quivered as she spoke.
"Something to tell me!" he uttered, repeating her words; and a shadow of
hope crossed over his face.
"Yes, dear Miles; but promise you will not fly in a passion: you do not
know how you terrify me in doing so. Hear all I have to say, and then
let us, as calmly as may be, consult what is to be done." He could not
speak; he was like one fluttering between life and death. She did not
wait, however, for him to do so, but hurriedly told him the events of
the morning; so anxious was she to say all, that she scarcely noticed
his extraordinary silence. When she paused, he quietly drew his hands
from hers, and still keeping his fixed gaze upon her, though the
countenance had changed with every word of hers, still the eye had not
one instant quitted her face. Withdrawing his hands, he placed them both
on her shoulders as she knelt before him, and said in a low, measured
tone, "Minnie, I know all you have told me; I followed you to-day. It
may seem mean, unmanly, my doing so; but I was resolved to prove you--I
knew all!"
"Knew all!" she ejaculated, shrinking back from his touch, as if it
pained her.
"Why do you shrink from me, Minnie?"
"Because," she said, rising slowly to her feet, "you then have done it
yourself, doubting, to prove me!"
"No, by heavens, I have not! Kneel down again, Minnie;" and he drew her
reluctantly before him again. "Look upon me, Minnie, for I am your judge
now, to hear, but not condemn. You have forced that character upon me; I
came, fully determined to say nothing, to close my heart to proof and
conviction, to bear all my wrongs, if such they were, and seek no
elucidation, leaving all to time to prove you whatever you might be!"
"Oh, Miles--Miles!" she cried, looking up trembling in his face; "and
can you suspect me still? And could you live with me a day, believing
me so false to you?"
"Listen--I have passed three hours of the bitterest anguish man ever
suffered--a thousand mad thoughts and resolutions passing through my
brain; and at last I came to the determination which you know, for I,
mere man, cannot fathom this affair. I would not for all the world
condemn you; for though not a man prone to superstitious thoughts, I
feel there must be some demoniacal power in all this, Minnie," and he
raised her face upwards in his hands. "You are either the falsest woman
that ever drew breath--and if so, the breath which gives you life must
be the vapour of hell, from whence you draw it; or else there is a power
around us which we cannot combat with, and 'tis best to still the
heart's beatings, to subdue ourselves to callousness, and wait for time!
I am resolved _to bear_ and wait. Now, sit beside me here," and he rose
and drew her to the ottoman calmly and composedly, "and shew me the
letter you received."
She was so lost in terror at his extraordinary manner, that it was in
vain she essayed to utter a word; in cold silence she placed the letter
in his hand; he opened, and silently read it through, and over again.
"One of three persons wrote this letter," he said--"I, or Mary Burns, or
Marmaduke Burton, for from childhood we had the same masters."
"'Tis Marmaduke Burton!" she cried with energy, seeing at last a path
through this tangled forest of brushwood. "'Tis Marmaduke; for, as you
must have seen, he came to Mary's cottage whilst Lord Randolph and I
were there?"
A cold shudder passed through Miles's heart, which had been awakening
from its stupor of sorrow and suspicion, to take his proved faithful
wife to it. This then, was the cause of her candour. Burton's most
unexpected arrival at Mary's had induced her, from fear of discovery, to
choose the wiser part, and tell him herself, lest another should! Oh,
what a demon jealousy is! how unsleeping, how grasping in intellect;
though all is perverted to harm!
"Tell me all that passed," he uttered, without replying to her question;
and, while she related, his mind formed all into the well-connected
reality of a diseased brain. The same person who had so often warned
him, none other than Marmaduke, had discovered this intrigue, and
followed it up. The letter was probably written by Mary Burns, as an arm
in Minnie's favour, should any thing be discovered by him; her absence,
etc. Mary, who had once fallen, had doubly done so again, by pandering
to the meetings of Lord Randolph and Minnie; he was a target for the
scorn and contempt of all, and all these maddening thoughts passed
through his soul, leaving him in outward seeming calm. There is
_nothing_ more fearful than this concentrated, chained passion--'tis
this which leads the best man to cold, deliberate murder. Silently he
thought all this, and then, when the mind had compassed all his misery,
it paused to deliberate on revenge. Then it was that mercy crept in,
like the last ray of sunshine to the eyes dimmed by death, and he said
to himself, "If she should be innocent still?"
And, lifting his eyes, they rested upon hers, troubled, but pure and
holy in their dove-like innocence of expression.
"Minnie," he said, placing his arms around her, "I have many bitter
thoughts in my heart. I am a very wretched man _now_--so happy once! But
I feel my greatest sorrow would be your loss; as I before said to you, I
_wish_ to think you innocent. I would rather know we were compassed by
fiends, and be ever waging war with them in darkness, than know, or
believe you false to me; _that_ would be my moral death, and make me the
most reckless man on earth! I _will_ believe you innocent."
"I am, Miles; believe me. I have not even a thought which has ever
wronged you."
"I will believe you, Minnie, against all evidence but proof," and he
took the trembling woman to his heart, so shaken, but so true.
It cannot be imagined, that with that pardon, or reconciliation,
Tremenhere became calm and happy; true it was, that Minnie never quitted
home without him, scarcely ever quitted his side, but the mad dream
which had been, left its trace on his every action; he was a
broken-spirited man. His profession was a toil of every instant--a
necessity, not a pleasure. He saw Minnie growing daily paler and sadder,
and, though his heart ached to see it, still he could not overcome his
sensations of doubt.
"She is perhaps fretting about Lord Randolph," he thought to himself,
"and after all I said, in condemnation of her, poor child! she perhaps
deserves more pity; for I took her almost one, from her home. She had
seen no one to fancy herself in love with, till I came. Unjust coercion
drove her into my arms; it was probably more from indignation than from
love, yet, too, I think she loved me once," and here he pondered on many
an unmistakeable proof of affection; her watchings for his return, the
lighting up of the whole countenance, which no art could imitate. "Yes,"
he continued, "she certainly loved me once, but then she is of a gentle,
loving nature; she knew not the vast difference between _affection_ and
_love_, until _he_, perhaps, taught her. Poor child--poor Minnie! what a
life of misery we have created for one another; but we must bear it, and
linger on!"
And so completely did the thought take possession of his soul that these
ideas were well founded, that for a while his feelings towards her
assumed a tone of almost fatherly pity, so worn and old his heart felt.
He had vainly endeavoured to trace who sent the brougham, the
letters--in short, to _prove_ it Marmaduke; but all failed.
The hire of the brougham, and order to send it to Chiswick, had been
brought to the stables by a boy, who was not known or detained; there
was nothing in the act to excite suspicion of wrong. He wrote to Lord
Randolph a calm, deliberate letter, requesting, but in all politeness,
that his visits might be discontinued. He was certain, he said, that
Lord Randolph would see the absolute necessity of such a thing, after
the many unaccountable circumstances which had taken place. And the
"Aurora" was taken, unfinished, from her easel, and placed aside, and
not a word on the subject passed between Minnie and her husband; it was
a state of coldness which could not last. The affair had been so painful
a one, that by mutual consent neither ever spoke of it, nor even named
it to Lady Dora, whose visits were not of very frequent occurrence. One
day, however, she called, having been absent a month at Brighton; she
was more excited than usually happened to her. After sitting some time
in evident uneasiness, she at last begged Minnie to let her speak with
her alone. Minnie rose to quit the drawing-room; she grew trembling;
every thing new, startled her.
"I will not trouble your ladyship to leave the room," said Miles, rising
coldly from his seat. "I am going to my studio; I should have remembered
that husbands are often _de trop_."
"Pray, stay, Miles!" exclaimed Minnie, seizing his arm, like the Minnie
of old. "There _can_ be nothing which you may not hear, that is, if it
only concerns me," and she looked at Dora inquiringly.
"I should prefer speaking to you alone," answered the other coldly. "It
is something which distresses me much, yet almost too painful, I hope,
to be true."
"May I ask," said he, pausing on the threshold of the door, "if it be
any thing relating to Lord Randolph Gray?"
"It is!" answered she, with a look of surprise.
"And--my wife?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation.
"Then you are not in ignorance of it?" she inquired, with an amazed
look, mingled with one of contempt. "And you and Minnie are----"
"Friends, as you see," he said, turning back and reseating himself, and
by a movement of generous feeling, taking his wife's trembling hand in
his. "Now, Lady Dora," he continued, "you may tell all you have heard,
and we may be able in a measure, to correct any inaccuracies."
"How do you mean, Mr. Tremenhere?" she said haughtily. "Do you accuse me
of possible untruth?"
"Not you, Lady Dora, but your informant, whoever he may be."
"It was a lady," she replied. "The conversation turned one evening, in
Brighton, on paintings; your name was mentioned flatteringly as an
artist of genius," and then she paused. The remainder was embarrassing
to tell.
"Go on, Lady Dora," he said, in outward seeming calm.
"I had better tell you," she hastily rejoined; "for, if untrue, you may
find means of silencing the slander."
"_If_," he uttered; "then your ladyship gives credit to the world's vile
attack upon this poor girl; for I guess all you would say." Whatever his
own fears at times might be in the warring of his spirit, he was
resolved to uphold Minnie before all.
Lady Dora related all she had heard. In short, the whole affair of
Minnie's discovery at Uplands, and her subsequent meeting with Lord
Randolph at Mary's. It had been told with severe animadversions on the
meanness of Mr. Tremenhere, whose marriage had been kept a secret from
the world until this affair brought it to light, and who could receive
his wife again, and even Lord Randolph, knowing, to say the least, of
great imprudence on his wife's part. Much of this Lady Dora allowed to
escape her, as having been freely discussed at the club to which Miles
belonged.
"Oh, Dora!" cried the agitated Minnie, "how could you, for one moment,
believe so wicked a thing against me!--To think I could love any one but
Miles! And I must be doubly base, to even listen to common flattery or
gallantry from Lord Randolph, to whom you are engaged!"
"Pardon me, Minnie," answered her cousin decidedly. "I am _not_ engaged
to that gentleman, and never shall be; for, if you are innocent, as I
will believe even without knowing all, _he_ assuredly must have been
connected in some manner with the affair."
Minnie then related all from the first, and though her cousin acquitted
her of all blame, except linking herself, as she termed it, "with an
improper woman--that Mary Burns," still she could not divest her mind of
the idea that Lord Randolph was quite innocent. She begged Tremenhere's
pardon for the wrong she had done him in her mind, and, whatever her
feelings might be to Minnie, her heart rejoiced in not knowing him base,
who had once been more than a passing thought. Tremenhere received her
apologies with cold reserve, and, stifling feelings which were
distracting him, he inquired from whom all this information had
emanated. Lady Dora, however, could give no exact account. She had heard
it openly spoken of by those who were not aware that she was in any way
allied to either party. With some difficulty--for he was obliged to veil
his intentions from observation--Miles ascertained that the affair had
been spoken of at his club by more than one person. This satisfied him;
he knew then how to act; so he changed the subject, and affected a
cheerfulness he was far from feeling, which continued even after Lady
Dora had quitted the house. He did not allude to the reports; but there
was something so noble in the heart of that man, that he banished all
his own suffering from the surface, that evening, to soothe and cheer
Minnie, who was low and depressed, beyond her own power to control the
feeling.
The following day Miles rose more cheerfully than he had done of late;
and, as soon as breakfast was over, he started for town. He really felt
lighter at heart, for he had something tangible--not a mere shadow--to
deal with. He had, without appearing anxious on the subject, elicited
from Lady Dora the names of one or two persons who had spoken of this
affair--and now it was to their houses he went. After a long research,
he found one of them was still in Brighton; so sitting down at a
friend's, for he avoided his club, he wrote a kind note to Minnie,
telling her not to alarm herself, but possibly he might not return that
evening. His manner had so completely thrown her off her guard, that
she did not dream of the possible business occupying him.
He arrived in Brighton, and in perfect composure proceeded to the hotel
of the gentleman who had mentioned the affair. The meeting was at first
one of extreme frigidity on the part of both, especially the
gentleman's. Miles was determined and calm, having right on his side;
the other hem'd and haw'd, evading a direct answer, when the former
demanded from whom he had heard the reports in question.
"It will only then, sir, remain for me to treat you as the author," said
Miles coldly, turning to quit the room.
"What do you mean?" cried the other, advancing.
"Simply what I say. If a gentleman propagates a vile, calumnious report
of a virtuous woman, and then refuses to state the author, that he may
be made publicly retract his slander, and re-establish the lady's fame,
there is but one path possible, and that is, through the only known
medium. I hold you, sir, responsible."
His cool determination alarmed the other. It is not a very pleasant
thing to have a hole made through one's body, by either sword or bullet,
because one possesses a talkative friend. A parley ensued; and then at
last Miles went forth with another name--this was a lady's, rather more
difficult to deal with. The only way, then, is to find out the lady's
nearest household tie; and, in case of refusal on her part, appeal to
him. They say men have an easy time of it; but assuredly such would not
be the case, were some less pacific than they are in demanding reason
and authority from ladies for all they utter; and were their fathers,
husbands, brothers, etc., looked upon as responsible agents to act for
them. In such a case, were I a man, I would marry a woman who always
wore a respirator. She would talk but little, if compelled to whistle
her phrases through layers of wires. Assuredly, these things were
invented by some clever man with a Xantippe for wife.
But to return to Tremenhere. The lady he waited upon was one of those
beings whose milk of human kindness had, at her birth, been turned to
vinegar and gall. She never said a kind thing, except from some motive,
and to those even she professed, or was bound to like; she delighted in
uttering the most galling innuendoes; and she looked her character.
When Tremenhere was announced, she received him, though almost a
stranger, with an air of pity, perfectly dreadful--that kind of air
which inclines one to exclaim at once, "Don't pity me, for there's
nothing in my case to excite that feeling--I won't be pitied!"
Here he had little difficulty at first, for no sooner did he name the
motive of his visit, than the old lady commenced a string of
well-arranged untruths, which amazed Tremenhere, and clearly showing how
wisely he had acted in sifting the affair thoroughly. When she
concluded--for the _historiette_ was delivered as crudely to his ears,
as if he were a perfectly indifferent personage in it--he could not but
bite his lip; but seeing at a glance the nature of his informant, he
deprived her by his coolness of half her satisfaction. Verily, dame
Nature has three tubs at hand, in which she dips her children when she
creates them, according to the caprice of the moment--one containing
honey and milk, one vinegar and gall, and the other an amalgamation of
spices.
When this abluted thing in the second tub had told her tale, she
paused--this was not what Tremenhere intended, so he simply inquired her
informant's name. Oh! this she never could give! It had been related to
her under a promise never to divulge the name; she never could!
"And so, madam," he said contemptuously, "though you feel bound in
honour to conceal the name, no such feeling prevents your blasting the
fame of a pure, innocent woman, by promulgating infamous falsehoods,
which I am resolved to silence; since, then, you decline giving me the
vile author's name, it is to your son I must apply!"
This was a lesson the lady had never learned, and it would be well if it
were more frequently taught to those who only exist with satisfaction to
themselves, by ruining the fame of the innocent, whom they detest, and
cannot comprehend. A loud shriek burst from the terrified woman; for, if
she did love any thing but herself on earth, it was her tall rawbone
son, in the Grenadiers--but not all her entreaties could avail,
Tremenhere was resolute, he was on the track, one footprint lost, his
game might elude his grasp. With many sighs, and beatings of her chest,
for heart she had none, the name burst forth of Mr. Marmaduke Burton,
and with its utterance a deep groan struggled from Miles's bosom, but it
was one of satisfaction; for not only did he hold his bitter enemy, but
the union of events for the moment convinced him of Minnie's innocence,
and the other's authorship of the plot to destroy his peace. With a
lightened heart, he quitted the bewailing woman, who allowed it to
escape her, that it had been confided to her, on a solemn promise given
_not to name him_; and Burton, in doing so, imagined she would not, for
a fellowship of feeling and mind made him an especial favourite of hers,
and he well knew, in telling her, the facts would lose nothing, and
Miles be irretrievably lost in all respectable society; he did not
calculate upon its arriving so quickly at his ears, neither of his
determined conduct should it do so. He did not yet know his cousin.