"I have nothing to say in reply to your letter, for I cannot
understand it. Yet I wonder less at your letter than at your having
written it instead of coming to me, to say all that is in your mind.
At some moments I still think that you will--I feel that you are on
your way hither, and I fancy that this dreadful dream of your
displeasure will pass away. It is the first time in my life that any
one has been seriously and lastingly displeased with me; and, though I
feel that I have not deserved it, I am very wretched that you, of all
others, should blame me, and cease to trust me. There ought to be
some comfort in the thought that your anger is without cause: but I
cannot find such comfort; for I feel that though I could endure your
loss by long absence or death, I cannot live in the spirit in which I
should wish to live, without your esteem.
"It is useless, alas! to entreat of you to come and explain yourself,
or in some other way to put me in possession of the cause of your
anger. If you could resist the claims I had upon you for confidence
before I knew what was going to befall me--if you could resist the
demand I made yesterday, I fear there is little use in imploring you
to do me justice. If I thought there was any chance, I would submit
to entreat, though I would not have you, any more than myself, forget
that I have a right to demand. But indeed I would yield everything
that I dare forego, to have you awakened from this strange delusion
which makes us both wretched. It is no time for pride now. I care
not how fully you know what I feel. I only wish that you could see
into my soul as into your own; for then you would not misjudge me as
you do. I care not what any one may think of my throwing myself upon
the love which I am certain you feel for me, if I can only persuade
you to tell me what you mean, and to hear what I shall then have to
say. What can I now say? I will not reproach you, for I know you
must be even, if possible, more miserable than I: but yet, how can I
help feeling that you have been unjust and harsh with me? Yes; though
the tone of your letter seems to be gentle, and you clearly mean it to
be so, I feel that you have been very harsh to me. Nothing that you
can do shall ever make me so cruel to you. You may rest satisfied
that, if we should not meet again, I will never be unjust to you. To
every one about me it will appear that you are fickle and
dishonourable--that you have acted towards me as it is in the nature
of some men to act towards the women whose affections they possess; in
the nature of some men, but not in yours. I know you to be incapable
of anything worse than error and mistrust (and, till yesterday, I
could not have believed you capable of this much wrong): and you may
trust me to impute to you nothing worse than this. Suffering as I now
am, as we both are, under this error and mistrust, may I not implore
you, for your own sake (for mine it is too late), to nourish the weak
part of yourself, to question your own unworthy doubts, and to study
the best parts of the minds you meet, till you grow assured (as a
religious man ought to be) that there can be no self-interest, and
much less falsehood, mixed up with any real affection--with any such
affection as has existed between us two?
"I must not write more; for I do not know, I cannot conjecture, how
you may receive what I have written, thinking of me as you now do. It
seems strange to remember that at this time yesterday, in this very
chair, I was writing to you. Oh how differently! Is it possible that
it was only yesterday--such a world of misery as we have lived through
since? But I can write no more. It may be that you will despise me
in every line as you read: after what has happened, I cannot tell.
Notwithstanding all I have said about trusting, I feel at this moment
as if I could never depend on anything in this world again. If you
should come within this hour and explain all, how could I be sure that
the same thing might not happen again? But do not let this weigh a
moment with you, if indeed you think of coming. If I do not see you
to-day, I shall never see you. I will then bear in mind, as you
desire, and as I cannot help, that you love me still; but how little
comfort is there in such love, when trust is gone! God comfort us
both!
"Margaret Ibbotson."
Mrs Rowland was crossing the hall at the moment that her maid Betsy
opened the door to Mr Hope's errand-boy, and took in this letter.
"Where are you carrying that letter?" said she, as Betsy passed her.
"To the study, ma'am, against Mr Enderby comes in. It is for Mr
Enderby, ma'am."
"Very well."
The letter was placed on the study mantelpiece; the place of deposit for
letters for absent members of the family. Mrs Rowland meantime resumed
her seat in the drawing-room, where the nursemaid was amusing the baby.
Mamma took the baby, and sent the maid away. She had a strong belief
that her brother might be found somewhere in the shrubbery, though some
feeling had prevented her telling the servant so when the letter was
taken in. She went, with the baby in her arms, into the study, to see
whether Philip was visible in any part of the garden that could be seen
thence. But she stopped short of the window. The handwriting on the
address of the letter troubled her sight. More than half-persuaded, as
she was, of the truth of much that she had told her brother, strenuously
as she had nourished the few facts she was in possession of, till she
had made them yield a double crop of inferences, she was yet conscious
of large exaggerations of what she knew, and of huge additions to what
she believed to be probabilities, and had delivered as facts. There was
in that handwriting a prophecy of detection: and, like other cowards,
she began to tamper with her reason and conscience.
"There is great mischief in letters at such times," she thought. "They
are so difficult to answer! and it is so possible to produce any effect
that may be wished by them! As my husband was reading the other
day--`It is so easy to be virtuous, to be perfect, upon paper!' Nothing
that the girl can say ought to alter the state of the case: it can only
harass Philip's feelings, and perhaps cause all the work to be gone over
again. His letter was meant to be final, I am confident, from his
intending to go away this evening. There should have been no answer.
This letter is a pure impertinence, and ought to be treated as such. It
is a sort of duty to use it as it deserves. Many parents (at least I
know old Mr Boyle did) burn letters which they know to contain offers
to daughters whom they do not wish to part with. Mr Boyle had no
scruple; and I am sure this is a stronger case. Better end the whole
affair at once; and then Philip will be free to form a better
connection. He will thank me one day for having broken off this."
She carried the letter into the drawing-room, slowly contemplating it as
she went. She thought, for one fleeting instant, of reading it. She
was not withheld by honour, but by fear. She shrank from encountering
its contents. She glanced over the mantelpiece, and saw that the
lucifer-matches were at hand. To make the letter burn quickly, it was
necessary to unfold it. She put the child down upon the rug--a
favourite play-place, for the sake of the gay pink and green shavings
which, at this time of the year, curtained the grate. While baby
crawled, and gazed quietly and contentedly there, Mrs Rowland broke the
seal of Margaret's letter, turning her eyes from the writing, laid the
blistered sheet in the hearth, and set fire to it. The child set up a
loud crow of delight at the flame. At that moment, even this simple and
familiar sound startled its mother out of all power of self-control.
She snatched up the child with a vehemence which frightened it into a
shrill cry. She feared the nursemaid would come before all the sparks
were out; and she tried to quiet the baby by dancing it before the
mirror over the mantelpiece. She met her own face there, white as
ashes; and the child saw nothing that could amuse it, while its eyes
were blinded with tears. She opened the window to let it hearken to the
church clock; and the device was effectual. Baby composed its face to
serious listening, before the long succession of strokes was finished,
and allowed the tears to be wiped from its cheeks.
One thing more remained to be done. Mrs Rowland heard a step in the
hall, and looked out: it was Betsy's.
"I thought it was you. Pray desire cook to send up a cup of broth for
Miss Rowland's lunch; and be sure and let Miss Rowland know, the moment
it is ready. Mr Enderby is in the shrubbery, I think."
"Yes, ma'am; seeing he was there, I was coming to ask about the letter,
ma'am, to carry it to him."
"Oh, that letter--I sent it to him. He has got it. Tell cook directly
about the broth."
At lunch-time, one of the children was desired to summon Uncle Philip.
Mrs Rowland took care to meet him at the garden door. She saw him cast
a wistful eye towards the study mantelpiece, as he passed the open door.
His sister observed that she believed it was past post time for this
half-week. He sighed deeply; and she felt that no sigh of his had ever
so gone to her heart before.
"Why, mamma! do look!" cried George, as well as a mouthful of bread
would allow. "Look at the chimney! Where are all the shavings gone?
There is the knot at the top that they were tied together with, but not
a bit of shaving left. Have they blown up the chimney?"
"What will poor baby say?" exclaimed Matilda. "All the pretty pink and
green gone!"
"There is some tinder blowing about," observed George. "I do believe
they have been burnt."
"Shut the window, George, will you? There is no bearing this draught.
There is no bearing Betsy's waste either. She has burned those shavings
somehow in cleaning the grate. Her carelessness is past endurance."
"Make her buy some new shavings, mamma, for baby's sake."
"Do be quiet, and get your lunch. Hand your uncle the dish of
currants."
Philip languidly picked a few bunches. He had noticed nothing that had
passed, as his sister was glad to observe. Besides being too much
accustomed, to hear complaints of the servants to give any heed to them,
he was now engrossed with his own wretched thoughts. Every five minutes
that passed without bringing a reply from Margaret, went to confirm his
most painful impressions.
Margaret meantime was sitting alone in her chamber, enduring the long
morning as she best might. Now plying her needle as if life depended on
her industry, and now throwing up her employment in disgust, she
listened for the one sound she needed to hear, till her soul was sick of
every other. "I must live wholly within myself now," she thought, "as
far as he is concerned. I can never speak of him, or allow Hester and
Maria to speak of him to me; for they will blame him. Every one will
blame him: Maria did yesterday. No one will do him justice. I cannot
ask Mrs Grey, as I intended, anything of what she may have seen and
heard about all this. I have had my joy to myself: I have carried about
my solitary glory and bliss in his being mine; and now I must live alone
upon my grief for him; for no one person in the world will pity and
justify him but myself. He has done me no wrong that he could help.
His staying away to-day is to save me pain, as he thinks. I wish I had
not said in my letter that he has been harsh to me. Perhaps he would
have been here by this time if I had not said that. How afraid he was,
that day in the spring when he urged me so to marry at once--(Oh! if I
had, all this would have been saved! and yet I thought, and I still
think, I was right.) But how afraid he was of our parting, lest evil
should come between us! I promised him it should not, for my own part:
but who could have thought that the mistrust would be on his side? He
had a superstitious feeling, he said, that something would happen--that
we should be parted: and I would not hear of it. How presumptuous I
was! How did I dare to make so light of what has come so dreadfully
true?--Oh! why are we so made that we cannot see into one another's
hearts? If we are made to depend on one another so absolutely as we
are, so that we hold one another's peace to cherish or to crush, why is
it such a blind dependence? Why are we left so helpless? Why, with so
many powers as are given us, have we not that one other, worth all the
rest, of mutual insight? If God would bestow this power for this one
day, I would give up all else for it for ever after. Philip would trust
me again then, and I should understand him; and I could rest afterwards,
happen what might--though then nothing would happen but what was good.
But now, shut in, each into ourselves, with anger and sorrow all about
us, from some mistake which a moment's insight might remove--it is the
dreariest, the most tormenting state! What are all the locks, and bars,
and fetters in the world to it? So near each other too! When one look,
one tone, might perhaps lead to the clearing up of it all! There is no
occasion to bear this, however. So near as we are, nothing should
prevent our meeting--nothing shall prevent it."
She started up, and hastily put on her bonnet and gloves: but when her
hand was on the lock of her door, her heart misgave her. "If it should
fail!" she thought. "If he should neither look at me nor speak to me--
if he should leave me as he did yesterday! I should never get over the
shame. I dare not store up such a wretched remembrance, to make me
miserable as often as I think of it, for as long as I live. If he will
not come after reading my letter, neither would he hear me if I went to
him. Oh! he is very unjust! After all his feats of my being influenced
against him, he might have distrusted himself. After making me promise
to write, on the first doubt that any one might try to put into my mind,
he might have remembered to do the same by me, instead of coming down in
this way, not to explain, but to overwhelm me with his displeasure,
without giving me a moment's time to justify myself. Edward seems
strangely unkind too," she sighed, as she slowly untied her bonnet and
put it away, as if to avoid tempting herself with the sight of it again.
"I never knew Edward unjust or unkind before; but I heard him ask
Philip why he staid to hear me in the abbey yesterday; and though he has
been with Philip this morning, he does not seem to have made the
slightest attempt to bring us together. When such as Edward and Philip
do so wrong, one does not know where to trust, or what to hope. There
is nothing to trust, but God and the right. I will live for these, and
no one shall henceforth hear me complain, or see me droop, or know
anything of what lies deepest in my heart. This must be possible; it
has been done. Many nuns in their convents have carried it through: and
missionaries in heathen countries, and all the wisest who have been
before their age; and some say--Maria would say--almost every person who
has loved as I have: but I do not believe this: I do not believe that
many--that any can have felt as I do now. It is not natural and right
that any should live as I mean to do. We are made for confidence, not
for such solitude and concealment. But it may be done when
circumstances press as they do upon me; and, if God gives me strength, I
will do it. I will live for Him and his; and my heart, let it suffer as
it may, shall never complain to human ear. It shall be as silent as the
grave."
The resolution held for some hours. Margaret was quiet and composed
through dinner, though her expectation, instead of dying out, grew more
intense with every hour. After dinner, Hope urged his wife to walk with
him. It had been a fine day, and she had not been out. There was still
another hour before dark. Would not Margaret go too? No; Margaret
could not leave home.
When Hester came down, equipped for her walk, she sat beside her sister
on the sofa for a minute or two, while waiting for Edward.
"Margaret," said she, "will you let me say one word to you?"
"Anything, Hester, if you will not be hard upon any one whom you cannot
fully understand."
"I would not for the world be hard, love. But there was once a time,
above a year ago, when you warned me, kindly warned me, though I did not
receive it kindly, against pride as a support. You said it could not
support me; and you said truly. May I say the same to you now?"
"Thank you. It is kind of you. I will consider; but I do not think
that I have any pride in me to-day. I feel humbled enough."
"It is not for you to feel humbled, love. Reverence yourself; for you
may. Nothing has happened to impair your self-respect. Admit freely to
your own mind, and to us, that you have been cruelly injured, and that
you suffer as you must and ought. Admit this freely, and then rely on
yourself and us."
Margaret shook her head. She did not say it, but she felt that she
could not rely on Edward, while he seemed to stand between her and
Philip. He came in at the moment, and she averted her eyes from him.
He felt her displeasure in his heart's core.
When they returned, sooner than she had expected, from their walk, they
had bad news for her, which they had agreed it was most merciful not to
delay. They had seen Enderby in Mr Rowland's gig on the Blickley road.
He had his carpet-bag with him; and Mr Rowland's man was undoubtedly
driving him to Blickley, to meet the night coach for London.
"It is better to save you all further useless expectation," observed
Edward. "We keep nothing from you."
"You keep nothing from me!" said Margaret, now fixing her eyes upon him.
"Then what is your reason for not having brought us together, if indeed
you have not kept us apart? Do you suppose I did not hear you send him
from me yesterday? And how do I know that you have not kept him away
to-day?"
"My dear Margaret!" exclaimed Hester: but a look from her husband, and
the recollection of Margaret's misery, silenced her. For the first time
Hester forgave on the instant the act of blaming her husband.
"Whatever I have done, whether it appears clear to you or not," replied
Hope, "it is from the most tender respect for your feelings. I shall
always respect them most tenderly; and not the less for their being hurt
with me."
"I have no doubt of your meaning all that is kind, Edward: but surely
when two people misunderstand each other, it is best that they should
meet. If you have acted from a regard to what you consider my dignity,
I could wish that you had left the charge of it to myself."
"You are right: quite right."
"Then why--. Oh! Edward, if you repent what you have done, it may not
yet be too late!"
"I do not repent. I have done you no wrong to-day, Margaret. I grieve
for you, but I could not have helped you."
"Let us never speak on this subject again," said Margaret, stung by the
consciousness of having so soon broken the resolution of the morning,
that her suffering heart should be as silent as the grave. "It is not
from pride, Hester, that I say so; but let us never again speak of all
this."
"Let us know but one thing, Margaret," said Edward;--"that yours is the
generous silence of forgiveness. I do not mean with regard to him--for
I fear you will forgive him sooner than we can do. I do not mean him
particularly, nor those who have poisoned his ear; but all. Only tell
us that your silence is the oblivion of mercy, so mourning for the
erring that, for its own sake, it remembers their transgressions no
more."
Margaret looked up at them both. Though her eyes swam in tears, there
was a smile upon her lips as she held out her hand to her brother, and
yielded herself to Hester's kiss.