Chapter 18

"'T is done **** the fatal vow Has passed my lips! Methought in those sad moments, The tombs around, the saints, the darkened altar And all the trembling shrines with horror shook."

TANCRED AND SIGISMUNDA.

The following morning, when Henry came to breakfast with Edward previous to their departure, Mrs. Middleton had a long conversation with him. She proposed to him that Alice should come and stay with us during his absence. He gladly accepted this offer, and wrote a line to his wife recommending her to do so in a way that left her no option.

Edward had left me in a state of mind which made Alice's society very acceptable to me; my spirits were subdued, and Henry's absence removed the restless irritation which I usually felt in his presence. My time was taken up in a great measure by the number of little occupations which my approaching marriage occasioned. Presents came pouring in daily from relations and friends; I had also to answer letters of congratulation, and all the business of that great change in one's existence was in the full tide of activity.

The second morning after Edward's departure, I asked Alice to go with me to a shop in St. James's-street, where I wanted to buy a present for Mrs. Hatton. We set out together, but as the day was fine and not too hot for walking, we resolved to go first into Hyde Park. The dusty burnt-up grass was still pleasanter to tread upon than the broad flag-stones; and there was a breeze that felt pure and refreshing to lungs that had been obliged for so long to inhale the foggy atmosphere of London. Alice was talking more eagerly than usual; and when she mentioned Henry, there was an expression in her lovely face which I had never seen in it before. As we were speaking of the probable day of Edward's return, she drew from her pocket the note which Henry had written to her that morning, and holding it out to me she said, "You see he talks of coming back on Friday." The note was a kind one, and by the way in which she read it over, as I gave it back to her, and then folded it carefully and replaced it in her bosom, I could see the pleasure it had given her. As we entered the Green Park, I saw a man who seemed to me to be watching us. There was something in his figure and in the way in which his head was set on his shoulders, which seemed not new to me; but I did not look back long enough to ascertain this, and only walked faster from the suspicion that we were followed. On turning out of the gate of the park into Piccadilly I gave another glance, and saw the man in question standing by the side of the basin with his eyes fixed on the water. As we went on towards St. James's-street, I saw him once again, walking in a parallel line with us on the other side of the street. After awhile he disappeared, and I concluded that the whole thing was accidental. We entered the jeweller's shop and were busily engaged in examining several brooches, among which I was to choose one for my present, when on turning to show one which took my fancy to Alice, whose back was to the door, I saw against one of the panes of the shop-window the face of the man who had followed us, and whom I now recognised as that cousin of Alice's whom I had seen at Salisbury and once again at Brandon; but who Henry had given me to understand had left England for America some months before. I gave an involuntary start and turned my head away, for there was something very dark and unpleasant in this man's countenance. Alice perceived nothing, gave me her advice about the brooch, and when I had taken and paid for it we prepared to go. I gave a hurried glance towards the window; the man was gone, and I breathed more freely. We walked out of the shop, and I debated with myself whether there could be any harm in questioning Alice about this person, and in telling her that he had been dodging us in this strange manner. While I was hesitating about it we had arrived at the turning into Berkeley-street. Suddenly Alice drew her arm out of mine and turned abruptly round. She gazed intently for a moment down Piccadilly, and then turning to me she said, "I thought I had seen my cousin, Robert Harding. It was foolish of me to imagine it," she added, smiling, "for he is at New York. What strange fancies one has sometimes!"

"Who is Robert Harding? Your cousin, did you say?"

"Yes; the son of James Harding, my uncle."

"What sort of man is he?"

"I know him very little. I have scarcely spoken to him since we have been both grown up; but he was very fond of me when I was a little girl, and I have always felt a kindness for him."

"Were you brought up together?"

"Oh, no; when I was about eight years old the scarlet fever was in our house, and I was sent to my uncle's for two or three weeks. Robert was then twelve years old; he was called a very naughty boy, and nobody liked him or said a kind word to him. The first day I came there he asked me to play with him, and I was going to say yes, when my aunt called out, 'Don't play with him, Alice,--don't speak to him; he is in disgrace, and nobody must talk to him.' He scowled dreadfully and walked out of the room. In the evening I was dressing my doll in a room up-stairs, where I was to sleep with Anne Harding, when I heard somebody sobbing in the next room. I went on tip-toe to the door and opened it gently. I saw Robert sitting on a bed and crying bitterly. Anne had told me he never cried, not even when his father beat him; but he was crying now, and I stood looking at him till I began to cry too. At last he got up, and climbing on the bed, he pulled off his handkerchief and tied it to the post. I did not know what he was doing, but he looked so odd and so red in the face, that I felt frightened, and called out 'Robert.'

"He turned round and said, 'What are you doing there? Go away, you must not see what I am about to do.'

"'It must be something very wrong then,' I said, 'and I hope you won't do it.'

"'Why not?' he muttered. 'What's it to you? I'm going to hang myself; but you must not tell, for they'd come and cut me down and punish me very much.'

"'Perhaps they would,' I said; 'but not so much as God will punish you if you do such a wicked thing.'

"'It isn't wicked,' he answered. 'Nobody loves me or cares about me. They won't let you play with me, and, perhaps, when I've hanged myself, they'll be sorry for it.'

"'But I'm sorry for you _now_,' I cried; 'and though I must not play with you while you are naughty, I will play with you and love you very much if you are good.'

"'Are you sure you will.'

"'Quite sure, Robert.'

"'Well, if you do I don't much care who doesn't. But mind if you don't love me I'll hang myself.'

"'But I will, indeed,' I said; and all the time I staid at my uncle's, Robert was very good, and we played every day together. After I went home again I did not see him very often. When he came to us he always brought me some little present of his own making; and he had a great turn for cutting things in wood with his knife. About three years ago he made my grandmother angry, I don't know how, but she would not let him come and see us any more."

"And he is now in America?" [I] asked.

"Yes," replied Alice. "My grandmother told me he was gone to New York a few days before I was married. I should have liked to have said good-bye to him. How like that man in Piccadilly was to him!"

We reached home just as Alice said this; and I felt glad that I had not told her that the man she had seen must have been the same who had dodged us, and that it could have been no other than this Robert Harding, whose countenance had remained indelibly impressed on my mind; but I resolved at the first opportunity to tell Henry of this circumstance, for I felt afraid of this man, and anxious to know whether his return to England was a secret to the rest of his family as well as to Alice.

When the post came in the next morning, we received letters from Elmsley. Edward's to me was kind and affectionate, but short and hurried. He had written a long one to my uncle, full of all the details connected with his canvass, which promised to be very successful. One phrase in this letter particularly attracted my attention:--"Henry's exertions in my behalf, and anxiety for my success, are beyond what I could have expected even in the early days of our friendship. He is most amiable and agreeable; and when I compare his destiny to mine (much as it may have been his own imprudence that ruined his prospects), I feel that there is generosity in the warm attachment which he shows me. We shall be in town on Saturday, and I hope and trust that nothing will prevent our marriage taking place on Monday, as we must be here again at the beginning of the ensuing week; and one week, at least, I must have for Ellen and for Hillscombe, before I plunge again into all the business and excitement of the election."

Henry's letter to his sister was as follows:--

[I have never known or understood how Mrs. Middleton came to give me this letter to read. She handed it to me with several others, which had reference to my marriage; and I imagine that it must have slipped among the rest unawares to her. I returned the whole packet to her without making any observation upon it, and she made none either.]

"My dear Mary,

"Can you understand me when I say that I retain a livelier sense of the loveliness of those scenes which are connected in my mind with acute sorrow (provided they be beautiful in themselves), than of those where I have only known happiness? Or does this seem to you nonsense? There is a spot in the world where I once stood for a quarter of an hour alone, suffering so intensely, that even now, when I think of it, I wonder how, at the end of that time, I could meet the eyes of others as I did, and show no outward signs of the anguish I was enduring. Well, Mary, strange as it may seem to you, there is not another spot in the world, the natural beauties of which are so indelibly stamped on my recollection, or which seem to have so entered into my soul. I never feel so much the unalterable beauty and perfect harmony of the material world as when the moral world within me is shaken to pieces and leaves me not even a reed to lean upon. It is the same with music. Once, when a fearful struggle was going on within me, and (no matter whether right or wrong) I thought myself very near death, an organ in the street played a Scotch air which I had heard a thousand times before; but then, for the first time, I understood it. Each note had a meaning, each modulation had a sense, which has never been lost to me since. Suffering and emotion are necessary (I believe it firmly) to expand our faculties in every line, and, with our powers of comprehension, increase our powers of admiration. I shall never feel the real beauty of military music, or the full sense of the muffled roll of the drum, till it leads me to battle, or marshals me to execution. Is it the same with my affections? Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is not in my nature passionately to love where I have never suffered. Perhaps if it had been my fate, after having from the days of childhood formed to myself an ideal image of what my soul could worship; after having met with the realisation of that dream of my fancy--a realisation as much more beautiful, as much more enchanting as life is superior in its most perfect form to the highest stretch of genius in the painter; if it had been my fate, after having watched, and followed, and loved, and doated on this woman during a year, which seemed to me but as an hour, so great was the love I bore her; had it been my fate to possess her, to call her mine, perhaps I should only have been, after a while, very fond of her, as men are of their wives--very glad to find her at home, after a day spent in the House of Commons, at one time of the year, or in shooting, at another. She might only have been one object to me among many others. It might have been so, though it is difficult to believe it; but we must believe what we see, nor dare to assert that the idol enshrined in our heart in hope, in fear, and in suffering, would have maintained its sway in the dull atmosphere of secure possession.

"We arrived at Elmsley on a lovely evening, and not a room in the house, not a spot in the grounds did I leave unvisited. While Edward and Lawson were engaged on the county registers and reports, as if their whole souls were bound up in them, I stood on the verandah, and looked on each well-known object in that lovely view till the whole was wrapt in darkness. That gradual obscuring of each spot which, when I first stood there, was glowing in the light of the evening sun, reminded me of my last conversation with you, when, in answer to the confession you extorted from me, you took up a book from your table and pointed to these lines, which I only read once, but have remembered ever since:--

'Nay, rather steel thy melting heart To act the martyr's sternest part; To watch, with firm unshrinking eye, Thy darling visions as they die; Till all bright hopes and hues of day Have faded into twilight gray.'--_Christian Year_.

"But enough of all this. Our canvass has been eminently successful; Edward has exerted himself amazingly. On the nomination-day he really spoke admirably. It is impossible not to be struck with his strong sense, his uncompromising rectitude and steady moral decision of character. He is so animated, too, by all these subjects; quite enthusiastic, in his way, about the interests of the people, and the new field of exertion which his present prospects open to him. It is plain that he has a genius more fitted for active than for contemplative life,--and so much the better for him; for a man, this is the happiest of dispositions: and he will be happy; for there is nothing in his character incompatible with quiet enjoyment; no violent passions and feelings; no morbid sensibility; with him all is sober, practical, and rational.

"Good-bye, my dear Mary. I am happy to think that Alice is with you. Remember what you promised me; watch over her as you would over a flower which a breath might, sully or a breeze destroy. Thank God, you and I are no longer strangers to each other's thoughts and hearts.

"Your ever affectionate brother,

"H. LOVELL."

Could Mrs. Middleton have intended me to see this letter? Had she, perhaps, promised Henry to show it me? No, this was entirely, utterly impossible. It must have been a mistake; and I would not inform her of it, lest it should agitate and distress her. Henry had evidently imparted to her the secret of his unconquerable attachment to me. Was this wise in his own interest? Did it correspond with his usual caution, and, above all, with his recent behaviour? It seemed to me strange; but Mrs. Middleton was easily worked upon: she did not know Henry as I knew him; she thought him like herself; and because their minds were in unison, she fancied their hearts were alike. His power was so great over those who loved him, when he chose to exert it, that it seemed to me, now, as if he had taken up a new position, and, through his wife and his sister, meant to rivet the chain which bound us together. Never did two people know each other as well as Henry and myself. I always read his motives through the veil which he flung over them, and which, perhaps, concealed them sometimes from himself. He was a practical artist; his own life was the canvass on which he worked; and that was the reason why, with a selfish heart and an unprincipled mind, he possessed all the graces of emotion, all the charms of feeling. This letter (clever and well aimed as it was--for it touched upon the very wound which had been rankling in my heart during the last few days) failed in its object, if, indeed, he had hoped that it would meet my eyes; for, as I read his account of Edward--as I felt the pain it was meant to inflict--as I acquiesced in the truth of some of his remarks, and indignantly repelled others, the cry of my heart, as I threw it from me, was in these words: "Rather be _his_ slave than _your_ idol."

On the following Saturday they both returned to London, and when I found myself again with Edward, I forgot everything in the joy of the moment. But when I was told that the day of our marriage was positively fixed for the following Monday, it seemed to me as if it was the first time that I had really believed it would take place, as if I had never considered before all that that step involved. For the first time I thought of what it would be to one in my peculiar situation, not only to love as I had long done, but to be bound by irrevocable ties to one who, ignorant of all the circumstances of my miserable fate, would wonder over each inequality of spirits I betrayed, condemn every tear I shed, read every