CHAPTER VIII.
We that did nothing study but the way To love each other, with which thoughts the day Rose with delight to us, and with them set, Must learn the cruel art how to forget. ——Like turtle doves Dislodged from their haunts, we must in tears Unwind a love knit up in many years. Now turn we each from each—so fare our hearts, As the divorced soul from its body parts.
_The Surrender._
Mr. Hamilton had half succeeded in persuading himself the whole thing was a cunning forgery. The story seemed so improbable. No letter had ever arrived from Cresford—no Maitland had ever brought any intelligence of this attempt to escape. Colonel Eversham had seen him carried to the grave—the funeral had taken place at night, by Mr. Cresford’s dying request, he said. How unlikely, whatever might subsequently have been the difficulties of his situation, that if alive, he should really have allowed so much time to elapse without writing to the wife with whom he was so madly in love! These reflections all presented themselves to his mind, and by dinner-time he was able to take his accustomed seat, and to do the honours of his table with tolerable self-possession.
Towards evening Mrs. Allenham was alarmed by a recurrence of Ellen’s faintness: it was immediately after her children had been brought in to wish her good night.
Mrs. Allenham was urgent that a physician should be sent for. Ellen appeared to revive, to express her vehement desire that no one should be summoned. She only wished that her maid should sleep on a sofa in her room, in case she should be worse in the night. Mrs. Allenham thought Mr. Hamilton rather remiss in not sending for medical advice.
“Mr. Allenham,” she thought, “though he does not make such a fuss about his love for me, would never let me be as ill as Ellen is, without sending for all the doctors in the neighbourhood; but different men have different ways, and one must take people as one finds them.”
One thing, however, she resolved upon, that if Ellen was not better the next morning, she would speak her mind openly to Mr. Hamilton, and insist on his having the very best advice.
Ellen was no sooner in her bed than she dropped into a profound slumber, from which she awoke early the next morning, refreshed in body, and with only a vague recollection of the tremendous change which had taken place in her fate. By degrees her actual situation opened upon her.
How dreadful is the waking from a real sound sleep of forgetfulness, after any severe misfortune has befallen us! The temporary oblivion of our sorrows scarcely compensates for the agony of recollection.
She was, however, aware of the necessity of concealing what she felt, if she wished to preserve the illegitimacy of her child from becoming public, while there was yet a hope of its remaining unknown. She passed some time in humble prayer, imploring guidance from above, judgment to know what was right, and strength to execute it.
She rose from prayer in a calmer frame of mind—she felt herself fortified for the task before her— she thought that if Algernon left her at Belhanger alone, there could be no crime in delaying the promulgation of the dreadful secret, for the chance of saving herself and her child from unmerited disgrace.
She went down to breakfast, and she made an attempt to smile in return to the salutations and inquiries of her friends. She was in the act of assuring them she was quite well, when Mr. Hamilton entered the apartment. She started as she heard his well-known turn of the lock, she faltered in her speech as he entered, her paleness was replaced by a vivid glow, which overspread her face, but she turned not her eyes upon him; she studiously avoided meeting his; the first sound of his voice thrilled through her very being.
She took her station at the breakfast-table, upon the same spot where yesterday she had received that fatal intelligence which had so completely broken up her happiness. She took her station as mistress of the mansion to which she had no longer any right. She felt she was an impostor.
Mr. Hamilton, who had the preceding day buoyed himself up with something more of hope than she had done, had passed a night of anxious restlessness. Sleep had not for one moment weighed down his eyelids; and when at length Ellen ventured almost by stealth to take one look at that beloved countenance, her heart was pierced to see it so wan, so haggard.
Their object was to avoid exciting remark. A plan was proposed, and acceded to, of driving to see a fine castle in the neighbourhood, in which was a collection of pictures. Ellen accompanied the ladies in an open carriage, and Mr. Hamilton took the gentlemen across the country on horseback.
While others were engaged in admiring some of the masterpieces of art, Ellen found herself near Mr. Hamilton.
“Algernon, you look very ill,” she said: “it breaks my heart to see you!”
“Can it be otherwise, Ellen? Even you can scarcely know the tortures I endure.”
“We must not speak to each other. I shall lose the self-command I have so struggled to obtain. But I have behaved well, Algernon. I have conducted myself according to your wishes?”
“Yes! yes! May God bless you, dearest and best! I cannot trust myself to say another word.”
He hastened away, and went to the stables, as though to see for the horses and the barouche. Ellen busied herself in examining a picture, of which she did not see one form, and drove back her bursting tears, and stilled the tumult of her soul.
On their way home, Lady Coverdale was eloquent on the beauties of this part of the world, on the charms of Belhanger, and discussed with much interest the plan for the flower-garden which Ellen was making along the terrace in front of the house.
“When your shrubs have grown, and the creepers cover that bowered walk to the left, it will be quite beautiful. Are you not always very impatient at the slow growth of plants? One has to wait so long before one sees any result produced. I think it is a great objection to gardening. However, you are very young, and you may look forward to many years of enjoying your improvements.”
These simple words shot like daggers through Ellen’s heart. She could not reply, and notwithstanding all her efforts to appear at her ease, the conversation flagged. Caroline had seen Ellen speak in a low voice to Mr. Hamilton, while others were engaged with the paintings; she had seen him suddenly leave the room, and perceiving how oppressed Ellen’s spirits were, became thoroughly convinced some serious disagreement had occurred.
“Well,” she thought, “I suppose it will all come right again. Everybody cannot go on so smoothly as dear Mr. Allenham and I do!”
When they returned from their excursion, Ellen retired to her room. She had not the heart, as usual, to repair to the nursery or the school-room. The sight of her two elder children harrowed her soul, from the fear that she possessed them only for a time, that they would be torn from her just when their opening intelligence, their amiable dispositions, had superadded to the instinctive love of a mother, the affection produced by their own good qualities. The sight of her little girl was scarcely less agonising, from the conviction that she must soon be a nameless outcast!
She had again recourse to prayer, and she again rose from her devotions strengthened and resigned.
At that moment a gentle tap at the door was heard, and Algernon entered.
“I must see you, I must speak to you, Ellen! Human nature cannot endure this continued state of effort. Let us unbend for a few short moments. Tell me you love me, and that, let our fate be what it may, your heart, your whole heart, is mine.”
“Oh, Algernon! I have just been praying for strength and resignation, and I thought I had obtained my prayer. Do not speak to me in those tender tones. They melt away my whole soul, and I will, I will be firm. I must no longer allow myself to use such expressions; but I cannot even try not to feel all and more than I ever felt before. Spare my weakness, Algernon, and remember that dearly as I prize your love, I prize your good opinion still more. That is the one thought which enables me to exist, I believe.”
He looked on her with admiration, almost amounting to awe.
“My good opinion! You are as much superior to me, or to any other living being, as the angels of heaven are to the common run of mortals. I adore you, I venerate you, as one of them.” He knelt at her feet. “Speak, and I will obey you. I place myself under your guidance. I will regulate my actions by what you deem calculated to ensure your own peace of mind. I will prove to you that I can equal you at least in self-devotion; though my heart may break, I will not yield to you in that!”
“Get up, Algernon. Do not kneel at my feet. I cannot bear to hear you speak in such a manner. These scenes must not recur. We only agonize each other, and render ourselves unfit for our task. Leave me, dearest; leave me to compose myself!”
“You bid me leave you, and I will do so. But will you not give me your hand?—that dear hand which, after all, was pledged to me at the altar!” He took her unresisting hand. “It was I who placed that ring upon your finger, Ellen; you then swore to me eternal fidelity, you swore to love me ‘till death us did part.’ Can any thing cancel that vow?” And he drew her gently towards him.
“O God! nothing, nothing!” She dashed his hand from her, and rushed to the opposite corner of the room. She glared wildly upon him. “Nothing, nothing can cancel that first dreadful vow! Oh! do not remind me of those words. It was then the vision came over me! He, whom you tell me is my husband, seemed to rise up between us, Algernon! It was a forewarning of what was to happen! I ought to have obeyed the warning—I should have stopped before”—her voice faltered, but she continued in a tone of unutterable sweetness—“before those words made me the happiest woman in the whole world!” She hid her face with her hands, and burst into tears.
“Bless you for what you have just said, my own Ellen!”
“Do not call me your own Ellen; I am not—can never be! In mercy leave me—this agony is not to be endured!”
Slowly and reluctantly he withdrew: he stood for a few moments at the door, and then he closed it, and she remained alone.
She had prayed for strength, and she found it. She did not weep, but meekly sat, patient and uncomplaining. The hour for dressing arrived, and she mechanically proceeded with her toilet. Her maid had prepared the dress, the ornaments she thought she would wear. Mechanically she sate before the looking-glass, mechanically she arranged her ringlets round her face; she placed in her hair the ornamental comb her maid presented to her, fastened her ear-rings, held out her arm to have her bracelets clasped, and, when she was dressed, wondered at herself for having tricked herself out in all these gewgaws.
“How strange,” she thought, “that I should have been able thus to deck this wretched form!” But such is the force of habit: it does not come into any body’s head to leave off the feathers, the diamonds, the flowers with which they are in the habit of adorning themselves, though the heart beneath may be breaking—and yet it seems a mockery!
Before dinner Lady Coverdale begged that the children might be sent for, and little Agnes appeared in a beautiful cap which Miss Coverdale had embroidered for her. The beauty of the child’s eyes was discussed.
“If Agnes grows up according to this promise, Mrs. Hamilton”—(Ellen started at the name)—“you will have a pleasant task in acting as her chaperon.”
Ellen almost sank at the prospect which was thus brought before her. She could not answer, but, hastily turning away, stirred the fire with great energy, at the same time exclaiming, “How hot it is!”
They went to dinner; she was seated at the head of the table, opposite to Mr. Hamilton. She felt a sort of melancholy pleasure in being, as it were, forced to appear as his wife; but never did two such bursting hearts pass calmly through an evening of society.
Another day succeeded, and it was spent in the same struggle. On the third the Coverdales departed, thinking that, for so happy a couple, they were the most fashionably cool they had ever seen; the Allenhams, fearing that Mr. Hamilton, charming as he was, must have an odd corner of temper, for, as to Ellen, they knew her too well to imagine for a moment that she could be in fault.
They all drove from the door, and the wretched couple were left alone with their love and their misery.
“And now _you_ must leave me, Algernon; we must not remain here alone, and I even doubt whether I ought to remain under your roof.”
“Oh, Ellen! one would think you wished to believe we were severed, for ever severed! There is still hope.”
“None for me! I know that hand-writing too well.”
“Must I go to-day?”
“To-day, if you value my peace, and the little remnant of honour I may yet hope to preserve.”
“This is hard, this is cruel; but you shall have an approving conscience, my own Ellen; and if your conscience will be easier when I am gone, I will not linger: I will order every thing for my journey, and I will go at dusk to-night. Till then, you will let me be with you; till then, I may look on your face—I may listen to your voice—I may breathe the same air with you!”
He flew to order his departure, and in another instant was by her side.
There was a melancholy satisfaction in being together, and yet, when they were so, they could not speak: what could they say that was not fraught with wretchedness?
“I must see our children, Ellen.”
He had been in the habit of calling all the children “our;” but the little word, which from the force of habit escaped him, struck daggers to the hearts of both. The two elder were his children who might soon be at home to claim them.
They all three came, and poor Hamilton devoured them with kisses. The little Agnes was just old enough to know him, and to hold out her arms to him with a smile of joy. They could neither of them endure this long; they could not talk to the children—they could not play with them—they could not listen to their prattle, and they were soon sent away.
Strange to say, these last few hours, whose flight they so much dreaded, hung heavy. They wished to arrest the course of time, and yet they knew not how to pass it. They strolled into the garden: every thing there spoke of hope and promise; every thing within their own bosoms boded unheard-of wretchedness.
They had several times paced in silence round the sheltered parterre, when Ellen turned deadly pale, and stopped for a few moments.
“You must lean on me, Ellen! You must take my arm.”
Her feebleness compelled her to do so, and once more he had the happiness of feeling that lovely form rest on him for support.
Neither spoke again. Both hearts were too full for utterance. In silence they bent their course homeward. They again returned to the drawing-room. They once more sat down there together. They could not bring themselves to quit each other for a moment,—to lose one instant of these few precious hours; and yet to each, the presence of the other was oppressive. This state of misery and _gêne_ was worse than that occasioned by the presence of others.
They could not, at such a moment, speak on indifferent subjects; and if they alluded to their own situation, it must lead to passionate bursts of feeling, which she considered as criminal, and which he also dreaded for her sake.
At length the hour of departure came. The carriage was announced—and he went up-stairs alone once more to give his parting blessing to the children. He returned to her.
“I think we may correspond,” she said, “there can be nothing wrong in that, till our fate is quite decided.”
“Oh yes, yes; you must write every day,” he replied. “I shall find out some retired spot in Wales, and I shall remain there in utter seclusion till your mind is made easy by hearing no more. In three months you will conclude it was only a forgery?”
She shook her head. “I know the writing.”
“In six months? In a year, you will—name some time—set some term to my banishment!”
“We will write—I am not capable of knowing or understanding what is right in your presence. You must leave me, Algernon, or I think I shall die, now, at your feet!”
“And are we to part thus?”
She stood like a marble statue, as cold, as pale, as motionless.
“Are we to part thus? Impossible!” and he snatched her to his bosom, and imprinted on her lips one kiss of deep, fervent, unalterable love.
He tore himself away, and plunging into the carriage, in a few moments was borne far from the scene of all his happiness.
When she heard the sound of the wheels, she made a desperate rush to the window, and remained fixed there to listen for their sound, and to fancy she still heard it, long after it was possible to do so.