CHAPTER XI.

See the poor captive from his dungeon break, Where long he pined, and hail the light of day, With eyes that in the broad effulgence ache, With smiles that ’mid deep lines of anguish play! How eagerly he meets the morning gale With lab’ring lungs that each sweet breath would seize! How fondly views the hill, the plain, the vale, Green meadows, brooks, fields, flowers, and waving trees! And, “Gods!” he cries, “how dear is liberty! Is there in Heaven’s large gift a boon beside? The world is mine, and all the good I see!” But soon, too soon, his raptures wild subside, And sighing sad, “Not Freedom’s self to me Is sweet,” he cries, “if one to share it be denied.”

_Unpublished Poems._

The next day Henry was obliged to return to London: indeed, he wished to be upon the spot, in case of Mr. Cresford’s arrival; and Ellen was, on the same account, equally anxious he should depart.

Mrs. Allenham made several attempts to learn from Ellen the particulars of her separation; but Ellen assured her the subject was at present too painful to dwell upon; and they remained together in melancholy calmness not unmixed with _gêne_, for Caroline was somewhat hurt at Ellen’s reserve.

She had one conversation with her father, in which he was all kindness and sympathy, and she now sat down to a task which she deemed one of absolute necessity, although of the utmost difficulty, namely, to write to Mr. Cresford a letter which should meet him on his arrival in London, and convey to him the dreadful intelligence, which sooner or later, must reach him.

It was as follows:—

“I know not how to address you, and I dread lest you should have heard from some other quarter all that has occurred, and may cast aside the letter of one whom you deem untrue to you, without reading her own statement of the facts.

“Believe me, when I swear by every thing we hold most sacred, that the first communication I received from you, from the time I read the official account of your death in the public newspapers, was the letter I received last month, dated from Gratz. I had then for two years believed myself the wife of Mr. Hamilton.

“As I write these words, my spirit quails at the effect I know they must produce on you; my heart bleeds for the pain I am inflicting on you; for, indeed, I do justice to the strength of your affection for me, and I grieve to be thus the cause of anguish to one who loves me! It is a cruel return for all the fidelity you have preserved to me; but you must know the truth, and I had rather you should learn it from me, than from common report—from the busy tongue of slander.

“Mr. Maitland never brought me the letter to which you allude. I have never seen any of your companions in misfortune, except Colonel Eversham, who told me how he followed your remains to the grave, and I have yet to learn by what means you effected your escape from Verdun. For two years I mourned you in sincerity and truth. During all that time I regulated my conduct by what I supposed would have been your wishes, if you had been able to express them to me before your supposed death.

“Some months after the expiration of my two years’ mourning, I accepted the hand of Mr. Hamilton. You must feel, that, although this second marriage is null and void, and that in the eye of the law I am your wife, an eternal barrier is placed between yourself and me.

“Upon the reception of your first letter, Mr. Hamilton left me, and I have not seen him since. Upon the confirmation of this first letter (in the authenticity of which we scarcely believed), I removed with—the—two children to my father’s.” [She had at first written “_your_ two children;” but she felt as if by that word she were tacitly yielding them up to him, and she substituted _our_. This she feared might imply that their reunion was not impossible, and she wrote _the_.] “Indeed, indeed, my conscience acquits me of having wilfully done any thing wrong, though I am aware I have cast a blight over the fate of all those whose happiness I would gladly die to secure. Would I could die! But it is our duty to suffer and submit. Misfortune has, I hope, taught you likewise the duty of resignation. Pray, as I do, for strength to fulfil our pilgrimage here on earth in unrepining patience and humility, so that we may hereafter be deemed worthy of our Maker’s promised blessings to those who do his will in this world. Our misfortunes have not originated in guilt: in that reflection let us find a supporting hope; and rest assured that, had I known you to be living, no length of absence, no human power, no imaginable circumstances, should have shaken my adherence to my maiden vow of constancy: you should have found me as you left me—

“Your faithful wife, “ELLEN CRESFORD.”

With what unutterable anguish did she write that name! For some minutes she held the pen suspended before she summoned courage to trace the dreaded characters. Yet why, when her whole letter avowed herself his wife, why fear to write the word? She forced herself to do so; but as she wrote, she felt guilty towards Algernon. She had been so completely in the habit of doing every thing with reference to him, of being guided by him, of acting as if his eye was always upon her, that she thought what would be his emotions, if he saw her thus deliberately deny him! Yet this was indeed her name, and if she avoided it, she might irritate him who was in very truth her husband; him, who had a right at any moment to tear her children from her! She would no longer hesitate—she would not give herself the opportunity of altering the signature; she sealed the letter, she directed it, she enclosed it to her brother, and when all was done, she felt her separation from him she loved more complete than ever. A gush of tenderness came over her soul. If Algernon had at that moment been at her feet, there is no knowing whether she might not have consented to fly with him to the wilds of America, or to any spot on earth where human institutions could not reach.

When Algernon arrived at Belhanger, a few days after Ellen’s departure, he lost no time in sending little Agnes to rejoin her mother. He thought the presence of her child,—his child,—might afford her the sensation nearest approaching to pleasure of any thing she was now capable of experiencing. It was not without many a bitter pang that he brought himself to part from the only object that remained to him, of all that a few short weeks ago had made him the happiest man alive. But, in addition to his anxiety to lessen by any means within his power the bitterness of her fate, it is possible that a lingering hope mingled itself, that she could not refuse to let him occasionally see his child, and that he might perhaps thus obtain an interview with herself.

His home was now utterly desolate. He wandered as she had done before, like an unquiet spirit, from room to room. He pictured to himself what must have been her feelings when she tore herself from them. He longed to know how she had passed that last sad month; he wished for every trifling detail concerning her occupations, her looks, and yet he did not like to question the servants. He saw in their faces an expression of wonder and dismay; they moved about with stealthy steps, and spoke with subdued voices, while in the part of the house which he inhabited; or else, as he passed by the offices, he heard the loud laugh proceeding from the servants-hall, or the blithe carol of the laundry-maids over their wash-tub, which jarred his feelings, and he was tempted to exclaim mentally against the heartlessness of menials. Their curiosity, and their want of sympathy, both checked the inclination to question them concerning Ellen, which his restlessness caused frequently to arise in his bosom. Moreover, he scarcely knew in what terms to speak of her.

Mrs. Topham, however, spared him the trouble of deciding for himself. A few days after his return, she made her appearance to receive his orders about the furniture of the chintz-room, saying that Mrs. Hamilton had desired her to ask him what he wished to have done, and also to inquire his pleasure concerning the neck-cloths. He begged her to use her own discretion on those subjects, but still detained her in conversation, hoping she would, of her own accord, allude to Ellen.

Finding that Mrs. Topham’s discourse was strictly confined to her business, he ventured at length to say,

“I am afraid your mistress was not quite well when she left Belhanger?”

“Why certainly, sir, Mrs. Hamilton did not look so well as she used to do. There was not a servant in the house that did not remark it. But it was very lonesome for her here by herself, and we thought perhaps that was the reason she appeared so low. I am sure, sir, we all heartily wished for you back again, if it was only for our poor mistress’s sake.”

Mrs. Topham, whose curiosity had only been repressed by her respectful discretion, had no mind to lose this opportunity of ascertaining whether her master and mistress were really parted or not, and of satisfactorily clearing up the mystery of their late proceedings.

“I suppose, sir,” she continued, “my mistress will be coming back soon;—do you not think it would be a good thing to get the muslin curtains in the boudoir washed before her return?”

Poor Hamilton had wished to lead the conversation to Ellen, and now he had succeeded in doing so, he writhed under the questions,—he thought it better not to hear her name mentioned at all, than to be subject to them, and hastily bidding Mrs. Topham see to all those things in her own department, he hurried out to mount his horse, and to gallop like a maniac over the country, as if he could thus escape from the corroding care which followed faster than he could fly.

When, in violent exercise alone, did he experience temporary relief from misery. At home every thing breathed of Ellen, and, though it was agonizing to him to see traces of her on all sides, he could not tear himself from the spot; he would pass whole hours in her morning room, looking over her books, turning over the leaves of the blotting book, in which were notes, memorandums, various little matters which belonged to her. He would gaze for several minutes upon any half-bound book, which had “Ellen Hamilton” written in her hand on the outside. Those two words contained for his heart a world of passionate and blasted feelings. The very household accounts were not without a charm in his eyes—for they perpetuated the memory of a time when she was his wife.

There is no need to dwell upon the emotions of Ellen when the nurse brought her child. The smiles of the infant and the letter which accompanied it were a momentary balm to her heart. Algernon expressed his conviction that, whatever their own fates might be, he could in no way so effectually secure the ultimate and eternal welfare of their child, as by causing its young mind to be trained to all that was virtuous, under Ellen’s own immediate eye. She could not but be gratified by his opinion of her, and grateful for his kindness. It was about a fortnight from the period of their final separation, when Henry Wareham was one day called out of his office to speak to a gentleman who awaited him in a private apartment. Henry’s heart misgave him. His worst fears were on the point of being realized. It must be Cresford.

The room was dark. Henry’s eyes were dizzy with intense anxiety; he thought he did not recognise the face; but it was Cresford’s voice which asked,

“Are you Henry Wareham?”

“Heavens! Cresford. Is it indeed yourself?”

“Where is my wife?” uttered Cresford, in a choked tone of defiance.

“Ellen is with her father,” stammered Henry.

“Why was she not here to receive her husband?” continued Cresford.

“Here is a letter, Cresford, which she desired me to give you, and which will explain all.”

“Then what I have heard is true!” exclaimed Cresford in a burst of uncontrollable passion. “Your virtuous sister thought I was safe in an Austrian dungeon, and she has given the loose to her profligate fancies, under the specious veil of marriage! Well done, your sanctified hypocrite! The mourning widow of Ephesus with a vengeance!” And he laughed an appalling, withering laugh, which made Henry shudder. His eyes glared with the fire of madness. Henry almost shrank with the involuntary terror from which the bravest cannot defend themselves if they suspect mental aberration in a fellow-creature.

“Cresford, read this letter, and I think you will not make use of such hard expressions. Though you may be miserable, you will not be so angry.”

“So, because I have loved her with mad idolatry, because my passion for her has driven me to acts of desperation,—has driven me to set at nought my life—my safety, you think I am such a besotted fool, that three lines traced by her hand, are to turn the whole current of my feelings; that she can persuade me quietly to yield her to the arms of my rival.” He paused, then added in a deep and thrilling voice, “You neither of you know me. You know not half I have gone through.”

“Cresford, all I implore is that you will read my sister’s letter. We all believed you dead. The partners in the firm all believed it.”

“It was their interest—it was your interest to do so,” he answered with a bitter smile.

However, he took the letter.

“Oh, how I have longed to see any thing belonging to her. And now—”

A tear gathered in his eye. Henry augured well of that omen, and stood in silence, somewhat apart.

He had leisure to remark the havoc which time and suffering, and, as he began to fear, madness, had worked in the fine features of his brother-in-law. They were sharper, his nose more prominent, his lips thinner, and more compressed. His brow low on his eye, which glanced quickly and suspiciously from beneath it. Although still young, for Cresford was not yet thirty, his hair was considerably mixed with grey.

Henry watched the varying expression of his countenance as he proceeded with poor Ellen’s letter, and he sincerely commiserated the wretched man, who was now a prey to the most agonizing passions of our nature—blasted hope—indignant jealousy.

When he came to the part in which she spoke of having for two years believed herself the wife of Mr. Hamilton, he stamped upon the floor, and crushing the paper in his clenched hand, Henry thought would have destroyed it, in the paroxysm of his rage. However, he proceeded, and a softer shade stole over his face when he read of her grief at making such a return for all his kindness and affection. A tear trickled down his cheek as he came to the part where she described her strict adherence to his wishes; and when she mentioned her having parted from Mr. Hamilton upon the reception of his first letter, he vehemently laid his hand on Henry’s arm.

“Is this true?” he said. “Did she part from that man at once?”

“Indeed she did, and has not seen him since.”

“Henry, did she love him?—answer me that.”

Henry hesitated—“They seemed to live comfortably together, whenever I have seen them.”

“Madness! distraction! Did they love each other?”

“I saw but little of them, for I was always in the office,” replied Henry evasively.

“I must see her—I must see her herself; I must know the truth!” He resumed the letter, but hastily passing over that part which spoke of resignation, “There is no use in preaching resignation to me! She might as well attempt to chain the ocean!” He glanced at the signature. “Oh, merciful Heaven! that I could forget all that has gone before; that I could annihilate the preceding words, and preserve nothing but the last, ‘Your faithful wife, Ellen Cresford!’”

He gazed in rapturous tenderness upon the words; his tears flowed fast; he kissed the name again and again. Then hastily turning to Henry, he added, “I must see her once again, and then—God knows what will become of me!”

He rushed out of the house, and before many minutes had elapsed was on his road to Captain Wareham’s residence.