CHAPTER XIX.

Las! Si j’avois pouvoir d’oublier Sa beauté, sa beauté, son bien dire, Et son tant doux, tant doux regarder, Finiroit mon martire. Mais, Las! Mon cœur je n’en puis ôter; Et grand affollage M’est d’esperer, Mais tel servage Donne courage A tout endurer. Et puis comment, comment oublier Sa beauté, sa beauté, son bien dire, Et son tant doux, tant doux regarder? Mieux aime mon martire.

_Complainte à la Reine Blanche, par Thibeaut._

Some months had now elapsed. Algernon ventured to write to Ellen herself, describing to her his life of loneliness. He assured her that if he might look forward to the prospect of seeing her and his child at stated periods, however rare, however distant, he might again be able to exert himself, and strive to be an active and an useful member of society. That at present his existence appeared so aimless, so hopeless, that he could not rouse himself to attend to public any more than to private affairs.

These arguments were to her irresistible. She knew too well what were the yearnings of a parent for his child, and she would not inflict upon Algernon what she herself endured.

His fame too! His position in the world! His utility to his fellow-creatures! Her pride in his fame was second only to her love for himself, and though she would not have consented to that which was wrong in itself, even for his sake, she thought she might promise to see him once in every six months, and in the presence of her father, without compromising herself.

Having consulted Captain Wareham, and obtained his consent to this plan, she wrote Algernon word, that she agreed to his proposition, but that he must give her due warning of his coming, and that she would not see him except in the presence of her father. That she would meet him as a dear and valued friend, but they must not indulge in vain repinings, or in useless or sinful hopes.

Her letter was calm, it cost her much to make it so—but it was calm.

Such as it was, it infused new life into Algernon. He doubted not her love. He respected her scruples. He was so happy at having gained that much, that he did not quarrel with the measured style. He should see her again! He should again hear the music of her voice! And his eye beamed once more with hope—he moved with a more elastic step.

The very servants observed the altered aspect of their master, and Mrs. Topham remarked, as he walked by the windows of the housekeeper’s room to the stables, that she “had not heard her master tread so light and quick, since her poor mistress went away;” she wondered “whatever had come to him!”

He appointed the day following that on which Ellen should receive his answer—the hour one o’clock. And meanwhile he was in a restless state of joyful expectancy, which allowed him to fix his mind to nothing.

He thought a hack chaise was the most unobtrusive mode of conveyance, and that which was least likely to excite observation, and he departed on his journey alone.

With what feelings did Ellen await his arrival? She strove to preserve the even composure of her mind, but in vain!

“Algernon will find me sadly altered,” she thought, as she arranged her dress with more attention to what was becoming than she had done for many months. “This mode of dressing my hair makes me look ten years older, and my cheeks are grown so thin!” She checked herself for the vain thought: “What business have I to wish to look well in his eyes now? I ought not to think of such things.” But we will not pledge ourselves that she might not pass rather more time at her toilette that morning, than she had usually done; perhaps she was almost sorry she had adopted the habit of wearing her hair smoothly parted on her brow, instead of in the luxuriant ringlets which used to fall in showers on her cheeks. Yet had she nothing to regret. The touching, holy, Madonna-like expression of her countenance at present, fully compensated for what she might have lost in brilliancy.

To Agnes’s appearance, however, she devoted herself without any fear of doing wrong, and the blooming little creature amply repaid her cares. She was now able to lisp a few words, and Ellen had taught her to say papa, and bade her be sure so to call the gentleman who was coming, as soon as she saw him. Captain Wareham had walked down early to Ellen’s cottage, and they remained waiting in perturbed expectation. Ellen felt confused. Her situation was so strange—so new. There was no precedent by which to shape her conduct. But she had the best of guides: her guileless heart, her innate purity.

Exactly as the clock struck one, a post-chaise drove to the door. In one second, Algernon sprang from it; in another, he was in the drawing-room.

Ellen’s heart beat, till she thought her bosom would burst. Algernon rushed towards her—but she extended her hand to him before he approached her, and he merely pressed it to his lips in speechless agitation.

“Look at your child, Algernon,” she said, as soon as she could command utterance; “she looks quite well now.”

“I will, I will—but at this moment I can see nothing but you.”

Ellen withdrew her hand, and seated herself in an arm-chair.

“You have not spoken to my father,” she added.

Algernon brushed his hand across his eyes, and turning to Captain Wareham, he pressed his in silence.

Little Agnes whispered,

“Mamma, is that the gentleman I am to call papa?”

“Yes, my love, go to him!” and the obedient child timidly advanced a few steps. Algernon caught her in his arms, and devoured her with kisses, while the tears flowed fast down his manly cheeks.

The tears of a man are always powerfully affecting. What must the tears which Algernon shed over their child have been to Ellen? She did not weep. She had worked herself up to be firm, and not to allow this interview to lead to any out-pourings of the heart, to any expressions of feelings, for which she might afterwards reproach herself.

At length Algernon spoke.

“Our child, Ellen, is not like you,” and he looked from one to the other with eyes of such melting tenderness, that it would have been difficult to say, to which, at that moment, his heart went forth most.

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, “thank Heaven, she is like you!” but she presently added, in a more composed manner, “She has quite recovered her looks, and her strength now.”

She loved to hear Algernon say _our_ child. And yet how strange to see the father of her child clasp it to his bosom, shed tears of love over it, and to be obliged to keep up a calm, company, conversation!

Captain Wareham now inquired which road Algernon had taken, whether the rain had not made it very bad travelling, and a few more such interesting questions.

“Did you come straight from Belhanger?” asked Ellen in a low and tremulous voice.

“I left it yesterday afternoon.”

“It must look very pretty, now the spring is come; and is my—is the garden very nice?” One silent tear stole down Ellen’s cheek as she spoke.

“_Your_ garden is lovely! It might be a paradise! but to me, it is a place of torment.”

“Oh do not say that! Algernon. But you do not look well. You have come a great way this morning; you must be hungry; will you not have some luncheon?”

“Hungry!” he said, and gave her a half reproachful glance: “thank you, I could not eat!”

Captain Wareham now inquired what Hamilton’s political friends thought of the Spanish war, and whether the Spaniards were sincerely attached to the cause of liberty.

“I do not know, my dear sir. I never communicate with my political friends. I know nothing about them.”

Ellen’s heart smote her, that she should be the cause of his abandoning a career for which he was so well fitted.

“This must not be,” she said; “you ought to exert yourself, Algernon. Indeed this is not right!”

“But tell me, Ellen, how do you pass your time? What occupations have you?”

“I will tell you what she does, Mr. Hamilton,” interrupted Captain Wareham, “she goes about doing good, and there is not a poor distressed creature within miles, that does not know her, and bless her.”

Algernon at first felt vexed with Captain Wareham for taking up the answer to his question, for he longed to hear the music of Ellen’s voice; but he no longer regretted it was her father who had spoken, for the report of her good deeds was equally sweet in his ear.

“God will bless you also, Ellen!”

“I wish to remember all you have told me about the management of the poor, and I hope I do not encourage the idle; but I have no influence here, and I cannot give them good cottages, and gardens, as you have done, and have thus enabled them to live comfortably, without charity. Are the cottages as nice as ever?”

“I believe they are. Yes, they look very neat as I ride by.”

“And how is poor old Amy Underwood?”

“Dead!—poor old soul! She died last winter.”

“Poor Amy! So she is at rest! Who takes care of her little grand-daughter?—She made me promise I would always be a friend to her when she was gone. Algernon, you will see that the child is religiously and virtuously brought up. I cannot,—you know.”

“Yes, yes! that I will! Can you think of nothing else for me to do? Tell me more protégés of your’s, that I may attend to them. Express your wishes, give me your orders. You will invest anew Belhanger with interest in my eyes. You will give me something to live for.”

Ellen smiled faintly, and gratefully.

“Have pretty Jane Earle and her husband got a cottage yet? If they had a tidy cottage to themselves, it might confirm him in his reformation; now he has such a pretty wife too.”

In this manner Ellen endeavoured to lead him to again interest himself in his peasantry, while to herself there was a certain melancholy pleasure in uttering the names, and picturing the spots, once so familiar to her.

Agnes meantime had nestled herself comfortably into his arms. Perhaps she had some indistinct recollection of him; perhaps it was merely the caprice which sometimes makes children immediately attach themselves to one person, while they take an antipathy to another, but from the first moment she seemed attracted by him. Ellen looked at them, and thought how happy were those who might, in peace and honour, gaze every day of their lives upon their child, and the father of their child.

The hour for departure approached. At four o’clock the chaise was again to be at the door. Captain Wareham’s dinner-hour was five, and he had to walk back into the town.

In a clear and gentle voice Ellen addressed Algernon—

“One thing I wished to ask you, Algernon, before you went. Should you not like to have Agnes pay you a visit at Belhanger?”

“Not for worlds, Ellen, would I rob you of her for a moment!” It was true that he would not have robbed her for a moment of that which was her only pleasure; but he also wished to put an end to such an idea, as it would deprive him of his one excuse for seeing Ellen. “And are we not to meet again for six months, Ellen?” he added, after a pause.

She exerted all her might, and answered—

“Not for six months.”

“I may write to you?”

“No; we must not correspond. If Agnes should be ill, of course I will let you know; and if you should be ill, you must write to me. For God’s sake, write if any thing should be the matter!” she repeated with an expression of terror from the image she had herself conjured up.

The chaise had been some time announced. Captain Wareham, though from the bottom of his heart he pitied them both, thought there was no use in prolonging this distressing interview—to himself doubly so, for he felt himself a third; and yet Ellen had made him promise to give her the support of his presence. She thought, if the interview should not remain unknown (and what does remain unknown in the present civilised state of society?), her fair name could not suffer if it was conducted under the sanction of her father.

Algernon had kissed his child; he had wrung Captain Wareham’s hand; Ellen had risen from her seat, and again held forth her hand to him.

“May heaven bless you, my dear and valued friend!” she said.

“Ellen! my own Ellen!”

“You had better go now,” she gently replied. “My father is not so young as he was, and we must not make him too late for his dinner. This day six months we meet again!”

Algernon replied not. Slowly and reluctantly he left the room: he dared not remonstrate; he knew her firmness to do what she deemed right, and he feared by word or deed to lose the grace he had obtained: he threw himself into his carriage, and drove away.

Captain Wareham walked home to dinner, and Ellen at length gave way to the tumult of feelings which she had resolutely subdued.

It would be impossible to say whether joy at having seen him, or sorrow at having parted from him, preponderated: she certainly found it more difficult to resume the occupations to which she had accustomed herself; but still she had a point to look to, a bright speck in the distant horizon, to lead her on through the cheerless desert of life.

Algernon religiously executed all Ellen’s innocent behests, and, for her sake, did resume in some measure his former habits of practical utility: he attended parliament—he was put upon committees—his eye once more flashed with fire—his countenance recovered its animation, his manner its energy.

His re-appearance in the world was hailed with joy by all who knew, and consequently loved and respected him. Though there was still a corroding care within—though there was still a cheerless void in his heart, yet when once he began again to mix with his fellow men, and to enter into public affairs, there were so many objects to interest and occupy a man, that the next six months were not to him so immeasurably long as to Ellen.

At the appointed day and hour he was again at the cottage, and claimed her approving smile for his obedience to her wishes. She had carefully spelled every newspaper, waded through columns of parliamentary debates on subjects she could not comprehend, for fear of missing, or not properly appreciating, some short reply of his; but it had been with joy she had seen his name frequently among the speakers, and her approving smile was not wanting to reward him.

When his parliamentary duties were over, he found his lone and loveless home so cheerless that he again became a frequent visiter at Coverdale Park, and Ellen often heard of him when there, through Caroline. It was a consolation to him to see Ellen’s sister, and to talk to her of past happiness. Lord and Lady Coverdale were friendly people, and Miss Coverdale was a gentle, pleasing girl, who loved Ellen with the enthusiastic warmth of admiration, which girls often feel for a young married woman a few years older than themselves.

The consciousness that she did full justice to his beloved Ellen, that she had tact and discrimination enough to perceive her superiority to other people, formed a bond of union between them, and the Coverdales were almost the only family of his former acquaintance, from whose society Algernon appeared to derive any pleasure.

From his frequent visits, and from the intimacy which subsisted between him and Miss Coverdale, reports arose which immediately came to the ears of Mrs. Allenham. Some people have the faculty of always hearing news, and Caroline was one of those.

She knew how totally groundless was such an idea; but she thought if such gossip should reach * * *, it might be very unpleasant to Ellen, and that she should do well to warn her against giving any credit to it. In short, to prevent her hearing it, she immediately wrote her word of it.

She told her “It was quite a foolish notion of some meddlesome neighbours; that Algernon’s pleasure in the society at Coverdale was principally on account of their all knowing Ellen so well, and because Coverdale was so near Longbury;” and she bade her “not fret herself at all, if she did hear such silly things said.”

The very possibility that Algernon should think of any other wife, or that people should imagine he could think of any one else, was almost agonizing to Ellen. She instantly drove the suspicion from her mind. She felt too certain of his unceasing affection for her. Yet when she had done so, she reproached herself for selfishness in wishing to doom him to a life of singleness—him so formed for every domestic affection. She told herself she ought rather to wish he should find happiness with another, as she was for ever precluded from contributing to it.

“But I am sure,” she thought, “quite sure, there is no truth in the report. I know him too well!”

Still the rumour having ever arisen was disagreeable. Implicit as was her reliance on his devotion, it proved how completely he was looked upon in the world as a free man. How entirely null and void the world considered her marriage to him. She knew it. The fact had been too painfully proved and ascertained! but she experienced a sense of humiliation, that it was so decided by the law of opinion, as well as by the law of the land.