"Then we will take it to-day. Drive to Shirley Common, stop when you come to Euston Gate, and come back through Bridman Woods and home by the village."

There seemed in truth to be some fatality pursuing me. I could not take a common drive without some fresh cause for anxiety; and as we proceeded in the appointed direction, I thought of the day when I had so much annoyed Henry by persisting in visiting Bridman Cottage. As we drove along the terrace where I had seen Alice for the first time, I saw her eyes fixed on the broken fountain, and her lips moved as if she was repeating something to herself. She suddenly turned to my uncle, and asked him if he would put her down at the corner of the terrace and wait for her a few minutes, while she went to look at the house where she had once lived.

"I want to see Bridman Cottage myself," answered my uncle. "I have had the offer of a tenant, and shall be glad to go over it."

He desired the coachman to drive there. As we pa.s.sed the inn, I saw Henry's horse standing in the yard. I instantly turned Mr. Middleton's attention to an old oak on the other side of the road, and this circ.u.mstance escaped un.o.bserved. When we reached the cottage, the door was opened by an old woman who had had the care of it since Mrs. Tracy had given it up. She threw open the shutters, and the slanting rays of the evening sun shone, through the cas.e.m.e.nt on the dusty brick floor. When we followed her into the back parlour, she opened the door into the little garden, the neat and gay appearance of which contrasted with the dirty and forlorn aspect of the cottage. A spade and a rake were lying on the gra.s.s-plot in front of it.

Mr. Middleton inquired of the old woman how she managed to keep the garden in so good a state, and who she got to work in it.

"Why, Sir, if you had come some four weeks ago, you would have hardly said the same, for it's nothing as I can do myself; and my son as comes home from a Sat.u.r.day to a Monday, it's not much that he can do either; but last month a man from London, what lives at the Crown, he came here and asked me to show him the house, and when he see'd the garden and the condition it was in, he asked me to let him set to work in it and put it to rights; and a deal he has done in it to be sure for the time.

He got Madge, the washerwoman, to come over one day and tell him how it all was when them people as lived in it last were here. And a power of work he did to put up that arbour there, as she told him it was afore the neighbour's boys had got in and pulled it to pieces."

"But what is that man doing here? What is he?"

"I'm sure I don't know, Sir; he does jobs for the carpenter sometimes, and turns a penny may be that way."

"You should not let people into the house whom you know nothing about."

"Lord, Sir! what harm can he do? There's nothing to take in the place, and sure he has made the garden look gay to what it did."

Mr. Middleton went to look at the cow-shed; and the old woman, turning to Alice and myself, continued, "Madge says as how he has written a name with them flowers out in that corner; but I can't say I reads it myself--it's a queer sort of print enough."

We both moved in that direction, and saw at the same time, under the wall, traced in the delicate lilac flowers of the Virginian Stock, the name of _Alice_. She looked steadily on the spot for a few seconds, and then turning to the woman, asked her the name of the man whom she had spoken of.

"Robert Harding, Ma'am."

Alice only said, "Poor fellow! I understand it all."

She turned away and walked into the house. I leant against the wall, and remained buried in thought till my uncle returned.

He was in a hurry to go, and desired me to look for Alice. Not finding her in the rooms below, I went up the narrow staircase, opened the door of what had once been her bed-room, and looked into the closet within. There was the view of the church, such as she had once shown it me from that window: she was on her knees, and her head was resting on her hands; the sound of a deep sigh caught my ear. I looked at her kneeling in that bare and empty room where I had seen her once before with her books and her flowers, her sweet and pleasant thoughts, her bright and quiet smiles. I looked on this picture and on that, and something whispered to my soul, "Who has done this?" and conscience answered, "_Thou_, even _thou_." I heard my uncle's impatient step below, and I said, "Alice, will you come?" She rose from her knees, and there was in her face that peace which pa.s.seth all understanding. She looked into mine and, doubtless, saw in it the storms which swept over my soul, for her meek eyes looked kindly upon me.

She drew from her bosom a small wooden cross, which hung by a black ribbon round her neck; she held it to her lips and then to mine, and said, "Borne for us, and by us."

Dinner was half over that day before Henry came in; his face was flushed, and his brow clouded. He answered roughly and abruptly his sister's questions as to the cause of his lateness; drank a great deal of wine, and maintained a gloomy and sullen silence. Partly from a kind of utter discouragement, partly from the fear of giving pain to Alice, instead of eagerly watching for an opportunity of speaking to him after dinner, and learning the result of his interview with Harding, I avoided Henry, and even left the drawing-room; and going up to my own turret sitting-room, I raked up the embers of the fire, and sat before it in gloomy contemplation.

At the end of about half an hour, Henry burst into the room, and, as I looked at him in astonishment, he exclaimed bitterly, "Pray be so good as to dispense with forms for once, and receive me graciously if you can, for my patience is exhausted, and I would recommend you not to trifle with me. Do you imagine," he continued, with increasing violence, "that I am to submit to the most painful and humiliating interviews, and at my return to be treated as a footman whom you have sent on an errand? If you hate me, conceal it at least. Act the hypocrite once more, and to good purpose, for I am weary of the part you play, and make me play."

"Leave me, leave me this moment; and O that I might never set eyes on you again."

"So you said once before; and did I not tell you then, that all was not over between us? Are you not bound to me by a tie so powerful that nothing can sever it? Has not your heart softened to me in spite of all I have ever done or said to make you hate me? And is it not because you know, you feel, that, whatever I may do and say in ungovernable anger, I love you ardently, pa.s.sionately, unspeakably--"

"For G.o.d's sake, for mercy's sake, go! that is Edward's voice in the hall--he is coming."

Henry rushed to the door and locked it; at the same moment the handle was seized and turned outside. I grew very pale, but sprang forward to open it; before I had reached it, Henry had seized my hands, and in a whisper he said, "As you value your future peace, do not open it."

"I would die at his feet rather than not let him in."

I disengaged myself from Henry's grasp, and flung open the door; but whoever had been there was gone, and I heard the one that led into the hall slammed with violence. I returned into the room burning with shame and indignation; and throwing myself down on the chair before the fire, I hid my face in my hands and refused to listen to Henry.

"Calm yourself, I entreat you," said Henry; "after this it will not do to appear again with red and swollen eyes.

Besides, I must speak to you--I must tell you about Harding."

I got up with the courage of despair, and the recklessness of a nature that was growing hardened, and listened in silence to his recital of the scene he had had with that wild man, who seemed careless of all ties and considerations, save the one feeling which overruled all others in his strange nature--his unconquerable and hopeless attachment to Alice.

"I have borne much for your sake, to-day, Ellen; it is well for us both that I have more self-command than you have. That coa.r.s.e and vulgar lout knows my secrets as well as yours; he almost threw into my face the money I offered him. He almost called me a villain, and I was forced to bear with it all, and even to let him depart with nothing but a silent curse, when he said 'Make Alice happy, and I will hold my tongue, and only thank G.o.d that though I'm a blackguard, I'm no thief; and though I've knocked down many a man, I've never killed a child; but if you bring tears into her eyes, and break her heart, my name is not Robert Harding, or there are no clubs or knives in the world, if I do not give you a taste of mine.'

Now you know why I came home with the spirit of a demon and the temper of a fiend, and vented upon you the tortures I had been enduring. Oh, Ellen, we cannot bear this life much longer; if you could but--"

"Ellen! Ellen! where are you? The Brandons are arrived, and have been asking for you over and over again. Mr. Middleton and Edward wish you to come down directly."

I rushed down the steps of the turret stairs, at the bottom of which my aunt was standing, and went with her into the library, and had to talk and to smile, and to be told that I looked a little pale and tired, and to be asked by Edward if I knew where Henry was, and to deny all knowledge of it, and to feel as if myself and all about me were acting a heartless play, with fevered cheeks and breaking hearts.

CHAPTER XXI.

"There was a laughing devil in his sneer, That raised emotions both of rage and fear; And where his frown of hatred darkly fell, Hope withering fled, and Mercy sighed farewell."

THE CORSAIR.

From this day forward Henry's manner and conduct lost that degree of gentleness and consideration which had marked it since the moment that I had thrown myself on his mercy at the time of my hasty engagement to Edward. Whenever I was alone with him, he spoke of his attachment as of a matter of course; and with alternate bursts of anger and of tenderness, met every attempt I made to check or resent this: sometimes with bitter scorn he hinted that I had lost all right to do so, and asked, with a sneer, if I supposed that he was to be treated like any presumptuous admirer who happened to make love to me.

In a hundred trifles he contrived to make me feel his power.

He engaged me in a course of petty deceits and contrivances; he humbled me in my own eyes, and practically pointed out to me the degradation of my position, and the deterioration of my character. He held me now, indeed, completely in his power; for if I made the slightest attempt to struggle against his tyranny, he threatened to abandon Alice, and to seek in absence and change of scene, relief to the sufferings which his hopeless pa.s.sion caused him. He knew well that such a project must drive me to despair, on her account as well as my own; and one evening (about a fortnight after the conversation I last recorded), when I had turned abruptly from him, and refused to accede to his usual threatening offers of reconciliation after a very violent scene, he wrote to me to announce his determination of carrying this resolution into effect. His letter was as follows:--

"Do not upbraid me--upbraid yourself for the step to which you drive me. You must foresee what it is, and you probably rejoice at the prospect which it holds out to you of escape from an attachment which, though it has often stood between you and danger and disgrace, you treat with contempt when not forced to have recourse to it. My self-control is at an end--my powers of endurance are exhausted--I can struggle no longer--and if I leave my wife at a moment when she should most require the support of my presence, and such comfort as it would afford her, it is because the discovery of all which I have hitherto laboured to conceal, would be a more severe blow to her than my absence will prove. I shall endeavour to give as plausible an appearance as I can to the step which I am about to take. It is madness to hazard it; but you drive me mad. I cannot trust myself to take leave of you; by the time you awake to-morrow, I shall have left Elmsley, unless I receive from you some token of regard, some expression of regret, some promise, that for the future you will have patience with me. Is it much to ask that my love should be _endured?_ Would not others in my place exact more? My fate, yours, and Alice's, are for a second time in your hands. I am still near you--near her; she is sleeping quietly, unconscious that the fate of my life and of hers is at this moment deciding. Write to me one word of kindness, and I am still ready to conquer my stormy feelings--to subdue my selfish impulses--to be to her a kind and constant protector--and to you, a friend. I shall wait here, and count the minutes till your answer reaches me, and each will seem to me a century; but do not imagine that I write this only to frighten you into a reconciliation. I solemnly swear, that, if you do not bid me stay, and bind yourself to a patient, constant, and generous indulgence to feelings, which, if concealed from others, must be appreciated and respected by you; if you do not send me such an answer, I swear that I have seen you and Alice for the last time; and that the misery which may in consequence befall her and you, my sister, and Edward himself, is your doing, and not mine. Ellen, decide!"

I read this letter in my dressing-room with my maid waiting in the pa.s.sage, and in momentary expectation of Edward's coming up-stairs. Bewildered, I stood with it in my hand, unable to think or to decide. In five minutes there was a knock at the door; and my maid said--"Mr. Lovell is waiting for the answer, Ma'am."

The clock struck twelve; the door of the billiard-room opened, and I heard the voices of the men preparing to leave it. I s.n.a.t.c.hed a bit of paper on the table and wrote hastily in pencil upon it--"Do not go, I implore you. I forgive, and will bear with you."

I sealed and gave it; and the instant afterwards would have given worlds to recall it--but it _was_ gone; and when we all sat down at breakfast the next morning, and everything went on as usual; and when, for a few days at least, Henry seemed to take no advantage of my cowardly concession, I did not feel its folly, or its guilt, as I ought to have done.

I could not find out by Alice's manner how far her suspicions had been awakened, or her feelings wounded, by the discovery of my letter to her husband. She was certainly a different person from what she had been in the early days of her marriage. She had altogether lost the childish artlessness with which she used to communicate her thoughts, and relate the incidents of her daily life and innocent occupations; but on the other hand, she no longer avoided those subjects of conversation, or those books, which related to the actual state of society, or the history of the human mind. She read a great deal; book after book I saw her carry up to her own room, and the intense interest with which I watched, without daring to question her, made me closely observe her course of reading. Her mind seemed to feed upon it, and her intellect to expand; but at the same time her cheek grew pale, and in the expression of her countenance, what once was peace, had become composure; and in her character, what had been only simplicity, had grown into reserve. Her eyes were often rivetted upon Henry, with an expression not of love or of fear, but of deep and painful interest.

It was at the end of the third week in October that we moved to London, and that I took possession of my new house there.

Alice's confinement was near at hand, and so was the departure of my uncle and aunt. This was a pang which some time before would have been inexpressibly painful to me, but now I grieved over it--more from the recollection of what had once been my happiness with my aunt, and of the manner in which that happiness had pa.s.sed away, than from the actual grief of separation itself. Since my marriage, her manner to me, without being cold, had grown constrained, and she had often been on the point of giving utterance to something that seemed to agitate and distress her, but which had, however, never pa.s.sed her lips. I fancied it might have reference to Henry and Alice, and I dreaded so much her speaking to me on a subject on which, alas! I could give no explanation, nor in any way change my own conduct, that instead of seeking her society during those last days in London, I, on the contrary, avoided it, and shrunk with nervous dread from being alone with her. They went; and when she took leave of me, she folded me in her arms, and whispered in my ear, "G.o.d guide thee--G.o.d bless thee! my beloved child!"

I hid my face in her bosom; and the burning tears which I shed there, were my only answer to a blessing which seemed to heap coals of fire on my head. I turned from the window whence I had watched their departure, and a sense of desolation took possession of me. I had never opened my heart to her; I had never _told_ her that I was wretched; but if at any moment the cup was too full, and my heart-strings stretched to bursting, I could turn to her and say, "My soul is heavy within me," and she never said, "Why is it thus with you?" She never told me that life was fair, and my share of its blessings great, and that I _ought_ to be happy. She did not _know_ that I was miserable--but she _felt_ it; and to me, young, strong and blooming as I then was--to me the idol of the man I adored--the spoilt child of fortune--she had in those moments the heart's instinct to say--"Earth, my child, has a grave; and in Heaven there is rest."

We went for the few days which intervened between Mr. and Mrs.

Middleton's departure and the meeting of parliament, to the Moores' at Hampstead; and I enjoyed more quiet there than I had done since we had left Hills...o...b...

Rosa was absent; and the society might have been reckoned dull; but to me it was a time of comparative peace, and sometimes almost of happiness.

Edward was in good spirits; and the emotion which he evinced on seeing again the spot where our destinies had been sealed, was a proof how truly he loved me. And, oh, with what tenderness, with what affection, I regarded him; but how I feared him too, and with what moral weariness I strove to keep up before him, in very fear, the appearance of that character which he fondly supposed me to possess. He sternly reproved me for each act, for each word, that fell short of that standard of perfection which his imagination had drawn. He attributed to me merits and qualities which I did not possess; but, on the other hand, he looked upon me as a spoilt and fanciful child, who must be taught to see life as it is, and to fulfil its every-day duties. His praise and his blame depressed and discouraged me alike.