My manuscript lay before me, set in order by Clara’s careful hand. I slowly turned over the leaves one by one; but my eye only fell mechanically on the writing. Yet one day since, and how much ambition, how much hope, how many of my heart’s dearest sensations and my mind’s highest thoughts dwelt in those poor paper leaves, in those little crabbed marks of pen and ink! Now I could look on them indifferently — almost as a stranger would have looked. The days of calm study, of steady toil of thought, seemed departed for ever. Stirring ideas; store of knowledge patiently heaped up; visions of better sights than this world can show, falling freshly and sunnily over the pages of my first book; all these were past and gone — withered up by the hot breath of the senses — doomed by a paltry fate, whose germ was the accident of an idle day!
I hastily put the manuscript aside. My unexpected interview with Clara had calmed the turbulent sensations of the evening: but the fatal influence of the dark beauty remained with me still. How could I write?
I sat down at the open window. It was at the back of the house, and looked out on a strip of garden — London garden — a close-shut dungeon for nature, where stunted trees and drooping flowers seemed visibly pining for the free air and sunlight of the country, in their sooty atmosphere, amid their prison of high brick walls. But the place gave room for the air to blow in it, and distanced the tumult of the busy streets. The moon was up, shined round tenderly by a little border-work of pale yellow light. Elsewhere, the awful void of night was starless; the dark lustre of space shone without a cloud.
A presentiment arose within me, that in this still and solitary hour would occur my decisive, my final struggle with myself. I felt that my heart’s life or death was set on the hazard of the night.
This new love that was in me; this giant sensation of a day’s growth, was first love. Hitherto, I had been heart-whole. I had known nothing of the passion, which is the absorbing passion of humanity. No woman had ever before stood between me and my ambitions, my occupations, my amusements. No woman had ever before inspired me with the sensations which I now felt.
In trying to realise my position, there was this one question to consider; was I still strong enough to resist the temptation which accident had thrown in my way? I had this one incentive to resistance: the conviction that, if I succumbed, as far as my family prospects were concerned, I should be a ruined man.
I knew my father’s character well: I knew how far his affections and his sympathies might prevail over his prejudices — even over his principles — in some peculiar cases; and this very knowledge convinced me that the consequences of a degrading marriage contracted by his son (degrading in regard to rank), would be terrible: fatal to one, perhaps to both. Every other irregularity — every other offence even — he might sooner or later forgive. This irregularity, this offence, never — never, though his heart broke in the struggle. I was as sure of it, as I was of my own existence at that moment.
I loved her! All that I felt, all that I knew, was summed up in those few words! Deteriorating as my passion was in its effect on the exercise of my mental powers, and on my candour and sense of duty in my intercourse with home, it was a pure feeling towards her. This is truth. If I lay on my death-bed, at the present moment, and knew that, at the Judgment Day, I should be tried by the truth or falsehood of the lines just written, I could say with my last breath: So be it; let them remain.
But what mattered my love for her? However worthy of it she might be, I had misplaced it, because chance — the same chance which might have given her station and family — had placed her in a rank of life far — too far — below mine. As the daughter of a “gentleman,” my father’s welcome, my father’s affection, would have been bestowed on her, when I took her home as my wife. As the daughter of a tradesman, my father’s anger, my father’s misery, my own ruin perhaps besides, would be the fatal dower that a marriage would confer on her. What made all this difference? A social prejudice. Yes: but a prejudice which had been a principle — nay, more, a religion — in our house, since my birth; and for centuries before it.
(How strange that foresight of love which precipitates the future into the present! Here was I thinking of her as my wife, before, perhaps, she had a suspicion of the passion with which she had inspired me — vexing my heart, wearying my thoughts, before I had even spoken to her, as if the perilous discovery of our marriage were already at hand! I have thought since how unnatural I should have considered this, if I had read it in a book.)
How could I best crush the desire to see her, to speak to her, on the morrow? Should I leave London, leave England, fly from the temptation, no matter where, or at what sacrifice? Or should I take refuge in my books — the calm, changeless old friends of my earliest fireside hours? Had I resolution enough to wear my heart out by hard, serious, slaving study? If I left London on the morrow, could I feel secure, in my own conscience, that I should not return the day after!
While, throughout the hours of the night, I was thus vainly striving to hold calm counsel with myself; the base thought never occurred to me, which might have occurred to some other men, in my position: Why marry the girl, because I love her? Why, with my money, my station, my opportunities, obstinately connect love and marriage as one idea; and make a dilemma and a danger where neither need exist? Had such a thought as this, in the faintest, the most shadowy form, crossed my mind, I should have shrunk from it, have shrunk from my self; with horror. Whatever fresh degradations may be yet in store for me, this one consoling and sanctifying remembrance must still be mine. My love for Margaret Sherwin was worthy to be offered to the purest and perfectest woman that ever God created.
The night advanced — the noises faintly reaching me from the streets, sank and ceased — my lamp flickered and went out — I heard the carriage return with Clara from the ball — the first cold clouds of day rose and hid the waning orb of the moon — the air was cooled with its morning freshness: the earth was purified with its morning dew — and still I sat by my open window, striving with my burning love-thoughts of Margaret; striving to think collectedly and usefully — abandoned to a struggle ever renewing, yet never changing; and always hour after hour, a struggle in vain.
At last I began to think less and less distinctly — a few moments more, and I sank into a restless, feverish slumber. Then began another, and a more perilous ordeal for me — the ordeal of dreams. Thoughts and sensations which had been more and more weakly restrained with each succeeding hour of wakefulness, now rioted within me in perfect liberation from all control.
This is what I dreamed:
I stood on a wide plain. On one side, it was bounded by thick woods, whose dark secret depths looked unfathomable to the eye: on the other, by hills, ever rising higher and higher yet, until they were lost in bright, beautifully white clouds, gleaming in refulgent sunlight. On the side above the woods, the sky was dark and vaporous. It seemed as if some thick exhalation had arisen from beneath the trees, and overspread the clear firmament throughout this portion of the scene.
As I still stood on the plain and looked around, I saw a woman coming towards me from the wood. Her stature was tall; her black hair flowed about her unconfined; her robe was of the dun hue of the vapour and mist which hung above the trees, and fell to her feet in dark thick folds. She came on towards me swiftly and softly, passing over the ground like cloud-shadows over the ripe corn-field or the calm water.
I looked to the other side, towards the hills; and there was another woman descending from their bright summits; and her robe was white, and pure, and glistening. Her face was illumined with a light, like the light of the harvest-moon; and her footsteps, as she descended the hills, left a long track of brightness, that sparkled far behind her, like the track of the stars when the winter night is clear and cold. She came to the place where the hills and the plain were joined together. Then she stopped, and I knew that she was watching me from afar off.
Meanwhile, the woman from the dark wood still approached; never pausing on her path, like the woman from the fair hills. And now I could see her face plainly. Her eyes were lustrous and fascinating, as the eyes of a serpent — large, dark and soft, as the eyes of the wild doe. Her lips were parted with a languid smile; and she drew back the long hair, which lay over her cheeks, her neck, her bosom, while I was gazing on her.
Then, I felt as if a light were shining on me from the other side. I turned to look, and there was the woman from the hills beckoning me away to ascend with her towards the bright clouds above. Her arm, as she held it forth, shone fair, even against the fair hills; and from her outstretched hand came long thin rays of trembling light, which penetrated to where I stood, cooling and calming wherever they touched me.
But the woman from the woods still came nearer and nearer, until I could feel her hot breath on my face. Her eyes looked into mine, and fascinated them, as she held out her arms to embrace me. I touched her hand, and in an instant the touch ran through me like fire, from head to foot. Then, still looking intently on me with her wild bright eyes, she clasped her supple arms round my neck, and drew me a few paces away with her towards the wood.
I felt the rays of light that had touched me from the beckoning hand, depart; and yet once more I looked towards the woman from the hills. She was ascending again towards the bright clouds, and ever and anon she stopped and turned round, wringing her hands and letting her head droop, as if in bitter grief. The last time I saw her look towards me, she was near the clouds. She covered her face with her robe, and knelt down where she stood. After this I discerned no more of her. For now the woman from the woods clasped me more closely than before, pressing her warm lips on mine; and it was as if her long hair fell round us both, spreading over my eyes like a veil, to hide from them the fair hill-tops, and the woman who was walking onward to the bright clouds above.
I was drawn along in the arms of the dark woman, with my blood burning and my breath failing me, until we entered the secret recesses that lay amid the unfathomable depths of trees. There, she encircled me in the folds of her dusky robe, and laid her cheek close to mine, and murmured a mysterious music in my ear, amid the midnight silence and darkness of all around us. And I had no thought of returning to the plain again; for I had forgotten the woman from the fair hills, and had given myself up, heart, and soul, and body, to the woman from the dark woods.
Here the dream ended, and I awoke.
It was broad daylight. The sun shone brilliantly, the sky was cloudless. I looked at my watch; it had stopped. Shortly afterwards I heard the hall clock strike six.
My dream was vividly impressed on my memory, especially the latter part of it. Was it a warning of coming events, foreshadowed in the wild visions of sleep? But to what purpose could this dream, or indeed any dream, tend? Why had it remained incomplete, failing to show me the visionary consequences of my visionary actions? What superstition to ask! What a waste of attention to bestow it on such a trifle as a dream!
Still, this trifle had produced one abiding result. I knew it not then; but I know it now. As I looked out on the reviving, re-assuring sunlight, it was easy enough for me to dismiss as ridiculous from my mind, or rather from my conscience, the tendency to see in the two shadowy forms of my dream, the types of two real living beings, whose names almost trembled into utterance on my lips; but I could not also dismiss from my heart the love-images which that dream had set up there for the worship of the senses. Those results of the night still remained within me, growing and strengthening with every minute.
If I had been told beforehand how the mere sight of the morning would reanimate and embolden me, I should have scouted the prediction as too outrageous for consideration; yet so it was. The moody and boding reflections, the fear and struggle of the hours of darkness were gone with the daylight. The love-thoughts of Margaret alone remained, and now remained unquestioned and unopposed. Were my convictions of a few hours since, like the night-mists that fade before returning sunshine? I knew not. But I was young; and each new morning is as much the new life of youth, as the new life of Nature.
So I left my study and went out. Consequences might come how they would, and when they would; I thought of them no more. It seemed as if I had cast off every melancholy thought, in leaving my room; as if my heart had sprung up more elastic than ever, after the burden that had been laid on it during the night. Enjoyment for the present, hope for the future, and chance and fortune to trust in to the very last! This was my creed, as I walked into the street, determined to see Margaret again, and to tell her of my love before the day was out. In the exhilaration of the fresh air and the gay sunshine, I turned my steps towards Hollyoake Square, almost as light-hearted as a boy let loose from school, joyously repeating Shakespeare’s lines as I went:
“Hope is a lover’s staff; walk hence with that,
And manage it against despairing thoughts.”
London was rousing everywhere into morning activity, as I passed through the streets. The shutters were being removed from the windows of public-houses: the drink-vampyres that suck the life of London, were opening their eyes betimes to look abroad for the new day’s prey! Small tobacco and provision-shops in poor neighbourhoods; dirty little eating-houses, exhaling greasy-smelling steam, and displaying a leaf of yesterday’s paper, stained and fly-blown, hanging in the windows — were already plying, or making ready to ply, their daily trade. Here, a labouring man, late for his work, hurried by; there, a hale old gentleman started for his early walk before breakfast. Now a market-cart, already unloaded, passed me on its way back to the country; now, a cab, laden with luggage and carrying pale, sleepy-looking people, rattled by, bound for the morning train or the morning steamboat. I saw the mighty vitality of the great city renewing itself in every direction; and I felt an unwonted interest in the sight. It was as if all things, on all sides, were reflecting before me the aspect of my own heart.
But the quiet and torpor of the night still hung over Hollyoake Square. That dreary neighbourhood seemed to vindicate its dreariness by being the last to awaken even to a semblance of activity and life. Nothing was stirring as yet at North Villa. I walked on, beyond the last houses, into the sooty London fields; and tried to think of the course I ought to pursue in order to see Margaret, and speak to her, before I turned homeward again. After the lapse of more than half an hour, I returned to the square, without plan or project; but resolved, nevertheless, to carry my point.
The garden-gate of North Villa was now open. One of the female servants of the house was standing at it, to breathe the fresh air, and look about her, before the duties of the day began. I advanced; determined, if money and persuasion could do it, to secure her services.
She was young (that was one chance in my favour!)— plump, florid, and evidently not by any means careless about her personal appearance (that gave me another!) As she saw me approaching her, she smiled; and passed her apron hurriedly over her face — carefully polishing it for my inspection, much as a broker polishes a piece of furniture when you stop to look at it.
“Are you in Mr. Sherwin’s service?”— I asked, as I got to the garden gate.
“As plain cook, Sir,” answered the girl, administering to her face a final and furious rub of the apron.
“Should you be very much surprised if I asked you to do me a great favour?”
“Well — really, Sir — you’re quite a stranger to me — I’m sure I don’t know!” She stopped, and transferred the apron-rubbing to her arms.
“I hope we shall not be strangers long. Suppose I begin our acquaintance, by telling you that you would look prettier in brighter cap-ribbons, and asking you to buy some, just to see whether I am not right?”
“It’s very kind of you to say so, Sir; and thank you. But cap and ribbons are the last things I can buy while I’m in this place. Master’s master and missus too, here; and drives us half wild with the fuss he makes about our caps and ribbons. He’s such an austerious man, that he will have our caps as he likes ’em. It’s bad enough when a missus meddles with a poor servant’s ribbons; but to have master come down into the kitchen, and — Well, it’s no use telling you of it, Sir — and — and thank you, Sir, for what you’ve given me, all the same!”
“I hope this is not the last time I shall make you a present. And now I must come to the favour I want to ask of you: can you keep a secret?”
“That I can, Sir! I’ve kep’ a many secrets since I’ve been out at service.”
“Well: I want you to find me an opportunity of speaking to your young lady —”
“To Miss Margaret, Sir?”
“Yes. I want an opportunity of seeing Miss Margaret, and speaking to her in private — and not a word must be said to her about it, beforehand.”
“Oh Lord, Sir! I couldn’t dare to do it!”
“Come! come! Can’t you guess why I want to see your young lady, and what I want to say to her?”
The girl smiled, and shook her head archly. “Perhaps you’re in love with Miss Margaret, Sir!— But I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t dare to do it!”
“Very well; but you can tell me at least, whether Miss Margaret ever goes out to take a walk?”
“Oh, yes, Sir; mostly every day.”
“Do you ever go out with her?— just to take care of her when no one else can be spared?”
“Don’t ask me — please, Sir, don’t!” She crumpled her apron between her fingers, with a very piteous and perplexed air. “I don’t know you; and Miss Margaret don’t know you, I’m sure — I couldn’t, Sir, I really couldn’t!”
“Take a good look at me! Do you think I am likely to do you or your young lady any harm? Am I too dangerous a man to be trusted? Would you believe me on my promise?”
“Yes, Sir, I’m sure I would!— being so kind and so civil to me, too!” (a fresh arrangement of the cap followed this speech.)
“Then suppose I promised, in the first place, not to tell Miss Margaret that I had spoken to you about her at all. And suppose I promised, in the second place, that, if you told me when you and Miss Margaret go out together, I would only speak to her while she was in your sight, and would leave her the moment you wished me to go away. Don’t you think you could venture to help me, if I promised all that?”
“Well, Sir, that would make a difference, to be sure. But then, it’s master I’m so afraid of — couldn’t you speak to master first, Sir?”
“Suppose you were in Miss Margaret’s place, would you like to be made love to, by your father’s authority, without your own wishes being consulted first? would you like an offer of marriage, delivered like a message, by means of your father? Come, tell me honestly, would you?”
She laughed, and shook her head very expressively. I knew the strength of my last argument, and repeated it: “Suppose you were in Miss Margaret’s place?”
“Hush! don’t speak so loud,” resumed the girl in a confidential whisper. “I’m sure you’re a gentleman. I should like to help you — if I could only dare to do it, I should indeed!”
“That’s a good girl,” I said. “Now tell me, when does Miss Margaret go out to-day; and who goes with her?”
“Dear! dear!— it’s very wrong to say it; but I must. She’ll go out with me to market, this morning, at eleven o’clock. She’s done it for the last week. Master don’t like it; but Missus begged and prayed she might; for Missus says she won’t be fit to be married, if she knows nothing about housekeeping, and prices, and what’s good meat, and what isn’t, and all that, you know.”
“Thank you a thousand times! you have given me all the help I want. I’ll be here before eleven, waiting for you to come out.”
“Oh, please don’t, Sir — I wish I hadn’t told you — I oughtn’t, indeed I oughtn’t!”
“No fear — you shall not lose by what you have told me — I promise all I said I would promise — good bye. And mind, not a word to Miss Margaret till I see her!”
As I hurried away, I heard the girl run a few paces after me — then stop — then return, and close the garden gate, softly. She had evidently put herself once more in Miss Margaret’s place; and had given up all idea of further resistance as she did so.
How should I occupy the hours until eleven o’clock? Deceit whispered:— Go home; avoid even the chance of exciting suspicion, by breakfasting with your family as usual. And as deceit counselled, so I acted.
I never remember Clara more kind, more ready with all those trifling little cares and attentions which have so exquisite a grace, when offered by a woman to a man, and especially by a sister to a brother, as when she and I and my father assembled together at the breakfast-table. I now recollect with shame how little I thought about her, or spoke to her on that morning; with how little hesitation or self-reproach I excused myself from accepting an engagement which she wished to make with me for that day. My father was absorbed in some matter of business; to him she could not speak. It was to me that she addressed all her wonted questions and remarks of the morning. I hardly listened to them; I answered them carelessly and briefly. The moment breakfast was over, without a word of explanation I hastily left the house again.
As I descended the steps, I glanced by accident at the dining-room window. Clara was looking after me from it. There was the same anxious expression on her face which it had worn when she left me the evening before. She smiled as our eyes met — a sad, faint smile that made her look unlike herself. But it produced no impression on me then: I had no attention for anything but my approaching interview with Margaret. My life throbbed and burned within me, in that direction: it was all coldness, torpor, insensibility, in every other.
I reached Hollyoake Square nearly an hour before the appointed time. In the suspense and impatience of that long interval, it was impossible to be a moment in repose. I walked incessantly up and down the square, and round and round the neighbourhood, hearing each quarter chimed from a church clock near, and mechanically quickening my pace the nearer the time came for the hour to strike. At last, I heard the first peal of the eventful eleven. Before the clock was silent, I had taken up my position within view of the gate of North Villa.
Five minutes passed — ten — and no one appeared. In my impatience, I could almost have rung the bell and entered the house, no matter who might be there, or what might be the result. The first quarter struck; and at that very moment I heard the door open, and saw Margaret, and the servant with whom I had spoken, descending the steps.
They passed out slowly through the garden gate, and walked down the square, away from where I was standing. The servant noticed me by one significant look, as they went on. Her young mistress did not appear to see me. At first, my agitation was so violent that I was perfectly incapable of following them a single step. In a few moments I recovered myself; and hastened to overtake them, before they arrived at a more frequented part of the neighbourhood.
As I approached her side, Margaret turned suddenly and looked at me, with an expression of anger and astonishment in her eyes. The next instant, her lovely face became tinged all over with a deep, burning blush; her head drooped a little; she hesitated for a moment; and then abruptly quickened her pace. Did she remember me? The mere chance that she did, gave me confidence: I—
— No! I cannot write down the words that I said to her. Recollecting the end to which our fatal interview led, I recoil at the very thought of exposing to others, or of preserving in any permanent form, the words in which I first confessed my love. It may be pride — miserable, useless pride — which animates me with this feeling: but I cannot overcome it. Remembering what I do, I am ashamed to write, ashamed to recall, what I said at my first interview with Margaret Sherwin. I can give no good reason for the sensations which now influence me; I cannot analyse them; and I would not if I could.
Let it be enough to say that I risked everything, and spoke to her. My words, confused as they were, came hotly, eagerly, and eloquently from my heart. In the space of a few minutes, I confessed to her all, and more than all, that I have here painfully related in many pages. I made use of my name and my rank in life — even now, my cheeks burn while I think of it — to dazzle her girl’s pride, to make her listen to me for the sake of my station, if she would not for the sake of my suit, however honourably urged. Never before had I committed the meanness of trusting to my social advantages, what I feared to trust to myself. It is true that love soars higher than the other passions; but it can stoop lower as well.
Her answers to all that I urged were confused, commonplace, and chilling enough. I had surprised her — frightened her — it was impossible she could listen to such addresses from a total stranger — it was very wrong of me to speak, and of her to stop and hear me — I should remember what became me as a gentleman, and should not make such advances to her again — I knew nothing of her — it was impossible I could really care about her in so short a time — she must beg that I would allow her to proceed unhindered.
Thus she spoke; sometimes standing still, sometimes moving hurriedly a few steps forward. She might have expressed herself severely, even angrily; but nothing she could have said would have counteracted the fascination that her presence exercised over me. I saw her face, lovelier than ever in its confusion, in its rapid changes of expression; I saw her eloquent eyes once or twice raised to mine, then instantly withdrawn again — and so long as I could look at her, I cared not what I listened to. She was only speaking what she had been educated to speak; it was not in her words that I sought the clue to her thoughts and sensations; but in the tone of her voice, in the language of her eyes, in the whole expression of her face. All these contained indications which reassured me. I tried everything that respect, that the persuasion of love could urge, to win her consent to our meeting again; but she only answered with repetitions of what she had said before, walking onward rapidly while she spoke. The servant, who had hitherto lingered a few paces behind, now advanced to her young mistress’s side, with a significant look, as if to remind me of my promise. Saying a few parting words, I let them proceed: at this first interview, to have delayed them longer would have been risking too much.
As they walked away, the servant turned round, nodding her head and smiling, as if to assure me that I had lost nothing by the forbearance which I had exercised. Margaret neither lingered nor looked back. This last proof of modesty and reserve, so far from discouraging, attracted me to her more powerfully than ever. After a first interview, it was the most becoming virtue she could have shown. All my love for her before, seemed as nothing compared with my love for her now that she had left me, and left me without a parting look.
What course should I next pursue? Could I expect that Margaret, after what she had said, would go out again at the same hour on the morrow? No: she would not so soon abandon the modesty and restraint that she had shown at our first interview. How communicate with her? how manage most skilfully to make good the first favourable impression which vanity whispered I had already produced? I determined to write to her.
How different was the writing of that letter, to the writing of those once-treasured pages of my romance, which I had now abandoned for ever! How slowly I worked; how cautiously and diffidently I built up sentence after sentence, and doubtingly set a stop here, and laboriously rounded off a paragraph there, when I toiled in the service of ambition! Now, when I had given myself up to the service of love, how rapidly the pen ran over the paper; how much more freely and smoothly the desires of the heart flowed into words, than the thoughts of the mind! Composition was an instinct now, an art no longer. I could write eloquently, and yet write without pausing for an expression or blotting a word — It was the slow progress up the hill, in the service of ambition; it was the swift (too swift) career down it, in the service of love!
There is no need to describe the contents of my letter to Margaret; they comprised a mere recapitulation of what I had already said to her. I insisted often and strongly on the honourable purpose of my suit; and ended by entreating her to write an answer, and consent to allow me another interview.
The letter was delivered by the servant. Another present, a little more timely persuasion, and above all, the regard I had shown to my promise, won the girl with all her heart to my interests. She was ready to help me in every way, as long as her interference could be kept a secret from her master.
I waited a day for the reply to my letter; but none came. The servant could give me no explanation of this silence. Her young mistress had not said one word to her about me, since the morning when we had met. Still not discouraged, I wrote again. The letter contained some lover’s threats this time, as well as lover’s entreaties; and it produced its effect — an answer came.
It was very short — rather hurriedly and tremblingly written — and simply said that the difference between my rank and hers made it her duty to request of me, that neither by word nor by letter should I ever address her again.
“Difference in rank,”— that was the only objection then! “Her duty”— it was not from inclination that she refused me! So young a creature; and yet so noble in self-sacrifice, so firm in her integrity! I resolved to disobey her injunction, and see her again. My rank! What was my rank? Something to cast at Margaret’s feet, for Margaret to trample on!
Once more I sought the aid of my faithful ally, the servant. After delays which half maddened me with impatience, insignificant though they were, she contrived to fulfil my wishes. One afternoon, while Mr. Sherwin was away at business, and while his wife had gone out, I succeeded in gaining admission to the garden at the back of the house, where Margaret was then occupied in watering some flowers.
She started as she saw me, and attempted to return to the house. I took her hand to detain her. She withdrew it, but neither abruptly nor angrily. I seized the opportunity, while she hesitated whether to persist or not in retiring; and repeated what I had already said to her at our first interview (what is the language of love but a language of repetitions?). She answered, as she had answered me in her letter: the difference in our rank made it her duty to discourage me.
“But if this difference did not exist,” I said: “if we were both living in the same rank, Margaret —”
She looked up quickly; then moved away a step or two, as I addressed her by her Christian name.
“Are you offended with me for calling you Margaret so soon? I do not think of you as Miss Sherwin, but as Margaret — are you offended with me for speaking as I think?”
No: she ought not to be offended with me, or with anybody, for doing that.
“Suppose this difference in rank, which you so cruelly insist on, did not exist, would you tell me not to hope, not to speak then, as coldly as you tell me now?”
I must not ask her that — it was no use — the difference in rank did exist.
“Perhaps I have met you too late?— perhaps you are already —”
“No! oh, no!”— she stopped abruptly, as the words passed her lips. The same lovely blush which I had before seen spreading over her face, rose on it now. She evidently felt that she had unguardedly said too much: that she had given me an answer in a case where, according to every established love-law of the female code, I had no right to expect one. Her next words accused me — but in very low and broken tones — of having committed an intrusion which she should hardly have expected from a gentleman in my position.
“I will regain your better opinion,” I said, eagerly catching at the most favourable interpretation of her last words, “by seeing you for the next time, and for all times after, with your father’s full permission. I will write to-day, and ask for a private interview with him. I will tell him all I have told you: I will tell him that you take a rank in beauty and goodness, which is the highest rank in the land — a far higher rank than mine — the only rank I desire.” (A smile, which she vainly strove to repress, stole charmingly to her lips.) “Yes, I will do this; I will never leave him till his answer is favourable — and then what would be yours? One word, Margaret; one word before I go —”
I attempted to take her hand a second time; but she broke from me, and hurried into the house.
What more could I desire? What more could the modesty and timidity of a young girl concede to me?
The moment I reached home, I wrote to Mr. Sherwin. The letter was superscribed “Private;” and simply requested an interview with him on a subject of importance, at any hour he might mention. Unwilling to trust what I had written to the post, I sent my note by a messenger — not one of our own servants, caution forbade that — and instructed the man to wait for an answer: if Mr. Sherwin was out, to wait till he came home.
After a long delay — long to me; for my impatience would fain have turned hours into minutes — I received a reply. It was written on gilt-edged letter-paper, in a handwriting vulgarised by innumerable flourishes. Mr. Sherwin presented his respectful compliments, and would be happy to have the honour of seeing me at North Villa, if quite convenient, at five o’clock to-morrow afternoon.
I folded up the letter carefully: it was almost as precious as a letter from Margaret herself. That night I passed sleeplessly, revolving in my mind every possible course that I could take at the interview of the morrow. It would be a difficult and a delicate business. I knew nothing of Mr. Sherwin’s character; yet I must trust him with a secret which I dared not trust to my own father. Any proposals for paying addresses to his daughter, coming from one in my position, might appear open to suspicion. What could I say about marriage? A public, acknowledged marriage was impossible: a private marriage might be a bold, if not fatal proposal. I could come to no other conclusion, reflect as anxiously as I might, than that it was best for me to speak candidly at all hazards. I could be candid enough when it suited my purpose!
It was not till the next day, when the time approached for my interview with Mr. Sherwin, that I thoroughly roused myself to face the plain necessities of my position. Determined to try what impression appearances could make on him, I took unusual pains with my dress; and more, I applied to a friend whom I could rely on as likely to ask no questions — I write this in shame and sorrow: I tell truth here, where it is hard penance to tell it — I applied, I say, to a friend for the loan of one of his carriages to take me to North Villa; fearing the risk of borrowing my father’s carriage, or my sister’s — knowing the common weakness of rank-worship and wealth-worship in men of Mr. Sherwin’s order, and meanly determining to profit by it to the utmost. My friend’s carriage was willingly lent me. By my directions, it took me up at the appointed hour, at a shop where I was a regular customer.
On my arrival at North Villa, I was shown into what I presumed was the drawing-room.
Everything was oppressively new. The brilliantly-varnished door cracked with a report like a pistol when it was opened; the paper on the walls, with its gaudy pattern of birds, trellis-work, and flowers, in gold, red, and green on a white ground, looked hardly dry yet; the showy window-curtains of white and sky-blue, and the still showier carpet of red and yellow, seemed as if they had come out of the shop yesterday; the round rosewood table was in a painfully high state of polish; the morocco-bound picture books that lay on it, looked as if they had never been moved or opened since they had been bought; not one leaf even of the music on the piano was dogs-eared or worn. Never was a richly furnished room more thoroughly comfortless than this — the eye ached at looking round it. There was no repose anywhere. The print of the Queen, hanging lonely on the wall, in its heavy gilt frame, with a large crown at the top, glared on you: the paper, the curtains, the carpet glared on you: the books, the wax-flowers in glass-cases, the chairs in flaring chintz-covers, the china plates on the door, the blue and pink glass vases and cups ranged on the chimney-piece, the over-ornamented chiffoniers with Tonbridge toys and long-necked smelling bottles on their upper shelves — all glared on you. There was no look of shadow, shelter, secrecy, or retirement in any one nook or corner of those four gaudy walls. All surrounding objects seemed startlingly near to the eye; much nearer than they really were. The room would have given a nervous man the headache, before he had been in it a quarter of an hour.
I was not kept waiting long. Another violent crack from the new door, announced the entrance of Mr. Sherwin himself.
He was a tall, thin man: rather round-shouldered; weak at the knees, and trying to conceal the weakness in the breadth of his trowsers. He wore a white cravat, and an absurdly high shirt collar. His complexion was sallow; his eyes were small, black, bright, and incessantly in motion — indeed, all his features were singularly mobile: they were affected by nervous contractions and spasms which were constantly drawing up and down in all directions the brow, the mouth, and the muscles of the cheek. His hair had been black, but was now turning to a sort of iron-grey; it was very dry, wiry, and plentiful, and part of it projected almost horizontally over his forehead. He had a habit of stretching it in this direction, by irritably combing it out, from time to time, with his fingers. His lips were thin and colourless, the lines about them being numerous and strongly marked. Had I seen him under ordinary circumstances, I should have set him down as a little-minded man; a small tyrant in his own way over those dependent on him; a pompous parasite to those above him — a great stickler for the conventional respectabilities of life, and a great believer in his own infallibility. But he was Margaret’s father; and I was determined to be pleased with him.
He made me a low and rather a cringing bow — then looked to the window, and seeing the carriage waiting for me at his door, made another bow, and insisted on relieving me of my hat with his own hand. This done, he coughed, and begged to know what he could do for me.
I felt some difficulty in opening my business to him. It was necessary to speak, however, at once — I began with an apology.
“I am afraid, Mr. Sherwin, that this intrusion on the part of a perfect stranger —”
“Not entirely a stranger, Sir, if I may be allowed to say so.”
“Indeed!”
“I had the great pleasure, Sir, and profit, and — and, indeed, advantage — of being shown over your town residence last year, when the family were absent from London. A very beautiful house — I happen to be acquainted with the steward of your respected father: he was kind enough to allow me to walk through the rooms. A treat; quite an intellectual treat — the furniture and hangings, and so on, arranged in such a chaste style — and the pictures, some of the finest pieces I ever saw — I was delighted — quite delighted, indeed.”
He spoke in under-tones, laying great stress upon particular words that were evidently favourites with him — such as, “indeed.” Not only his eyes, but his whole face, seemed to be nervously blinking and winking all the time he was addressing me, In the embarrassment and anxiety which I then felt, this peculiarity fidgetted and bewildered me more than I can describe. I would have given the world to have had his back turned, before I spoke to him again.
“I am delighted to hear that my family and my name are not unknown to you, Mr. Sherwin,” I resumed. “Under those circumstances, I shall feel less hesitation and difficulty in making you acquainted with the object of my visit.”
“Just so. May I offer you anything?— a glass of sherry, a —”
“Nothing, thank you. In the first place, Mr. Sherwin, I have reasons for wishing that this interview, whatever results it may lead to, may be considered strictly confidential. I am sure I can depend on your favouring me thus far?”
“Certainly — most certainly — the strictest secrecy of course — pray go on.”
He drew his chair a little nearer to me. Through all his blinking and winking, I could see a latent expression of cunning and curiosity in his eyes. My card was in his hand: he was nervously rolling and unrolling it, without a moment’s cessation, in his anxiety to hear what I had to say.
“I must also beg you to suspend your judgment until you have heard me to the end. You may be disposed to view — to view, I say, unfavourably at first — in short, Mr. Sherwin, without further preface, the object of my visit is connected with your daughter, with Miss Margaret Sherwin —”
“My daughter! Bless my soul — God bless my soul, I really can’t imagine —”
He stopped, half-breathless, bending forward towards me, and crumpling my card between his fingers into the smallest possible dimensions.
“Rather more than a week ago,” I continued, “I accidentally met Miss Sherwin in an omnibus, accompanied by a lady older than herself —”
“My wife; Mrs. Sherwin,” he said, impatiently motioning with his hand, as if “Mrs. Sherwin” were some insignificant obstacle to the conversation, which he wished to clear out of the way as fast as possible.
“You will not probably be surprised to hear that I was struck by Miss Sherwin’s extreme beauty. The impression she made on me was something more, however, than a mere momentary feeling of admiration. To speak candidly, I felt — You have heard of such a thing as love at first sight, Mr. Sherwin?”
“In books, Sir.” He tapped one of the morocco-bound volumes on the table, and smiled — a curious smile, partly deferential and partly sarcastic.
“You would be inclined to laugh, I dare say, if I asked you to believe that there is such a thing as love at first sight, out of books. But, without dwelling further on that, it is my duty to confess to you, in all candour and honesty, that the impression Miss Sherwin produced on me was such as to make me desire the privilege of becoming acquainted with her. In plain words, I discovered her place of residence by following her to this house.”
“Upon my soul this is the most extraordinary proceeding ——!”
“Pray hear me out, Mr. Sherwin: you will not condemn my conduct, I think, if you hear all I have to say.”
He muttered something unintelligible; his complexion turned yellower; he dropped my card, which he had by this time crushed into fragments; and ran his hand rapidly through his hair until he had stretched it out like a penthouse over his forehead — blinking all the time, and regarding me with a lowering, sinister expression of countenance. I saw that it was useless to treat him as I should have treated a gentleman. He had evidently put the meanest and the foulest construction upon my delicacy and hesitation in speaking to him: so I altered my plan, and came to the point abruptly —“came to business,” as he would have called it.
“I ought to have been plainer, Mr. Sherwin; I ought perhaps to have told you at the outset, in so many words, that I came to —” (I was about to say, “to ask your daughter’s hand in marriage;” but a thought of my father moved darkly over my mind at that moment, and the words would not pass my lips).
“Well, Sir! to what?”
The tone in which he said this was harsh enough to rouse me. It gave me back my self-possession immediately.
“To ask your permission to pay my addresses to Miss Sherwin — or, to be plainer still, if you like, to ask of you her hand in marriage.”
The words were spoken. Even if I could have done so, I would not have recalled what I had just said; but still, I trembled in spite of myself as I expressed in plain, blunt words what I had only rapturously thought over, or delicately hinted at to Margaret, up to this time.
“God bless me!” cried Mr. Sherwin, suddenly sitting back bolt upright in his chair, and staring at me in such surprise, that his restless features were actually struck with immobility for the moment —“God bless me, this is quite another story. Most gratifying, most astonishing — highly flattered I am sure; highly indeed, my dear Sir! Don’t suppose, for one moment, I ever doubted your honourable feeling. Young gentlemen in your station of life do sometimes fail in respect towards the wives and daughters of their — in short, of those who are not in their rank exactly. But that’s not the question — quite a misunderstanding — extremely stupid of me, to be sure. Pray let me offer you a glass of wine!”
“No wine, thank you, Mr. Sherwin. I must beg your attention a little longer, while I state to you, in confidence, how I am situated with regard to the proposals I have made. There are certain circumstances —”
“Yes — yes?”
He bent forward again eagerly towards me, as he spoke; looking more inquisitive and more cunning than ever.
“I have acknowledged to you, Mr. Sherwin, that I have found means to speak to your daughter — to speak to her twice. I made my advances honourably. She received them with a modesty and a reluctance worthy of herself, worthy of any lady, the highest lady in the land.” (Mr. Sherwin looked round reverentially to his print of the Queen; then looked back at me, and bowed solemnly.) “Now, although in so many words she directly discouraged me — it is her due that I should say this — still, I think I may without vanity venture to hope that she did so as a matter of duty, more than as a matter of inclination.”
“Ah — yes, yes! I understand. She would do nothing without my authority, of course?”
“No doubt that was one reason why she received me as she did; but she had another, which she communicated to me in the plainest terms — the difference in our rank of life.”
“Ah! she said that, did she? Exactly so — she saw a difficulty there? Yes — yes! high principles, Sir — high principles, thank God!”
“I need hardly tell you, Mr. Sherwin, how deeply I feel the delicate sense of honour which this objection shows on your daughter’s part. You will easily imagine that it is no objection to me, personally. The happiness of my whole life depends on Miss Sherwin; I desire no higher honour, as I can conceive no greater happiness, than to be your daughter’s husband. I told her this: I also told her that I would explain myself on the subject to you. She made no objection; and I am, therefore, I think, justified in considering that if you authorised the removal of scruples which do her honour at present, she would not feel the delicacy she does now at sanctioning my addresses.”
“Very proper — a very proper way of putting it. Practical, if I may be allowed to say so. And now, my dear Sir, the next point is: how about your own honoured family — eh?”
“It is exactly there that the difficulty lies. My father, on whom I am dependent as the younger son, has very strong prejudices — convictions I ought perhaps to call them — on the subject of social inequalities.”
“Quite so — most natural; most becoming, indeed, on the part of your respected father. I honour his convictions, sir. Such estates, such houses, such a family as his — connected, I believe, with the nobility, especially on your late lamented mother’s side. My dear Sir, I emphatically repeat it, your father’s convictions do him honour; I respect them as much as I respect him; I do, indeed.”
“I am glad you can view my father’s ideas on social subjects in so favourable a light, Mr. Sherwin. You will be less surprised to hear how they are likely to affect me in the step I am now taking.”
“He disapproves of it, of course — strongly, perhaps. Well, though my dear girl is worthy of any station; and a man like me, devoted to mercantile interests, may hold his head up anywhere as one of the props of this commercial country,” (he ran his fingers rapidly through his hair, and tried to look independent), “still I am prepared to admit, under all the circumstances — I say under all the circumstances — that his disapproval is very natural, and was very much to be expected — very much indeed.”
“He has expressed no disapproval, Mr. Sherwin.”
“You don’t say so!”
“I have not given him an opportunity. My meeting with your daughter has been kept a profound secret from him, and from every member of my family; and a secret it must remain. I speak from my intimate knowledge of my father, when I say that I hardly know of any means that he would not be capable of employing to frustrate the purpose of this visit, if I had mentioned it to him. He has been the kindest and best of fathers to me; but I firmly believe, that if I waited for his consent, no entreaties of mine, or of any one belonging to me, would induce him to give his sanction to the marriage I have come to you to propose.”
“Bless my soul! this is carrying things rather far, though — dependent as you are on him, and all that. Why, what on earth can we do — eh?”
“We must keep both the courtship and the marriage secret.”
“Secret! Good gracious, I don’t at all see my way —”
“Yes, secret — a profound secret among ourselves, until I can divulge my marriage to my father, with the best chance of —”
“But I tell you, Sir, I can’t see my way through it at all. Chance! what chance would there be, after what you have told me?”
“There might be many chances. For instance, when the marriage was solemnised, I might introduce your daughter to my father’s notice — without disclosing who she was — and leave her, gradually and unsuspectedly, to win his affection and respect (as with her beauty, elegance, and amiability, she could not fail to do), while I waited until the occasion was ripe for confessing everything. Then if I said to him, ‘This young lady, who has so interested and delighted you, is my wife;’ do you think, with that powerful argument in my favour, he could fail to give us his pardon? If, on the other hand, I could only say, ‘This young lady is about to become my wife,’ his prejudices would assuredly induce him to recall his most favourable impressions, and refuse his consent. In short, Mr. Sherwin, before marriage, it would be impossible to move him — after marriage, when opposition could no longer be of any avail, it would be quite a different thing: we might be sure of producing, sooner or later, the most favourable results. This is why it would be absolutely necessary to keep our union secret at first.”
I wondered then — I have since wondered more — how it was that I contrived to speak thus, so smoothly and so unhesitatingly, when my conscience was giving the lie all the while to every word I uttered.
“Yes, yes; I see — oh, yes, I see!” said Mr. Sherwin, rattling a bunch of keys in his pocket, with an expression of considerable perplexity; “but this is a ticklish business, you know — a very queer and ticklish business indeed. To have a gentleman of your birth and breeding for a son-in-law, is of course — but then there is the money question. Suppose you failed with your father after all —my money is out in my speculations —I can do nothing. Upon my word, you have placed me in a position that I never was placed in before.”
“I have influential friends, Mr. Sherwin, in many directions — there are appointments, good appointments, which would be open to me, if I pushed my interests. I might provide in this way against the chance of failure.”
“Ah!— well — yes. There’s something in that, certainly.”
“I can only assure you that my attachment to Miss Sherwin is not of a nature to be overcome by any pecuniary considerations. I speak in all our interests, when I say that a private marriage gives us a chance for the future, as opportunities arise of gradually disclosing it. My offer to you may be made under some disadvantages and difficulties, perhaps; for, with the exception of a very small independence, left me by my mother, I have no certain prospects. But I really think my proposals have some compensating advantages to recommend them —”
“Certainly! most decidedly so! I am not insensible, my dear Sir, to the great advantage, and honour, and so forth. But there is something so unusual about the whole affair. What would be my feelings, if your father should not come round, and my dear girl was disowned by the family? Well, well! that could hardly happen, I think, with her accomplishments and education, and manners too, so distinguished — though perhaps I ought not to say so. Her schooling alone was a hundred a-year, Sir, without including extras —”
“I am sure, Mr. Sherwin —”
“— A school, Sir, where it was a rule to take in no thing lower than the daughter of a professional man — they only waived the rule in my case — the most genteel school, perhaps, in all London! A drawing-room-deportment day once every week — the girls taught how to enter a room and leave a room with dignity and ease — a model of a carriage door and steps, in the back drawing-room, to practise the girls (with the footman of the establishment in attendance) in getting into a carriage and getting out again, in a lady-like manner! No duchess has had a better education than my Margaret!—”
“Permit me to assure you, Mr. Sherwin —”
“And then, her knowledge of languages — her French, and Italian, and German, not discontinued in holidays, or after she left school (she has only just left it); but all kept up and improved every evening, by the kind attention of Mr. Mannion —”
“May I ask who Mr. Mannion is?” The tone in which I put this question, cooled his enthusiasm about his daughter’s education immediately. He answered in his former tones, and with one of his former bows:
“Mr. Mannion is my confidential clerk, Sir — a most superior person, most highly talented, and well read, and all that.”
“Is he a young man?”
“Young! Oh, dear no! Mr. Mannion is forty, or a year or two more, if he’s a day — an admirable man of business, as well as a great scholar. He’s at Lyons now, buying silks for me. When he comes back I shall be delighted to introduce ——”
“I beg your pardon, but I think we are wandering away from the point, a little.”
“I beg yours— so we are. Well, my dear Sir, I must be allowed a day or two — say two days — to ascertain what my daughter’s feelings are, and to consider your proposals, which have taken me very much by surprise, as you may in fact see. But I assure you I am most flattered, most honoured, most anxious —”.
“I hope you will consider my anxieties, Mr. Sherwin, and let me know the result of your deliberations as soon as possible.”
“Without fail, depend upon it. Let me see: shall we say the second day from this, at the same time, if you can favour me with a visit?”
“Certainly.”
“And between that time and this, you will engage not to hold any communication with my daughter?”
“I promise not, Mr. Sherwin — because I believe that your answer will be favourable.”
“Ah, well — well! lovers, they say, should never despair. A little consideration, and a little talk with my dear girl — really now, won’t you change your mind and have a glass of sherry? (No again?) Very well, then, the day after tomorrow, at five o’clock.”
With a louder crack than ever, the brand-new drawing-room door was opened to let me out. The noise was instantly succeeded by the rustling of a silk dress, and the banging of another door, at the opposite end of the passage. Had anybody been listening? Where was Margaret?
Mr. Sherwin stood at the garden-gate to watch my departure, and to make his farewell bow. Thick as was the atmosphere of illusion in which I now lived, I shuddered involuntarily as I returned his parting salute, and thought of him as my father-in-law!
The nearer I approached to our own door, the more reluctance I felt to pass the short interval between my first and second interview with Mr. Sherwin, at home. When I entered the house, this reluctance increased to something almost like dread. I felt unwilling and unfit to meet the eyes of my nearest and dearest relatives. It was a relief to me to hear that my father was not at home. My sister was in the house: the servant said she had just gone into the library, and inquired whether he should tell her that I had come in. I desired him not to disturb her, as it was my intention to go out again immediately.
I went into my study, and wrote a short note there to Clara; merely telling her that I should be absent in the country for two days. I had sealed and laid it on the table for the servant to deliver, and was about to leave the room, when I heard the library door open. I instantly drew back, and half-closed my own door again. Clara had got the book she wanted, and was taking it up to her own sitting-room. I waited till she was out of sight, and then left the house. It was the first time I had ever avoided my sister — my sister, who had never in her life asked a question, or uttered a word that could annoy me; my sister, who had confided all her own little secrets to my keeping, ever since we had been children. As I thought on what I had done, I felt a sense of humiliation which was almost punishment enough for the meanness of which I had been guilty.
I went round to the stables, and had my horse saddled immediately. No idea of proceeding in any particular direction occurred to me. I simply felt resolved to pass my two days’ ordeal of suspense away from home — far enough away to keep me faithful to my promise not to see Margaret. Soon after I started, I left my horse to his own guidance, and gave myself up to my thoughts and recollections, as one by one they rose within me. The animal took the direction which he had been oftenest used to take during my residence in London — the northern road.
It was not until I had ridden half a mile beyond the suburbs that I looked round me, and discovered towards what part of the country I was proceeding. I drew the rein directly, and turned my horse’s head back again, towards the south. To follow the favourite road which I had so often followed with Clara; to stop perhaps at some place where I had often stopped with her, was more than I had the courage or the insensibility to do at that moment.
I rode as far as Ewell, and stopped there: the darkness had overtaken me, and it was useless to tire my horse by going on any greater distance. The next morning, I was up almost with sunrise; and passed the greater part of the day in walking about among villages, lanes, and fields, just as chance led me. During the night, many thoughts that I had banished for the last week had returned — those thoughts of evil omen under which the mind seems to ache, just as the body aches under a dull, heavy pain, to which we can assign no particular place or cause. Absent from Margaret, I had no resource against the oppression that now overcame me. I could only endeavour to alleviate it by keeping incessantly in action; by walking or riding, hour after hour, in the vain attempt to quiet the mind by wearying out the body. Apprehension of the failure of my application to Mr. Sherwin had nothing to do with the vague gloom which now darkened my thoughts; they kept too near home for that. Besides, what I had observed of Margaret’s father, especially during the latter part of my interview with him, showed me plainly enough that he was trying to conceal, under exaggerated surprise and assumed hesitation, his secret desire to profit at once by my offer; which, whatever conditions might clog it, was infinitely more advantageous in a social point of view, than any he could have hoped for. It was not his delay in accepting my proposals, but the burden of deceit, the fetters of concealment forced on me by the proposals themselves, which now hung heavy on my heart.
That evening I left Ewell, and rode towards home again, as far as Richmond, where I remained for the night and the forepart of the next day. I reached London in the afternoon; and got to North Villa — without going home first — about five o’clock.
The oppression was still on my spirits. Even the sight of the house where Margaret lived failed to invigorate or arouse me.
On this occasion, when I was shown into the drawing-room, both Mr. and Mrs. Sherwin were awaiting me there. On the table was the sherry which had been so perseveringly pressed on me at the last interview, and by it a new pound cake. Mrs. Sherwin was cutting the cake as I came in, while her husband watched the process with critical eyes. The poor woman’s weak white fingers trembled as they moved the knife under conjugal inspection.
“Most happy to see you again — most happy indeed, my dear Sir,” said Mr. Sherwin, advancing with hospitable smile and outstretched hand. “Allow me to introduce my better half, Mrs. S.”
His wife rose in a hurry, and curtseyed, leaving the knife sticking in the cake; upon which Mr. Sherwin, with a stern look at her, ostentatiously pulled it out, and set it down rather violently on the dish.
Poor Mrs. Sherwin! I had hardly noticed her on the day when she got into the omnibus with her daughter — it was as if I now saw her for the first time. There is a natural communicativeness about women’s emotions. A happy woman imperceptibly diffuses her happiness around her; she has an influence that is something akin to the influence of a sunshiny day. So, again, the melancholy of a melancholy woman is invariably, though silently, infectious; and Mrs. Sherwin was one of this latter order. Her pale, sickly, moist-looking skin; her large, mild, watery, light-blue eyes; the restless timidity of her expression; the mixture of useless hesitation and involuntary rapidity in every one of her actions — all furnished the same significant betrayal of a life of incessant fear and restraint; of a disposition full of modest generosities and meek sympathies, which had been crushed down past rousing to self-assertion, past ever seeing the light. There, in that mild, wan face of hers — in those painful startings and hurryings when she moved; in that tremulous, faint utterance when she spoke —there, I could see one of those ghastly heart-tragedies laid open before me, which are acted and re-acted, scene by scene, and year by year, in the secret theatre of home; tragedies which are ever shadowed by the slow falling of the black curtain that drops lower and lower every day — that drops, to hide all at last, from the hand of death.
“We have had very beautiful weather lately, Sir,” said Mrs. Sherwin, almost inaudibly; looking as she spoke, with anxious eyes towards her husband, to see if she was justified in uttering even those piteously common-place words. “Very beautiful weather to be sure,” continued the poor woman, as timidly as if she had become a little child again, and had been ordered to say her first lesson in a stranger’s presence.
“Delightful weather, Mrs. Sherwin. I have been enjoying it for the last two days in the country — in a part of Surrey (the neighbourhood of Ewell) that I had not seen before.”
There was a pause. Mr. Sherwin coughed; it was evidently a warning matrimonial peal that he had often rung before — for Mrs. Sherwin started, and looked up at him directly.
“As the lady of the house, Mrs. S., it strikes me that you might offer a visitor, like this gentleman, some cake and wine, without making any particular hole in your manners!”
“Oh dear me! I beg your pardon! I’m very sorry, I’m sure”— and she poured out a glass of wine, with such a trembling hand that the decanter tinkled all the while against the glass. Though I wanted nothing, I ate and drank something immediately, in common consideration for Mrs. Sherwin’s embarrassment.
Mr. Sherwin filled himself a glass — held it up admiringly to the light — said, “Your good health, Sir, your very good health;” and drank the wine with the air of a connoisseur, and a most expressive smacking of the lips. His wife (to whom he offered nothing) looked at him all the time with the most reverential attention.
“You are taking nothing yourself, Mrs. Sherwin,” I said.
“Mrs. Sherwin, Sir,” interposed her husband, “never drinks wine, and can’t digest cake. A bad stomach — a very bad stomach. Have another glass yourself. Won’t you, indeed? This sherry stands me in six shillings a bottle — ought to be first-rate wine at that price: and so it is. Well, if you won’t have any more, we will proceed to business. Ha! ha! business as I call it; pleasure I hope it will be to you.”
Mrs. Sherwin coughed — a very weak, small cough, half-stifled in its birth.
“There you are again!” he said, turning fiercely towards her —“Coughing again! Six months of the doctor — a six months’ bill to come out of my pocket — and no good done — no good, Mrs. S.”
“Oh, I am much better, thank you — it was only a little —”
“Well, Sir, the evening after you left me, I had what you may call an explanation with my dear girl. She was naturally a little confused and — and embarrassed, indeed. A very serious thing of course, to decide at her age, and at so short a notice, on a point involving the happiness of her whole life to come.”
Here Mrs. Sherwin put her handkerchief to her eyes — quite noiselessly; for she had doubtless acquired by long practice the habit of weeping in silence. Her husband’s quick glance turned on her, however, immediately, with anything but an expression of sympathy.
“Good God, Mrs. S.! what’s the use of going on in that way?” he said, indignantly. “What is there to cry about? Margaret isn’t ill, and isn’t unhappy — what on earth’s the matter now? Upon my soul this is a most annoying circumstance: and before a visitor too! You had better leave me to discuss the matter alone — you always were in the way of business, and it’s my opinion you always will be.”
Mrs. Sherwin prepared, without a word of remonstrance, to leave the room. I sincerely felt for her; but could say nothing. In the impulse of the moment, I rose to open the door for her; and immediately repented having done so. The action added so much to her embarrassment that she kicked her foot against a chair, and uttered a suppressed exclamation of pain as she went out.
Mr. Sherwin helped himself to a second glass of wine, without taking the smallest notice of this.
“I hope Mrs. Sherwin has not hurt herself?” I said. “Oh dear no! not worth a moment’s thought — awkwardness and nervousness, nothing else — she always was nervous — the doctors (all humbugs) can do nothing with her — it’s very sad, very sad indeed; but there’s no help for it.”
By this time (in spite of all my efforts to preserve some respect for him, as Margaret’s father) he had sunk to his proper place in my estimation.
“Well, my dear Sir,” he resumed, “to go back to where I was interrupted by Mrs. S. Let me see: I was saying that my dear girl was a little confused, and so forth. As a matter of course, I put before her all the advantages which such a connection as yours promised — and at the same time, mentioned some of the little embarrassing circumstances — the private marriage, you know, and all that — besides telling her of certain restrictions in reference to the marriage, if it came off, which I should feel it my duty as a father to impose; and which I shall proceed, in short, to explain to you. As a man of the world, my dear Sir, you know as well as I do, that young ladies don’t give very straightforward answers on the subject of their prepossessions in favour of young gentlemen. But I got enough out of her to show me that you had made pretty good use of your time — no occasion to despond, you know — I leave you to make her speak plain; it’s more in your line than mine, more a good deal. And now let us come to the business part of the transaction. All I have to say is this:— if you agree to my proposals, then I agree to yours. I think that’s fair enough — Eh?”
“Quite fair, Mr. Sherwin.”
“Just so. Now, in the first place, my daughter is too young to be married yet. She was only seventeen last birthday.”
“You astonish me! I should have imagined her three years older at least.”
“Everybody thinks her older than she is — everybody, my dear Sir — and she certainly looks it. She’s more formed, more developed I may say, than most girls at her age. However, that’s not the point. The plain fact is, she’s too young to be married now — too young in a moral point of view; too young in an educational point of view; too young altogether. Well: the upshot of this is, that I could not give my consent to Margaret’s marrying, until another year is out — say a year from this time. One year’s courtship for the finishing off of her education, and the formation of her constitution — you understand me, for the formation of her constitution.”
A year to wait! At first, this seemed a long trial to endure, a trial that ought not to be imposed on me. But the next moment, the delay appeared in a different light. Would it not be the dearest of privileges to be able to see Margaret, perhaps every day, perhaps for hours at a time? Would it not be happiness enough to observe each development of her character, to watch her first maiden love for me, advancing nearer and nearer towards confidence and maturity the oftener we met? As I thought on this, I answered Mr. Sherwin without further hesitation.
“It will be some trial,” I said, “to my patience, though none to my constancy, none to the strength of my affection — I will wait the year.”
“Exactly so,” rejoined Mr. Sherwin; “such candour and such reasonableness were to be expected from one who is quite the gentleman. And now comes my grand difficulty in this business — in fact, the little stipulation I have to make.”
He stopped, and ran his fingers through his hair, in all directions; his features fidgetting and distorting themselves ominously, while he looked at me.
“Pray explain yourself, Mr. Sherwin. Your silence gives me some uneasiness at this particular moment, I assure you.”
“Quite so — I understand. Now, you must promise me not to be huffed — offended, I should say — at what I am going to propose.”
“Certainly not.”
“Well, then, it may seem odd; but under all the circumstances — that is to say, as far as the case concerns you personally — I want you and my dear girl to be married at once, and yet not to be married exactly, for another year. I don’t know whether you understand me?”
“I must confess I do not.”
He coughed rather uneasily; turned to the table, and poured out another glass of sherry — his hand trembling a little as he did so. He drank off the wine at a draught; cleared his throat three or four times after it; and then spoke again.
“Well, to be still plainer, this is how the matter stands: If you were a party in our rank of life, coming to court Margaret with your father’s full approval and permission when once you had consented to the year’s engagement, everything would be done and settled; the bargain would have been struck on both sides; and there would be an end of it. But, situated as you are, I can’t stop here safely — I mean, I can’t end the agreement exactly in this way.”
He evidently felt that he got fluent on wine; and helped himself, at this juncture, to another glass.
“You will see what I am driving at, my dear Sir, directly,” he continued. “Suppose now, you came courting my daughter for a year, as we settled; and suppose your father found it out — we should keep it a profound secret of course: but still, secrets are sometimes found out, nobody knows how. Suppose, I say, your father got scent of the thing, and the match was broken off; where do you think Margaret’s reputation would be? If it happened with somebody in her own station, we might explain it all, and be believed: but happening with somebody in yours, what would the world say? Would the world believe you had ever intended to marry her? That’s the point — that’s the point precisely.”
“But the case could not happen — I am astonished you can imagine it possible. I have told you already, I am of age.”
“Properly urged — very properly, indeed. But you also told me, if you remember, when I first had the pleasure of seeing you, that your father, if he knew of this match, would stick at nothing to oppose it —at nothing— I recollect you said so. Now, knowing this, my dear Sir — though I have the most perfect confidence in your honour, and your resolution to fulfil your engagement — I can’t have confidence in your being prepared beforehand to oppose all your father might do if he found us out; because you can’t tell yourself what he might be up to, or what influence he might set to work over you. This sort of mess is not very probable, you will say; but if it’s at all possible — and there’s a year for it to be possible in — by George, Sir, I must guard against accidents, for my daughter’s sake — I must indeed!”
“In Heaven’s name, Mr. Sherwin, pass over all these impossible difficulties of yours! and let me hear what you have finally to propose.”
“Gently, my dear Sir! gently, gently, gently! I propose to begin with: that you should marry my daughter — privately marry her — in a week’s time. Now, pray compose yourself!” (I was looking at him in speechless astonishment.) “Take it easy; pray take it easy! Supposing, then, you marry her in this way, I make one stipulation. I require you to give me your word of honour to leave her at the church door; and for the space of one year never to attempt to see her, except in the presence of a third party. At the end of that time, I will engage to give her to you, as your wife in fact, as well as in name. There! what do you say to that — eh?”
I was too astounded, too overwhelmed, to say anything at that moment; Mr. Sherwin went on:
“This plan of mine, you see, reconciles everything. If any accident does happen, and we are discovered, why your father can do nothing to stop the match, because the match will have been already made. And, at the same time, I secure a year’s delay, for the formation of her constitution, and the finishing of her accomplishments, and so forth. Besides, what an opportunity this gives of sailing as near the wind as you choose, in breaking the thing, bit by bit, to your father, without fear of consequences, in case he should run rough after all. Upon my honour, my dear Sir, I think I deserve some credit for hitting on this plan — it makes everything so right and straight, and suits of course the wishes of all parties! I need hardly say that you shall have every facility for seeing Margaret, under the restrictions — under the restrictions, you understand. People may talk about your visits; but having got the certificate, and knowing it’s all safe and settled, I shan’t care for that. Well, what do you say? take time to think, if you wish it — only remember that I have the most perfect confidence in your honour, and that I act from a fatherly feeling for the interests of my dear girl!” He stopped, out of breath from the extraordinary volubility of his long harangue.
Some men more experienced in the world, less mastered by love than I was, would, in my position, have recognised this proposal an unfair trial of self-restraint — perhaps, something like an unfair humiliation as well. Others have detected the selfish motives which suggested it: the mean distrust of my honour, integrity, and firmness of purpose which it implied; and the equally mean anxiety on Sherwin’s part to clench his profitable bargain at once, for fear it might be repented of. I discerned nothing of this. As soon as I had recovered from the natural astonishment of the first few moments, I only saw in the strange plan proposed to me, a certainty of assuring — no matter with what sacrifice, what hazard, or what delay — the ultimate triumph of my love. When Mr. Sherwin had ceased speaking, I replied at once:
“I accept your conditions — I accept them with all my heart.”
He was hardly prepared for so complete and so sudden an acquiescence in his proposal, and looked absolutely startled by it, at first. But soon resuming his self-possession — his wily, “business-like” self-possession — he started up, and shook me vehemently by the hand.
“Delighted — most delighted, my dear Sir, to find how soon we understand each other, and that we pull together so well. We must have another glass; hang it, we really must! a toast, you know; a toast you can’t help drinking — your wife! Ha! ha!— I had you there!— my dear, dear Margaret, God bless her!”
“We may consider all difficulties finally settled then,” I said, anxious to close my interview with Mr. Sherwin as speedily as possible.
“Decidedly so. Done, and double done, I may say. There will be a little insurance on your life, that I shall ask you to effect for dear Margaret’s sake; and perhaps, a memorandum of agreement, engaging to settle a certain proportion of any property you may become possessed of, on her and her children. You see I am looking forward to my grandfather days already! But this can wait for a future occasion — say in a day or two.”
“Then I presume there will be no objection to my seeing Miss Sherwin now?”
“None whatever —— at once, if you like. This way, my dear Sir; this way,” and he led me across the passage, into the dining-room.
This apartment was furnished with less luxury, but with more bad taste (if possible) than the room we had just left. Near the window sat Margaret — it was the same window at which I had seen her, on the evening when I wandered into the square, after our meeting in the omnibus. The cage with the canary-bird hung in the same place. I just noticed — with a momentary surprise — that Mrs. Sherwin was sitting far away from her daughter, at the other end of the room; and then placed myself by Margaret’s side. She was dressed in pale yellow — a colour which gave new splendour to her dark complexion and magnificently dark hair. Once more, all my doubts, all my self-upbraidings vanished, and gave place to the exquisite sense of happiness, the glow of joy and hope and love which seemed to rush over my heart, the moment I looked at her.
After staying in the room about five minutes, Mr. Sherwin whispered to his wife, and left us. Mrs. Sherwin still kept her place; but she said nothing, and hardly turned to look round at us more than once or twice. Perhaps she was occupied by her own thoughts; perhaps, from a motive of delicacy, she abstained even from an appearance of watching her daughter or watching me. Whatever feelings influenced her, I cared not to speculate on them. It was enough that I had the privilege of speaking to Margaret uninterruptedly; of declaring my love at last, without hesitation and without reserve.
How much I had to say to her, and how short a time seemed to be left me that evening to say it in! How short a time to tell her all the thoughts of the past which she had created in me; all the self-sacrifice to which I had cheerfully consented for her sake; all the anticipations of future happiness which were concentrated in her, which drew their very breath of life, only from the prospect of her rewarding love! She spoke but little; yet even that little it was a new delight to hear. She smiled now; she let me take her hand, and made no attempt to withdraw it. The evening had closed in; the darkness was stealing fast upon us; the still, dead-still figure of Mrs. Sherwin, always in the same place and the same attitude, grew fainter and fainter to the eye, across the distance of the room — but no thought of time, no thought of home ever once crossed my mind. I could have sat at the window with Margaret the long night through; without an idea of numbering the hours as they passed.
Ere long, however, Mr. Sherwin entered the room again, and effectually roused me by approaching and speaking to us. I saw that I had stayed long enough, and that we were not to be left together again, that night. So I rose and took my leave, having first fixed a time for seeing Margaret on the morrow. Mr. Sherwin accompanied me with great ceremony to the outer door. Just as I was leaving him, he touched me on the arm, and said in his most confidential tones:
“Come an hour earlier, to-morrow; and we’ll go and get the licence together. No objection to that — eh? And the marriage, shall we say this day week? Just as you like, you know — don’t let me seem to dictate. Ah! no objection to that, either, I see, and no objection on Margaret’s side, I’ll warrant! With respect to consents, in the marrying part of the business, there’s complete mutuality — isn’t there? Good night: God bless you!”
That night I went home with none of the reluctance or the apprehension which I had felt on the last occasion, when I approached our own door. The assurance of success contained in the events of the afternoon, gave me a trust in my own self-possession — a confidence in my own capacity to parry all dangerous questions — which I had not experienced before. I cared not how soon, or for how long a time, I might find myself in company with Clara or my father. It was well for the preservation of my secret that I was in this frame of mind; for, on opening my study door, I was astonished to see both of them in my room.
Clara was measuring one of my over-crowded book-shelves, with a piece of string; and was apparently just about to compare the length of it with a vacant space on the wall close by, when I came in. Seeing me, she stopped; and looked round significantly at my father, who was standing near her, with a file of papers in his hand.
“You may well feel surprised, Basil, at this invasion of your territory,” he said, with peculiar kindness of manner —“you must, however, apply there, to the prime minister of the household,” pointing to Clara, “for an explanation. I am only the instrument of a domestic conspiracy on your sister’s part.”
Clara seemed doubtful whether she should speak. It was the first time I had ever seen such an expression in her face, when she looked into mine.
“We are discovered, papa,” she said, after a momentary silence, “and we must explain: but you know I always leave as many explanations as I can to you.”
“Very well,” said my father smiling; “my task in this instance will be an easy one. I was intercepted, Basil, on my way to my own room by your sister, and taken in here to advise about a new set of bookcases for you, when I ought to have been attending to my own money matters. Clara’s idea was to have had these new bookcases made in secret, and put up as a surprise, some day when you were not at home. However, as you have caught her in the act of measuring spaces, with all the skill of an experienced carpenter, and all the impetuosity of an arbitrary young lady who rules supreme over everybody, further concealment is out of the question. We must make a virtue of necessity, and confess everything.”
Poor Clara! This was her only return for ten days’ utter neglect — and she had been half afraid to tell me of it herself. I approached and thanked her; not very gratefully, I am afraid, for I felt too confused to speak freely. It seemed like a fatality. The more evil I was doing in secret, evil to family ties and family principles, the more good was unconsciously returned to me by my family, through my sister’s hands.
“I made no objection, of course, to the bookcase plan,” continued my father. “More room is really wanted for the volumes on volumes that you have collected about you; but I certainly suggested a little delay in the execution of the project. The bookcases will, at all events, not be required here for five months to come. This day week we return to the country.”
I could not repress a start of astonishment and dismay. Here was a difficulty which I ought to have provided for; but which I had most unaccountably never once thought of, although it was now the period of the year at which on all former occasions we had been accustomed to leave London. This day week too! The very day fixed by Mr. Sherwin for my marriage!
“I am afraid, Sir, I shall not be able to go with you and Clara so soon as you propose. It was my wish to remain in London some time longer.” I said this in a low voice, without venturing to look at my sister. But I could not help hearing her exclamation as I spoke, and the tone in which she uttered it.
My father moved nearer to me a step or two, and looked in my face intently, with the firm, penetrating expression which peculiarly characterized him.
“This seems an extraordinary resolution,” he said, his tones and manner altering ominously while he spoke. “I thought your sudden absence for the last two days rather odd; but this plan of remaining in London by yourself is really incomprehensible. What can you have to do?”
An excuse — no! not an excuse; let me call things by their right names in these pages — a lie was rising to my lips; but my father checked the utterance of it. He detected my embarrassment immediately, anxiously as I strove to conceal it.
“Stop,” he said coldly, while the red flush which meant so much when it rose on his cheek, began to appear there for the first time. “Stop! If you must make excuses, Basil, I must ask no questions. You have a secret which you wish to keep from me; and I beg you will keep it. I have never been accustomed to treat my sons as I would not treat any other gentlemen with whom I may happen to be associated. If they have private affairs, I cannot interfere with those affairs. My trust in their honour is my only guarantee against their deceiving me; but in the intercourse of gentlemen that is guarantee enough. Remain here as long as you like: we shall be happy to see you in the country, when you are able to leave town.”
He turned to Clara. “I suppose, my love, you want me no longer. While I settle my own matters of business, you can arrange about the bookcases with your brother. Whatever you wish, I shall be glad to do.” And he left the room without speaking to me, or looking at me again. I sank into a chair, feeling disgraced in my own estimation by the last words he had spoken to me. His trust in my honour was his only guarantee against my deceiving him. As I thought over that declaration, every syllable of it seemed to sear my conscience; to brand Hypocrite on my heart.
I turned towards my sister. She was standing at a little distance from me, silent and pale, mechanically twisting the measuring-string, which she still held between her trembling fingers; and fixing her eyes upon me so lovingly, so mournfully, that my fortitude gave way when I looked at her. At that instant, I seemed to forget everything that had passed since the day when I first met Margaret, and to be restored once more to my old way of life and my old home-sympathies. My head drooped on my breast, and I felt the hot tears forcing themselves into my eyes.
Clara stepped quietly to my side; and sitting down by me in silence, put her arm round my neck.
When I was calmer, she said gently:
“I have been very anxious about you, Basil; and perhaps I have allowed that anxiety to appear more than I ought. Perhaps I have been accustomed to exact too much from you — you have been too ready to please me. But I have been used to it so long; and I have nobody else that I can speak to as I can to you. Papa is very kind; but he can’t be what you are to me exactly; and Ralph does not live with us now, and cared little about me, I am afraid, when he did. I have friends, but friends are not —”
She stopped again; her voice was failing her. For a moment, she struggled to keep her self-possession — struggled as only women can — and succeeded in the effort. She pressed her arm closer round my neck; but her tones were steadier and clearer when she resumed:
“It will not be very easy for me to give up our country rides and walks together, and the evening talk that we always had at dusk in the old library at the park. But I think I can resign all this, and go away alone with papa, for the first time, without making you melancholy by anything I say or do at parting, if you will only promise that when you are in any difficulty you will let me be of some use. I think I could always be of use, because I should always feel an interest in anything that concerned you. I don’t want to intrude on your secret; but if that secret should ever bring you trouble or distress (which I hope and pray it may not), I want you to have confidence in my being able to help you, in some way, through any mischances. Let me go into the country, Basil, knowing that you can still put trust in me, even though a time should come when you can put trust in no one else — let me know this: do let me!”
I gave her the assurance she desired — gave it with my whole heart. She seemed to have recovered all her old influence over me by the few simple words she had spoken. The thought crossed my mind, whether I ought not in common gratitude to confide my secret to her at once, knowing as I did, that it would be safe in her keeping, however the disclosure might startle or pain her, I believe I should have told her all, in another minute, but for a mere accident — the trifling interruption caused by a knock at the door.
It came from one of the servants. My father desired to see Clara on some matter connected with their impending departure for the country. She was unfit enough to obey such a summons at such a time; but with her usual courage in disciplining her own feelings into subserviency to the wishes of any one whom she loved, she determined to obey immediately the message which had been delivered to her. A few moments of silence; a slight trembling soon repressed; a parting kiss for me; these few farewell words of encouragement at the door; “Don’t grieve about what papa has said; you have made me feel happy about you, Basil; I will make him feel happy too,” and Clara was gone.
With those few minutes of interruption, the time for the disclosure of my secret had passed by. As soon as my sister was out of the room, my former reluctance to trust it to home-keeping returned, and remained unchanged throughout the whole of the long year’s probation which I had engaged to pass. But this mattered little. As events turned out, if I had told Clara all, the end would have come in the same way, the fatality would have been accomplished by the same means.
I went out shortly after my sister had left me. I could give myself to no occupation at home, for the rest of that night; and I knew that it would be useless to attempt to sleep just then. As I walked through the streets, bitter thoughts against my father rose in my mind — bitter thoughts against his inexorable family pride, which imposed on me the concealment and secrecy, under the oppression of which I had already suffered so much — bitter thoughts against those social tyrannies, which take no account of human sympathy and human love, and which my father now impersonated, as it were, to my ideas. Gradually these reflections merged in others that were better. I thought of Clara again; consoling myself with the belief, that, however my father might receive the news of my marriage, I might count upon my sister as certain to love my wife and be kind to her, for my sake. This thought led my heart back to Margaret — led it gently and happily. I went home, calmed and reassured again — at least for the rest of the night.
The events of that week, so fraught with importance for the future of my life, passed with ominous rapidity.
The marriage license was procured; all remaining preliminaries with Mr. Sherwin were adjusted; I saw Margaret every day, and gave myself up more and more unreservedly to the charm that she exercised over me, at each succeeding interview. At home, the bustle of approaching departure; the farewell visitings; the multitudinous minor arrangements preceding a journey to the country, seemed to hurry the hours on faster and faster, as the parting day for Clara, and the marriage day for me, drew near. Incessant interruptions prevented any more lengthened or private conversations with my sister; and my father was hardly ever accessible for more than five minutes together, even to those who specially wished to speak with him. Nothing arose to embarrass or alarm me now, out of my intercourse with home.
The day came. I had not slept during the night that preceded it; so I rose early to look out on the morning.
It is strange how frequently that instinctive belief in omens and predestinations, which we flippantly term Superstition, asserts its natural prerogative even over minds trained to repel it, at the moment of some great event in our lives. I believe this has happened to many more men than ever confessed it; and it happened to me. At any former period of my life, I should have laughed at the bare imputation of a “superstitious” feeling ever having risen in my mind. But now, as I looked on the sky, and saw the black clouds that overspread the whole firmament, and the heavy rain that poured down from them, an irrepressible sinking of the heart came over me. For the last ten days the sun had shone almost uninterruptedly — with my marriage-day came the cloud, the mist and the rain. I tried to laugh myself out of the forebodings which this suggested, and tried in vain.
The departure for the country was to take place at an early hour. We all breakfasted together; the meal was hurried over comfortlessly and silently. My father was either writing notes, or examining the steward’s accounts, almost the whole time; and Clara was evidently incapable of uttering a single word, without risking the loss of her self-possession. The silence was so complete, while we sat together at the table, that the fall of the rain outside (which had grown softer and thicker as the morning advanced), and the quick, quiet tread of the servants, as they moved about the room, were audible with a painful distinctness. The oppression of our last family breakfast in London, for that year, had an influence of wretchedness which I cannot describe — which I can never forget.
At last the hour of starting came. Clara seemed afraid to trust herself even to look at me now. She hurriedly drew down her veil the moment the carriage was announced. My father shook hands with me rather coldly. I had hoped he would have said something at parting; but he only bade me farewell in the simplest and shortest manner. I had rather he would have spoken to me in anger than restrained himself as he did, to what the commonest forms of courtesy required. There was but one more slight, after this, that he could cast on me; and he did not spare it. While my sister was taking leave of me, he waited at the door of the room to lead her down stairs, as if he knew by intuition that this was the last little parting attention which I had hoped to show her myself.
Clara whispered (in such low, trembling tones that I could hardly hear her):
“Think of what you promised in your study, Basil, whenever you think of me: I will write often.”
As she raised her veil for a moment, and kissed me, I felt on my own cheek the tears that were falling fast over hers. I followed her and my father down stairs. When they reached the street, she gave me her hand — it was cold and powerless. I knew that the fortitude she had promised to show, was giving way, in spite of all her efforts to preserve it; so I let her hurry into the carriage without detaining her by any last words. The next instant she and my father were driven rapidly from the door.
When I re-entered the house, my watch showed me that I had still an hour to wait, before it was time to go to North Villa.
Between the different emotions produced by my impressions of the scene I had just passed through, and my anticipations of the scene that was yet to come, I suffered in that one hour as much mental conflict as most men suffer in a life. It seemed as if I were living out all my feelings in this short interval of delay, and must die at heart when it was over. My restlessness was a torture to me; and yet I could not overcome it. I wandered through the house from room to room, stopping nowhere. I took down book after book from the library, opened them to read, and put them back on the shelves the next instant. Over and over again I walked to the window to occupy myself with what was passing in the street; and each time I could not stay there for one minute together. I went into the picture-gallery, looked along the walls, and yet knew not what I was looking at. At last I wandered into my father’s study — the only room I had not yet visited.
A portrait of my mother hung over the fireplace: my eyes turned towards it, and for the first time I came to a long pause. The picture had an influence that quieted me; but what influence I hardly knew. Perhaps it led my spirit up to the spirit that had gone from us — perhaps those secret voices from the unknown world, which only the soul can listen to, were loosed at that moment, and spoke within me. While I sat looking up at the portrait, I grew strangely and suddenly calm before it. My memory flew back to a long illness that I had suffered from, as a child, when my little cradle-couch was placed by my mother’s bedside, and she used to sit by me in the dull evenings and hush me to sleep. The remembrance of this brought with it a dread imagining that she might now be hushing my spirit, from her place among the angels of God. A stillness and awe crept over me; and I hid my face in my hands.
The striking of the hour from a clock in the room, startled me back to the outer world. I left the house and went at once to North Villa.
Margaret and her father and mother were in the drawing-room when I entered it. I saw immediately that neither of the two latter had passed the morning calmly. The impending event of the day had exercised its agitating influence over them, as well as over me. Mrs. Sherwin’s face was pale to her very lips: not a word escaped her. Mr. Sherwin endeavoured to assume the self-possession which he was evidently far from feeling, by walking briskly up and down the room, and talking incessantly — asking the most common-place questions, and making the most common-place jokes. Margaret, to my surprise, showed fewer symptoms of agitation than either of her parents. Except when the colour came and went occasionally on her cheek, I could detect no outward evidences of emotion in her at all.
The church was near at hand. As we proceeded to it, the rain fell heavily, and the mist of the morning was thickening to a fog. We had to wait in the vestry for the officiating clergyman. All the gloom and dampness of the day seemed to be collected in this room — a dark, cold, melancholy place, with one window which opened on a burial-ground steaming in the wet. The rain pattered monotonously on the pavement outside. While Mr. Sherwin exchanged remarks on the weather with the clerk, (a tall, lean man, arrayed in a black gown), I sat silent, near Mrs. Sherwin and Margaret, looking with mechanical attention at the white surplices which hung before me in a half-opened cupboard — at the bottle of water and tumbler, and the long-shaped books, bound in brown leather, which were on the table. I was incapable of speaking — incapable even of thinking — during that interval of expectation.
At length the clergyman arrived, and we went into the church — the church, with its desolate array of empty pews, and its chill, heavy, week-day atmosphere. As we ranged ourselves round the altar, a confusion overspread all my faculties. My sense of the place I was in, and even of the ceremony in which I took part, grew more and more vague and doubtful every minute. My attention wandered throughout the whole service. I stammered and made mistakes in uttering the responses. Once or twice I detected myself in feeling impatient at the slow progress of the ceremony — it seemed to be doubly, trebly longer than its usual length. Mixed up with this impression was another, wild and monstrous as if it had been produced by a dream — an impression that my father had discovered my secret, and was watching me from some hidden place in the church; watching through the service, to denounce and abandon me publicly at the end. This morbid fancy grew and grew on me until the termination of the ceremony, until we had left the church and returned to the vestry once more.
The fees were paid; we wrote our names in the books and on the certificate; the clergyman quietly wished me happiness; the clerk solemnly imitated him; the pew-opener smiled and curtseyed; Mr. Sherwin made congratulatory speeches, kissed his daughter, shook hands with me, frowned a private rebuke at his wife for shedding tears, and, finally, led the way with Margaret out of the vestry. The rain was still falling, as they got into the carriage. The fog was still thickening, as I stood alone under the portico of the church, and tried to realise to myself that I was married.
Married! The son of the proudest man in England, the inheritor of a name written on the roll of Battle Abbey, wedded to a linen-draper’s daughter! And what a marriage! What a condition weighed on it! What a probation was now to follow it! Why had I consented so easily to Mr. Sherwin’s proposals? Would he not have given way, if I had only been resolute enough to insist on my own conditions?
How useless to inquire! I had made the engagement and must abide by it — abide by it cheerfully until the year was over, and she was mine for ever. This must be my all-sufficing thought for the future. No more reflections on consequences, no more forebodings about the effect of the disclosure of my secret on my family — the leap into a new life had been taken, and, lead where it might, it was a leap that could never be retraced!
Mr. Sherwin had insisted, with the immovable obstinacy which characterises all feeble-minded people in the management of their important affairs, that the first clause in our agreement (the leaving my wife at the church-door) should be performed to the letter. As a due compensation for this, I was to dine at North Villa that day. How should I employ the interval that was to elapse before the dinner-hour?
I went home, and had my horse saddled. I was in no mood for remaining in an empty house, in no mood for calling on any of my friends — I was fit for nothing but a gallop through the rain. All my wearing and depressing emotions of the morning, had now merged into a wild excitement of body and mind. When the horse was brought round, I saw with delight that the groom could hardly hold him. “Keep him well in hand, Sir,” said the man, “he’s not been out for three days.” I was just in the humour for such a ride as the caution promised me.
And what a ride it was, when I fairly got out of London; and the afternoon brightening of the foggy atmosphere, showed the smooth, empty high road before me! The dashing through the rain that still fell; the feel of the long, powerful, regular stride of the horse under me; the thrill of that physical sympathy which establishes itself between the man and the steed; the whirling past carts and waggons, saluted by the frantic barking of dogs inside them; the flying by roadside alehouses, with the cheering of boys and half-drunken men sounding for an instant behind me, then lost in the distance — this was indeed to occupy, to hurry on, to annihilate the tardy hours of solitude on my wedding day, exactly as my heart desired!
I got home wet through; but with my body in a glow from the exercise, with my spirits boiling up at fever heat. When I arrived at North Villa, the change in my manner astonished every one. At dinner, I required no pressing now to partake of the sherry which Mr. Sherwin was so fond of extolling, nor of the port which he brought out afterwards, with a preliminary account of the vintage-date of the wine, and the price of each bottle. My spirits, factitious as they were, never flagged. Every time I looked at Margaret, the sight of her stimulated them afresh. She seemed pre-occupied, and was unusually silent during dinner; but her beauty was just that voluptuous beauty which is loveliest in repose. I had never felt its influence so powerful over me as I felt it then.
In the drawing-room, Margaret’s manner grew more familiar, more confident towards me than it had ever been before. She spoke to me in warmer tones, looked at me with warmer looks. A hundred little incidents marked our wedding-evening — trifles that love treasures up — which still remain in my memory. One among them, at least, will never depart from it: I first kissed her on that evening.
Mr. Sherwin had gone out of the room; Mrs. Sherwin was at the other end of it, watering some plants at the window; Margaret, by her father’s desire, was showing me some rare prints. She handed me a magnifying glass, through which I was to look at a particular part of one of the engravings, that was considered a master-piece of delicate workmanship. Instead of applying the magnifying test to the print, for which I cared nothing, I laughingly applied it to Margaret’s face. Her lovely lustrous black eye seemed to flash into mine through the glass; her warm, quick breathing played on my cheek — it was but for an instant, and in that instant I kissed her for the first time. What sensations the kiss gave me then!— what remembrances it has left me now!
It was one more proof how tenderly, how purely I loved her, that, before this time, I had feared to take the first love-privilege which I had longed to assert, and might well have asserted, before. Men may not understand this; women, I believe, will.
The hour of departure arrived; the inexorable hour which was to separate me from my wife on my wedding evening. Shall I confess what I felt, on the first performance of my ill-considered promise to Mr. Sherwin? No: I kept this a secret from Margaret; I will keep it a secret here.
I took leave of her as hurriedly and abruptly as possible — I could not trust myself to quit her in any other way. She had contrived to slip aside into the darkest part of the room, so that I only saw her face dimly at parting.
I went home at once. When I lay down to sleep — then the ordeal which I had been unconsciously preparing for myself throughout the day, began to try me. Every nerve in my body, strung up to the extremest point of tension since the morning, now at last gave way. I felt my limbs quivering, till the bed shook under me. I was possessed by a gloom and horror, caused by no thought, and producing no thought: the thinking faculty seemed paralysed within me, altogether. The physical and mental reaction, after the fever and agitation of the day, was so sudden and severe, that the faintest noise from the street now terrified — yes, literally terrified me. The whistling of the wind — which had risen since sunset — made me start up in bed, with my heart throbbing, and my blood all chill. When no sounds were audible, then I listened for them to come — listened breathlessly, without daring to move. At last, the agony of nervous prostration grew more than I could bear — grew worse even than the child’s horror of walking in the darkness, and sleeping alone on the bed-room floor, which had overcome me, almost from the first moment when I laid down. I groped my way to the table and lit the candle again; then wrapped my dressing-gown round me, and sat shuddering near the light, to watch the weary hours out till morning.
And this was my wedding-night! This was how the day ended which had begun by my marriage with Margaret Sherwin!
An epoch in my narrative has now arrived. Up to the time of my marriage, I have appeared as an active agent in the different events I have described. After that period, and — with one or two exceptional cases — throughout the whole year of my probation, my position changed with the change in my life, and became a passive one.
During this interval year, certain events happened, some of which, at the time, excited my curiosity, but none my apprehension — some affected me with a temporary disappointment, but none with even a momentary suspicion. I can now look back on them, as so many timely warnings which I treated with fatal neglect. It is in these events that the history of the long year through which I waited to claim my wife as my own, is really comprised. They marked the lapse of time broadly and significantly; and to them I must now confine myself, as exclusively as may be, in the present portion of my narrative.
It will be first necessary, however, that I should describe what was the nature of my intercourse with Margaret, during the probationary period which followed our marriage.
Mr. Sherwin’s anxiety was to make my visits to North Villa as few as possible: he evidently feared the consequences of my seeing his daughter too often. But on this point, I was resolute enough in asserting my own interests, to overpower any resistance on his part. I required him to concede to me the right of seeing Margaret every day — leaving all arrangements of time to depend on his own convenience. After the due number of objections, he reluctantly acquiesced in my demand. I was bound by no engagement whatever, limiting the number of my visits to Margaret; and I let him see at the outset, that I was now ready in my turn, to impose conditions on him, as he had already imposed them on me.
Accordingly, it was settled that Margaret and I were to meet every day. I usually saw her in the evening. When any alteration in the hour of my visit took place, that alteration was produced by the necessity (which we all recognised alike) of avoiding a meeting with any of Mr. Sherwin’s friends.
Those portions of the day or the evening which I spent with Margaret, were seldom passed altogether in the Elysian idleness of love. Not content with only enumerating his daughter’s school-accomplishments to me at our first interview, Mr. Sherwin boastfully referred to them again and again, on many subsequent occasions; and even obliged Margaret to display before me, some of her knowledge of languages — which he never forgot to remind us had been lavishly paid for out of his own pocket. It was at one of these exhibitions that the idea occurred to me of making a new pleasure for myself out of Margaret’s society, by teaching her really to appreciate and enjoy the literature which she had evidently hitherto only studied as a task. My fancy revelled by anticipation in all the delights of such an employment as this. It would be like acting the story of Abelard and Heloise over again — reviving all the poetry and romance in which those immortal love-studies of old had begun, with none of the guilt and none of the misery that had darkened their end.
I had a definite purpose, besides, in wishing to assume the direction of Margaret’s studies. Whenever the secret of my marriage was revealed, my pride was concerned in being able to show my wife to every one, as the all-sufficient excuse for any imprudence I might have committed for her sake. I was determined that my father, especially, should have no other argument against her than the one ungracious argument of her birth — that he should see her, fitted by the beauty of her mind, as well as by all her other beauties, for the highest station that society could offer. The thought of this gave me fresh ardour in my project; I assumed my new duties without delay, and continued them with a happiness which never once suffered even a momentary decrease.
Of all the pleasures which a man finds in the society of a woman whom he loves, are there any superior, are there many equal, to the pleasure of reading out of the same book with her? On what other occasion do the sweet familiarities of the sweetest of all companionships last so long without cloying, and pass and re-pass so naturally, so delicately, so inexhaustibly between you and her? When is your face so constantly close to hers as it is then?— when can your hair mingle with hers, your cheek touch hers, your eyes meet hers, so often as they can then? That is, of all times, the only time when you can breathe with her breath for hours together; feel every little warming of the colour on her cheek marking its own changes on the temperature of yours; follow every slight fluttering of her bosom, every faint gradation of her sighs, as if her heart was beating, her life glowing, within yours. Surely it is then — if ever — that we realize, almost revive, in ourselves, the love of the first two of our race, when angels walked with them on the same garden paths, and their hearts were pure from the pollution of the fatal tree!
Evening after evening passed away — one more happily than another — in what Margaret and I called our lessons. Never were lessons of literature so like lessons of love We read oftenest the lighter Italian poets — we studied the poetry of love, written in the language of love. But, as for the steady, utilitarian purpose I had proposed to myself of practically improving Margaret’s intellect, that was a purpose which insensibly and deceitfully abandoned me as completely as if it had never existed. The little serious teaching I tried with her at first, led to very poor results. Perhaps, the lover interfered too much with the tutor; perhaps, I had over-estimated the fertility of the faculties I designed to cultivate — but I cared not, and thought not to inquire where the fault lay, then. I gave myself up unreservedly to the exquisite sensations which the mere act of looking on the same page with Margaret procured for me; and neither detected, nor wished to detect, that it was I who read the difficult passages, and left only a few even of the very easiest to be attempted by her.
Happily for my patience under the trial imposed on me by the terms on which Mr. Sherwin’s restrictions, and my promise to obey them, obliged me to live with Margaret, it was Mrs. Sherwin who was generally selected to remain in the room with us. By no one could such ungrateful duties of supervision as those imposed on her, have been more delicately and more considerately performed.
She always kept far enough away to be out of hearing when we whispered to each other. We rarely detected her even in looking at us. She had a way of sitting for hours together in the same part of the room, without ever changing her position, without occupation of any kind, without uttering a word, or breathing a sigh. I soon discovered that she was not lost in thought, at these periods (as I had at first supposed): but lost in a strange lethargy of body and mind; a comfortless, waking trance, into which she fell from sheer physical weakness — it was like the vacancy and feebleness of a first convalescence, after a long illness. She never changed: never looked better, never worse. I often spoke to her: I tried hard to show my sympathy, and win her confidence and friendship. The poor lady was always thankful, always spoke to me gratefully and kindly, but very briefly. She never told me what were her sufferings or her sorrows. The story of that lonely, lingering life was an impenetrable mystery for her own family — for her husband and her daughter, as well as for me. It was a secret between her and God.
With Mrs. Sherwin as the guardian to watch over Margaret, it may easily be imagined that I felt none of the heavier oppressions of restraint. Her presence, as the third person appointed to remain with us, was not enough to repress the little endearments to which each evening’s lesson gave rise; but was just sufficiently perceptible to invest them with the character of stolen endearments, and to make them all the more precious on that very account. Mrs. Sherwin never knew, I never thoroughly knew myself till later, how much of the secret of my patience under my year’s probation lay in her conduct, while she was sitting in the room with Margaret and me.
In this solitude where I now write — in the change of life and of all life’s hopes and enjoyments which has come over me — when I look back to those evenings at North Villa, I shudder as I look. At this moment, I see the room again — as in a dream — with the little round table, the reading lamp, and the open books. Margaret and I are sitting together: her hand is in mine; my heart is with hers. Love, and Youth, and Beauty — the mortal Trinity of this world’s worship — are there, in that quiet softly-lit room; but not alone. Away in the dim light behind, is a solitary figure, ever mournful and ever still. It is a woman’s form; but how wasted and how weak!— a woman’s face; but how ghastly and changeless, with those eyes that are vacant, those lips that are motionless, those cheeks that the blood never tinges, that the freshness of health and happiness shall never visit again! Woeful, warning figure of dumb sorrow and patient pain, to fill the background of a picture of Love, and Beauty, and Youth!
I am straying from my task. Let me return to my narrative: its course begins to darken before me apace, while I now write.
The partial restraint and embarrassment, caused at first by the strange terms on which my wife and I were living together, gradually vanished before the frequency of my visits to North Villa. We soon began to speak with all the ease, all the unpremeditated frankness of a long intimacy. Margaret’s powers of conversation were generally only employed to lead me to exert mine. She was never tired of inducing me to speak of my family. She listened with every appearance of interest, while I talked of my father, my sister, or my elder brother; but whenever she questioned me directly about any of them, her inquiries invariably led away from their characters and dispositions, to their personal appearance, their every-day habits, their dress, their intercourse with the gay world, the things they spent their money on, and other topics of a similar nature.
For instance; she always listened, and listened attentively, to what I told her of my father’s character, and of the principles which regulated his life. She showed every disposition to profit by the instructions I gave her beforehand, about how she should treat his peculiarities when she was introduced to him. But, on all these occasions, what really interested her most, was to hear how many servants waited on him; how often he went to Court; how many lords and ladies he knew; what he said or did to his servants, when they committed mistakes; whether he was ever angry with his children for asking him for money; and whether he limited my sister to any given number of dresses in the course of the year?
Again; whenever our conversation turned on Clara, if I began by describing her kindness, her gentleness and goodness, her simple winning manners — I was sure to be led insensibly into a digression about her height, figure, complexion, and style of dress. The latter subject especially interested Margaret; she could question me on it, over and over again. What was Clara’s usual morning dress? How did she wear her hair? What was her evening dress? Did she make a difference between a dinner party and a ball? What colours did she prefer? What dressmaker did she employ? Did she wear much jewellery? Which did she like best in her hair, and which were most fashionable, flowers or pearls? How many new dresses did she have in a year; and was there more than one maid especially to attend on her?
Then, again: Had she a carriage of her own? What ladies took care of her when she went out? Did she like dancing? What were the fashionable dances at noblemen’s houses? Did young ladies in the great world practise the pianoforte much? How many offers had my sister had? Did she go to Court, as well as my father? What did she talk about to gentlemen, and what did gentlemen talk about to her? If she were speaking to a duke, how often would she say “your Grace” to him? and would a duke get her a chair, or an ice, and wait on her just as gentlemen without titles waited on ladies, when they met them in society?
My replies to these and hundreds of other questions like them, were received by Margaret with the most eager attention. On the favourite subject of Clara’s dresses, my answers were an unending source of amusement and pleasure to her. She especially enjoyed overcoming the difficulties of interpreting aright my clumsy, circumlocutory phrases in attempting to describe shawls, gowns, and bonnets; and taught me the exact millinery language which I ought to have made use of with an arch expression of triumph and a burlesque earnestness of manner, that always enchanted me. At that time, every word she uttered, no matter how frivolous, was the sweetest of all music to my ears. It was only by the stern test of after-events that I learnt to analyse her conversation. Sometimes, when I was away from her, I might think of leading her girlish curiosity to higher things; but when we met again, the thought vanished; and it became delight enough for me simply to hear her speak, without once caring or considering what she spoke of.
Those were the days when I lived happy and unreflecting in the broad sunshine of joy which love showered round me — my eyes were dazzled; my mind lay asleep under it. Once or twice, a cloud came threatening, with chill and shadowy influence; but it passed away, and then the sunshine returned to me, the same sunshine that it was before.
The first change that passed over the calm uniformity of the life at North Villa, came in this manner:
One evening, on entering the drawing-room, I missed Mrs. Sherwin; and found to my great disappointment that her husband was apparently settled there for the evening. He looked a little flurried, and was more restless than usual. His first words, as we met, informed me of an event in which he appeared to take the deepest interest.
“News, my dear sir!” he said. “Mr. Mannion has come back — at least two days before I expected him!”
At first, I felt inclined to ask who Mr. Mannion was, and what consequence it could possibly be to me that he had come back. But immediately afterwards, I remembered that this Mr. Mannion’s name had been mentioned during my first conversation with Mr. Sherwin; and then I recalled to mind the description I had heard of him, as “confidential clerk;” as forty years of age; and as an educated man, who had made his information of some use to Margaret in keeping up the knowledge she had acquired at school. I knew no more than this about him, and I felt no curiosity to discover more from Mr. Sherwin.
Margaret and I sat down as usual with our books about us.
There had been something a little hurried and abrupt in her manner of receiving me, when I came in. When we began to read, her attention wandered incessantly; she looked round several times towards the door. Mr. Sherwin walked about the room without intermission, except when he once paused on his restless course, to tell me that Mr. Mannion was coming that evening; and that he hoped I should have no objection to be introduced to a person who was “quite like one of the family, and well enough read to be sure to please a great reader like me.” I asked myself rather impatiently, who was this Mr. Mannion, that his arrival at his employer’s house should make a sensation? When I whispered something of this to Margaret, she smiled rather uneasily, and said nothing.
At last the bell was rung. Margaret started a little at the sound. Mr. Sherwin sat down; composing himself into rather an elaborate attitude — the door opened, and Mr. Mannion came in.
Mr. Sherwin received his clerk with the assumed superiority of the master in his words; but his tones and manner flatly contradicted them. Margaret rose hastily, and then as hastily sat down again, while the visitor very respectfully took her hand, and made the usual inquiries. After this, he was introduced to me; and then Margaret was sent away to summon her mother down stairs. While she was out of the room, there was nothing to distract my attention from Mr. Mannion. I looked at him with a curiosity and interest, Which I could hardly account for at first.
If extraordinary regularity of feature were alone sufficient to make a handsome man, then this confidential clerk of Mr. Sherwin’s was assuredly one of the handsomest men I ever beheld. Viewed separately from the head (which was rather large, both in front and behind) his face exhibited, throughout, an almost perfect symmetry of proportion. His bald forehead was smooth and massive as marble; his high brow and thin eyelids had the firmness and immobility of marble, and seemed as cold; his delicately-formed lips, when he was not speaking, closed habitually, as changelessly still as if no breath of life ever passed them. There was not a wrinkle or line anywhere on his face. But for the baldness in front, and the greyness of the hair at the back and sides of his head, it would have been impossible from his appearance to have guessed his age, even within ten years of what it really was.
Such was his countenance in point of form; but in that which is the outward assertion of our immortality — in expression — it was, as I now beheld it, an utter void. Never had I before seen any human face which baffled all inquiry like his. No mask could have been made expressionless enough to resemble it; and yet it looked like a mask. It told you nothing of his thoughts, when he spoke: nothing of his disposition, when he was silent. His cold grey eyes gave you no help in trying to study him. They never varied from the steady, straightforward look, which was exactly the same for Margaret as it was for me; for Mrs. Sherwin as for Mr. Sherwin — exactly the same whether he spoke or whether he listened; whether he talked of indifferent, or of important matters. Who was he? What was he? His name and calling were poor replies to those questions. Was he naturally cold and unimpressible at heart? or had some fierce passion, some terrible sorrow, ravaged the life within him, and left it dead for ever after? Impossible to conjecture! There was the impenetrable face before you, wholly inexpressive — so inexpressive that it did not even look vacant — a mystery for your eyes and your mind to dwell on — hiding something; but whether vice or virtue you could not tell.
He was dressed as unobtrusively as possible, entirely in black; and was rather above the middle height. His manner was the only part of him that betrayed anything to the observation of others. Viewed in connection with his station, his demeanour (unobtrusive though it was) proclaimed itself as above his position in the world. He had all the quietness and self-possession of a gentleman. He maintained his respectful bearing, without the slightest appearance of cringing; and displayed a decision, both in word and action, that could never be mistaken for obstinacy or over-confidence. Before I had been in his company five minutes, his manner assured me that he must have descended to the position he now occupied.
On his introduction to me, he bowed without saying anything. When he spoke to Mr. Sherwin, his voice was as void of expression as his face: it was rather low in tone, but singularly distinct in utterance. He spoke deliberately, but with no emphasis on particular words, and without hesitation in choosing his terms.
When Mrs. Sherwin came down, I watched her conduct towards him. She could not repress a slight nervous shrinking, when he approached and placed a chair for her. In answering his inquiries after her health, she never once looked at him; but fixed her eyes all the time on Margaret and me, with a sad, anxious expression, wholly indescribable, which often recurred to my memory after that day. She always looked more or less frightened, poor thing, in her husband’s presence; but she seemed positively awe-struck before Mr. Mannion.
In truth, my first observation of this so-called clerk, at North Villa, was enough to convince me that he was master there — master in his own quiet, unobtrusive way. That man’s character, of whatever elements it might be composed, was a character that ruled. I could not see this in his face, or detect it in his words; but I could discover it in the looks and manners of his employer and his employer’s family, as he now sat at the same table with them. Margaret’s eyes avoided his countenance much less frequently than the eyes of her parents; but then he rarely looked at her in return — rarely looked at her at all, except when common courtesy obliged him to do so.
If any one had told me beforehand, that I should suspend my ordinary evening’s occupation with my young wife, for the sake of observing the very man who had interrupted it, and that man only Mr. Sherwin’s clerk, I should have laughed at the idea. Yet so it was. Our books lay neglected on the table — neglected by me, perhaps by Margaret too, for Mr. Mannion.
His conversation, on this occasion at least, baffled all curiosity as completely as his face. I tried to lead him to talk. He just answered me, and that was all; speaking with great respect of manner and phrase, very intelligibly, but very briefly. Mr. Sherwin — after referring to the business expedition on which he had been absent, for the purchase of silks at Lyons — asked him some questions about France and the French, which evidently proceeded from the most ludicrous ignorance both of the country and the people. Mr. Mannion just set him right; and did no more. There was not the smallest inflection of sarcasm in his voice, not the slightest look of sarcasm in his eye, while he spoke. When we talked among ourselves, he did not join in the conversation; but sat quietly waiting until he might be pointedly and personally addressed again. At these times a suspicion crossed my mind that he might really be studying my character, as I was vainly trying to study his; and I often turned suddenly round on him, to see whether he was looking at me. This was never the case. His hard, chill grey eyes were not on me, and not on Margaret: they rested most frequently on Mrs. Sherwin, who always shrank before them.
After staying little more than half an hour, he rose to go away. While Mr. Sherwin was vainly pressing him to remain longer, I walked to the round table at the other end of the room, on which the book was placed that Margaret and I had intended to read during the evening. I was standing by the table when he came to take leave of me. He just glanced at the volume under my hand, and said in tones too low to be heard at the other end of the room:
“I hope my arrival has not interrupted any occupation to-night, Sir. Mr. Sherwin, aware of the interest I must feel in whatever concerns the family of an employer whom I have served for years, has informed me in confidence — a confidence which I know how to respect and preserve — of your marriage with his daughter, and of the peculiar circumstances under which the marriage has been contracted. I may at least venture to congratulate the young lady on a change of life which must procure her happiness, having begun already by procuring the increase of her mental resources and pleasures.” He bowed, and pointed to the book on the table.
“I believe, Mr. Mannion,” I said, “that you have been of great assistance in laying a foundation for the studies to which I presume you refer.”
“I endeavoured to make myself useful in that way, Sir, as in all others, when my employer desired it.” He bowed again, as he said this; and then went out, followed by Mr. Sherwin, who held a short colloquy with him in the hall.
What had he said to me? Only a few civil words, spoken in a very respectful manner. There had been nothing in his tones, nothing in his looks, to give any peculiar significance to what he uttered. Still, the moment his back was turned, I found myself speculating whether his words contained any hidden meaning; trying to recall something in his voice or manner which might guide me in discovering the real sense he attached to what he said. It seemed as if the most powerful whet to my curiosity, were supplied by my own experience of the impossibility of penetrating beneath the unassailable surface which this man presented to me.
I questioned Margaret about him. She could not tell me more than I knew already. He had always been very kind and useful; he was a clever man, and could talk a great deal sometimes, when he chose; and he had taught her more of foreign languages and foreign literature in a month, than she had learned at school in a year. While she was telling me this, I hardly noticed that she spoke in a very hurried manner, and busied herself in arranging the books and work that lay on the table. My attention was more closely directed to Mrs. Sherwin. To my surprise, I saw her eagerly lean forward while Margaret was speaking, and fix her eyes on her daughter with a look of penetrating scrutiny, of which I could never have supposed a person usually so feeble and unenergetic to be capable. I thought of transferring to her my questionings on the subject of Mr. Mannion; but at that moment her husband entered the room, and I addressed myself for further enlightenment to him.
“Aha!”— cried Mr. Sherwin, rubbing his hands triumphantly —“I knew Mannion would please you. I told you so, my dear Sir, if you remember, before he came. Curious looking person — isn’t he?”
“So curious, that I may safely say I never saw a face in the slightest degree resembling his in my life. Your clerk, Mr. Sherwin, is a complete walking mystery that I want to solve. Margaret cannot give me much help, I am afraid. When you came in, I was about to apply to Mrs. Sherwin for a little assistance.”
“Don’t do any such thing! You’ll be quite in the wrong box there. Mrs. S. is as sulky as a bear, whenever Mannion and she are in company together. Considering her behaviour to him, I wonder he can be so civil to her as he is.”
“What can you tell me about him yourself, Mr. Sherwin?”
“I can tell you there’s not a house of business in London has such a managing man as he is: he’s my factotum — my right hand, in short; and my left too, for the matter of that. He understands my ways of doing business; and, in fact, carries things out in first-rate style. Why, he’d be worth his weight in gold, only for the knack he has of keeping the young men in the shop in order. Poor devils! they don’t know how he does it; but there’s a particular look of Mr. Mannion’s that’s as bad as transportation and hanging to them, whenever they see it. I’ll pledge you my word of honour he’s never had a day’s illness, or made a single mistake, since he’s been with me. He’s a quiet, steady-going, regular dragon at his work — he is! And then, so obliging in other things. I’ve only got to say to him: ‘Here’s Margaret at home for the holidays;’ or, ‘Here’s Margaret a little out of sorts, and going to be nursed at home for the half-year — what’s to be done about keeping up her lessons? I can’t pay for a governess (bad lot, governesses!) and school too.’— I’ve only got to say that; and up gets Mannion from his books and his fireside at home, in the evening — which begins to be something, you know, to a man of his time of life — and turns tutor for me, gratis; and a first-rate tutor, too! That’s what I call having a treasure! And yet, though he’s been with us for years, Mrs. S. there won’t take to him!— I defy her or anybody else to say why, or wherefore!”
“Do you know how he was employed before he came to you?”
“Ah! now you’ve hit it — that’s where you’re right in saying he’s a mystery. What he did before I knew him, is more than I can tell — a good deal more. He came to me with a capital recommendation and security, from a gentleman whom I knew to be of the highest respectability. I had a vacancy in the back office, and tried him, and found out what he was worth, in no time — I flatter myself I’ve a knack at that with everybody. Well: before I got used to his curious-looking face, and his quiet ways, I wanted badly enough to know something about him, and who his connections were. First, I asked his friend who had recommended him — the friend wasn’t at liberty to answer for anything but his perfect trustworthiness. Then I asked Mannion himself point-blank about it, one day. He just told me that he had reasons for keeping his family affairs to himself — nothing more — but you know the way he has with him; and, damn it, he put the stopper on me, from that time to this. I wasn’t going to risk losing the best clerk that ever man had, by worrying him about his secrets. They didn’t interfere with business, and didn’t interfere with me; so I put my curiosity in my pocket. I know nothing about him, but that he’s my right-hand man, and the honestest fellow that ever stood in shoes. He may be the Great Mogul himself, in disguise, for anything I care! In short, you may be able to find out all about him, my dear Sir; but I can’t.”
“There does not seem much chance for me, Mr. Sherwin, after what you have said.”
“Well: I’m not so sure of that — plenty of chances here, you know. You’ll see him often enough: he lives near, and drops in constantly of evenings. We settle business matters that won’t come into business hours, in my private snuggery up stairs. In fact, he’s one of the family; treat him as such, and get anything out of him you can — the more the better, as far as regards that. Ah! Mrs. S., you may stare, Ma’am; but I say again, he’s one of the family; may be, he’ll be my partner some of these days — you’ll have to get used to him then, whether you like it or not.”
“One more question: is he married or single?”
“Single, to be sure — a regular old bachelor, if ever there was one yet.”
During the whole time we had been speaking, Mrs. Sherwin had looked at us with far more earnestness and attention than I had ever seen her display before. Even her languid faculties seemed susceptible of active curiosity on the subject of Mr. Mannion — the more so, perhaps, from her very dislike of him. Margaret had moved her chair into the background, while her father was talking; and was apparently little interested in the topic under discussion. In the first interval of silence, she complained of headache, and asked leave to retire to her room.
After she left us, I took my departure: for Mr. Sherwin evidently had nothing more to tell me about his clerk that was worth hearing. On my way home, Mr. Mannion occupied no small share of my thoughts. The idea of trying to penetrate the mystery connected with him was an idea that pleased me; there was a promise of future excitement in it of no ordinary kind. I determined to have a little private conversation with Margaret about him; and to make her an ally in my new project. If there really had been some romance connected with Mr. Mannion’s early life — if that strange and striking face of his was indeed a sealed book which contained a secret story, what a triumph and a pleasure, if Margaret and I should succeed in discovering it together!
When I woke the next morning, I could hardly believe that this tradesman’s clerk had so interested my curiosity that he had actually shared my thoughts with my young wife, during the evening before. And yet, when I next saw him, he produced exactly the same impression on me again.