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Basil

by Wilkie Collins · English · Gutenberg #4605 · 661,347 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Basil

Author: Wilkie Collins


        
Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #4605]
                Most recently updated: July 3, 2019

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4605

Credits: Produced by James Rusk


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BASIL ***




Produced by James Rusk





BASIL

By Wilkie Collins




LETTER OF DEDICATION.

TO CHARLES JAMES WARD, ESQ.

IT has long been one of my pleasantest anticipations to look forward to
the time when I might offer to you, my old and dear friend, some such
acknowledgment of the value I place on your affection for me, and of my
grateful sense of the many acts of kindness by which that affection
has been proved, as I now gladly offer in this place. In dedicating the
present work to you, I fulfil therefore a purpose which, for some time
past, I have sincerely desired to achieve; and, more than that, I gain
for myself the satisfaction of knowing that there is one page, at least,
of my book, on which I shall always look with unalloyed pleasure--the
page that bears your name.

I have founded the main event out of which this story springs, on a
fact within my own knowledge. In afterwards shaping the course of the
narrative thus suggested, I have guided it, as often as I could, where
I knew by my own experience, or by experience related to me by others,
that it would touch on something real and true in its progress. My idea
was, that the more of the Actual I could garner up as a text to speak
from, the more certain I might feel of the genuineness and value of the
Ideal which was sure to spring out of it. Fancy and Imagination, Grace
and Beauty, all those qualities which are to the work of Art what scent
and colour are to the flower, can only grow towards heaven by taking
root in earth. Is not the noblest poetry of prose fiction the poetry of
every-day truth?

Directing my characters and my story, then, towards the light of Reality
wherever I could find it, I have not hesitated to violate some of
the conventionalities of sentimental fiction. For instance, the first
love-meeting of two of the personages in this book, occurs (where the
real love-meeting from which it is drawn, occurred) in the very last
place and under the very last circumstances which the artifices of
sentimental writing would sanction. Will my lovers excite ridicule
instead of interest, because I have truly represented them as seeing
each other where hundreds of other lovers have first seen each other,
as hundreds of people will readily admit when they read the passage to
which I refer? I am sanguine enough to think not.

So again, in certain parts of this book where I have attempted to excite
the suspense or pity of the reader, I have admitted as perfectly fit
accessories to the scene the most ordinary street-sounds that could be
heard, and the most ordinary street-events that could occur, at the time
and in the place represented--believing that by adding to truth, they
were adding to tragedy--adding by all the force of fair contrast--adding
as no artifices of mere writing possibly could add, let them be ever so
cunningly introduced by ever so crafty a hand.

Allow me to dwell a moment longer on the story which these pages
contain.

Believing that the Novel and the Play are twin-sisters in the family
of Fiction; that the one is a drama narrated, as the other is a drama
acted; and that all the strong and deep emotions which the Play-writer
is privileged to excite, the Novel-writer is privileged to excite also,
I have not thought it either politic or necessary, while adhering to
realities, to adhere to every-day realities only. In other words, I have
not stooped so low as to assure myself of the reader’s belief in the
probability of my story, by never once calling on him for the exercise
of his faith. Those extraordinary accidents and events which happen to
few men, seemed to me to be as legitimate materials for fiction to
work with--when there was a good object in using them--as the ordinary
accidents and events which may, and do, happen to us all. By appealing
to genuine sources of interest _within_ the reader’s own experience, I
could certainly gain his attention to begin with; but it would be only
by appealing to other sources (as genuine in their way) _beyond_ his
own experience, that I could hope to fix his interest and excite his
suspense, to occupy his deeper feelings, or to stir his nobler thoughts.

In writing thus--briefly and very generally--(for I must not delay
you too long from the story), I can but repeat, though I hope almost
unnecessarily, that I am now only speaking of what I have tried to do.
Between the purpose hinted at here, and the execution of that purpose
contained in the succeeding pages, lies the broad line of separation
which distinguishes between the will and the deed. How far I may fall
short of another man’s standard, remains to be discovered. How far I
have fallen short of my own, I know painfully well.

One word more on the manner in which the purpose of the following pages
is worked out--and I have done.

Nobody who admits that the business of fiction is to exhibit human life,
can deny that scenes of misery and crime must of necessity, while human
nature remains what it is, form part of that exhibition. Nobody can
assert that such scenes are unproductive of useful results, when they
are turned to a plainly and purely moral purpose. If I am asked why I
have written certain scenes in this book, my answer is to be found in
the universally-accepted truth which the preceding words express. I have
a right to appeal to that truth; for I guided myself by it throughout.
In deriving the lesson which the following pages contain, from those
examples of error and crime which would most strikingly and naturally
teach it, I determined to do justice to the honesty of my object by
speaking out. In drawing the two characters, whose actions bring about
the darker scenes of my story, I did not forget that it was my duty,
while striving to portray them naturally, to put them to a good moral
use; and at some sacrifice, in certain places, of dramatic effect
(though I trust with no sacrifice of truth to Nature), I have shown the
conduct of the vile, as always, in a greater or less degree, associated
with something that is selfish, contemptible, or cruel in motive.
Whether any of my better characters may succeed in endearing themselves
to the reader, I know not: but this I do certainly know:--that I shall
in no instance cheat him out of his sympathies in favour of the bad.

To those persons who dissent from the broad principles here adverted to;
who deny that it is the novelist’s vocation to do more than merely amuse
them; who shrink from all honest and serious reference, in books,
to subjects which they think of in private and talk of in public
everywhere; who see covert implications where nothing is implied, and
improper allusions where nothing improper is alluded to; whose innocence
is in the word, and not in the thought; whose morality stops at the
tongue, and never gets on to the heart--to those persons, I should
consider it loss of time, and worse, to offer any further explanation of
my motives, than the sufficient explanation which I have given already.
I do not address myself to them in this book, and shall never think of
addressing myself to them in any other.

                         *****

Those words formed part of the original introduction to this novel. I
wrote them nearly ten years since; and what I said then, I say now.

“Basil” was the second work of fiction which I produced. On its
appearance, it was condemned off-hand, by a certain class of readers, as
an outrage on their sense of propriety. Conscious of having designed
and written, my story with the strictest regard to true delicacy, as
distinguished from false--I allowed the prurient misinterpretation of
certain perfectly innocent passages in this book to assert itself as
offensively as it pleased, without troubling myself to protest against
an expression of opinion which aroused in me no other feeling than
a feeling of contempt. I knew that “Basil” had nothing to fear from
pure-minded readers; and I left these pages to stand or fall on such
merits as they possessed. Slowly and surely, my story forced its way
through all adverse criticism, to a place in the public favour which
it has never lost since. Some of the most valued friends I now possess,
were made for me by “Basil.” Some of the most gratifying recognitions of
my labours which I have received, from readers personally strangers to
me, have been recognitions of the purity of this story, from the first
page to the last. All the indulgence I need now ask for “Basil,” is
indulgence for literary defects, which are the result of inexperience;
which no correction can wholly remove; and which no one sees more
plainly, after a lapse of ten years, than the writer himself.

I have only to add, that the present edition of this book is the first
which has had the benefit of my careful revision. While the incidents of
the story remain exactly what they were, the language in which they are
told has been, I hope, in many cases greatly altered for the better.


WILKIE COLLINS.

Harley Street, London, July, 1862.





BASIL.




PART I.


I.

WHAT am I now about to write?

The history of little more than the events of one year, out of the
twenty-four years of my life.

Why do I undertake such an employment as this?

Perhaps, because I think that my narrative may do good; because I hope
that, one day, it may be put to some warning use. I am now about to
relate the story of an error, innocent in its beginning, guilty in its
progress, fatal in its results; and I would fain hope that my plain
and true record will show that this error was not committed altogether
without excuse. When these pages are found after my death, they will
perhaps be calmly read and gently judged, as relics solemnized by the
atoning shadows of the grave. Then, the hard sentence against me may
be repented of; the children of the next generation of our house may
be taught to speak charitably of my memory, and may often, of their own
accord, think of me kindly in the thoughtful watches of the night.

Prompted by these motives, and by others which I feel, but cannot
analyse, I now begin my self-imposed occupation. Hidden amid the far
hills of the far West of England, surrounded only by the few simple
inhabitants of a fishing hamlet on the Cornish coast, there is little
fear that my attention will be distracted from my task; and as
little chance that any indolence on my part will delay its speedy
accomplishment. I live under a threat of impending hostility, which may
descend and overwhelm me, I know not how soon, or in what manner. An
enemy, determined and deadly, patient alike to wait days or years for
his opportunity, is ever lurking after me in the dark. In entering on my
new employment, I cannot say of my time, that it may be mine for another
hour; of my life, that it may last till evening.

Thus it is as no leisure work that I begin my narrative--and begin it,
too, on my birthday! On this day I complete my twenty-fourth year; the
first new year of my life which has not been greeted by a single kind
word, or a single loving wish. But one look of welcome can still find me
in my solitude--the lovely morning look of nature, as I now see it from
the casement of my room. Brighter and brighter shines out the lusty sun
from banks of purple, rainy cloud; fishermen are spreading their nets
to dry on the lower declivities of the rocks; children are playing round
the boats drawn up on the beach; the sea-breeze blows fresh and pure
towards the shore----all objects are brilliant to look on, all sounds
are pleasant to hear, as my pen traces the first lines which open the
story of my life.

II.

I am the second son of an English gentleman of large fortune. Our family
is, I believe, one of the most ancient in this country. On my father’s
side, it dates back beyond the Conquest; on my mother’s, it is not so
old, but the pedigree is nobler. Besides my elder brother, I have one
sister, younger than myself. My mother died shortly after giving birth
to her last child.

Circumstances which will appear hereafter, have forced me to abandon my
father’s name. I have been obliged in honour to resign it; and in honour
I abstain from mentioning it here. Accordingly, at the head of these
pages, I have only placed my Christian name--not considering it of any
importance to add the surname which I have assumed; and which I may,
perhaps, be obliged to change for some other, at no very distant period.
It will now, I hope, be understood from the outset, why I never mention
my brother and sister but by their Christian names; why a blank occurs
wherever my father’s name should appear; why my own is kept concealed in
this narrative, as it is kept concealed in the world.

The story of my boyhood and youth has little to interest--nothing that
is new. My education was the education of hundreds of others in my rank
of life. I was first taught at a public school, and then went to college
to complete what is termed “a liberal education.”

My life at college has not left me a single pleasant recollection. I
found sycophancy established there, as a principle of action; flaunting
on the lord’s gold tassel in the street; enthroned on the lord’s dais in
the dining-room. The most learned student in my college--the man whose
life was most exemplary, whose acquirements were most admirable--was
shown me sitting, as a commoner, in the lowest place. The heir to an
Earldom, who had failed at the last examination, was pointed out a few
minutes afterwards, dining in solitary grandeur at a raised table, above
the reverend scholars who had turned him back as a dunce. I had just
arrived at the University, and had just been congratulated on entering
“a venerable seminary of learning and religion.”

Trite and common-place though it be, I mention this circumstance
attending my introduction to college, because it formed the first cause
which tended to diminish my faith in the institution to which I was
attached. I soon grew to regard my university training as a sort of
necessary evil, to be patiently submitted to. I read for no honours,
and joined no particular set of men. I studied the literature of France,
Italy, and Germany; just kept up my classical knowledge sufficiently
to take my degree; and left college with no other reputation than a
reputation for indolence and reserve.

When I returned home, it was thought necessary, as I was a younger son,
and could inherit none of the landed property of the family, except in
the case of my brother’s dying without children, that I should belong
to a profession. My father had the patronage of some valuable “livings,”
 and good interest with more than one member of the government. The
church, the army, the navy, and, in the last instance, the bar, were
offered me to choose from. I selected the last.

My father appeared to be a little astonished at my choice; but he made
no remark on it, except simply telling me not to forget that the bar was
a good stepping-stone to parliament. My real ambition, however, was, not
to make a name in parliament, but a name in literature. I had already
engaged myself in the hard, but glorious service of the pen; and I was
determined to persevere. The profession which offered me the greatest
facilities for pursuing my project, was the profession which I was ready
to prefer. So I chose the bar.

Thus, I entered life under the fairest auspices. Though a younger son, I
knew that my father’s wealth, exclusive of his landed property, secured
me an independent income far beyond my wants. I had no extravagant
habits; no tastes that I could not gratify as soon as formed; no cares
or responsibilities of any kind. I might practise my profession or
not, just as I chose. I could devote myself wholly and unreservedly to
literature, knowing that, in my case, the struggle for fame could never
be identical--terribly, though gloriously identical--with the struggle
for bread. For me, the morning sunshine of life was sunshine without a
cloud!

I might attempt, in this place, to sketch my own character as it was at
that time. But what man can say--I will sound the depth of my own vices,
and measure the height of my own virtues; and be as good as his word? We
can neither know nor judge ourselves; others may judge, but cannot know
us: God alone judges and knows too. Let my character appear--as far as
any human character can appear in its integrity, in this world--in my
actions, when I describe the one eventful passage in my life which forms
the basis of this narrative. In the mean time, it is first necessary
that I should say more about the members of my family. Two of them, at
least, will be found important to the progress of events in these
pages. I make no attempt to judge their characters: I only describe
them--whether rightly or wrongly, I know not--as they appeared to me.

III.

I always considered my father--I speak of him in the past tense, because
we are now separated for ever; because he is henceforth as dead to me
as if the grave had closed over him--I always considered my father to be
the proudest man I ever knew; the proudest man I ever heard of. His
was not that conventional pride, which the popular notions are fond of
characterising by a stiff, stately carriage; by a rigid expression of
features; by a hard, severe intonation of voice; by set speeches of
contempt for poverty and rags, and rhapsodical braggadocio about rank
and breeding. My father’s pride had nothing of this about it. It was
that quiet, negative, courteous, inbred pride, which only the closest
observation could detect; which no ordinary observers ever detected at
all.

Who that observed him in communication with any of the farmers on any of
his estates--who that saw the manner in which he lifted his hat, when
he accidentally met any of those farmers’ wives--who that noticed his
hearty welcome to the man of the people, when that man happened to be a
man of genius--would have thought him proud? On such occasions as these,
if he had any pride, it was impossible to detect it. But seeing him
when, for instance, an author and a new-made peer of no ancestry entered
his house together--observing merely the entirely different manner in
which he shook hands with each--remarking that the polite cordiality
was all for the man of letters, who did not contest his family rank with
him, and the polite formality all for the man of title, who did--you
discovered where and how he was proud in an instant. Here lay his
fretful point. The aristocracy of rank, as separate from the aristocracy
of ancestry, was no aristocracy for _him._ He was jealous of it; he
hated it. Commoner though he was, he considered himself the social
superior of any man, from a baronet up to a duke, whose family was less
ancient than his own.

Among a host of instances of this peculiar pride of his which I could
cite, I remember one, characteristic enough to be taken as a sample of
all the rest. It happened when I was quite a child, and was told me by
one of my uncles now dead--who witnessed the circumstance himself, and
always made a good story of it to the end of his life.

A merchant of enormous wealth, who had recently been raised to the
peerage, was staying at one of our country houses. His daughter, my
uncle, and an Italian Abbe were the only guests besides. The merchant
was a portly, purple-faced man, who bore his new honours with a curious
mixture of assumed pomposity and natural good-humour. The Abbe was
dwarfish and deformed, lean, sallow, sharp-featured, with bright
bird-like eyes, and a low, liquid voice. He was a political refugee,
dependent for the bread he ate, on the money he received for teaching
languages. He might have been a beggar from the streets; and still my
father would have treated him as the principal guest in the house, for
this all-sufficient reason--he was a direct descendant of one of the
oldest of those famous Roman families whose names are part of the
history of the Civil Wars in Italy.

On the first day, the party assembled for dinner comprised the
merchant’s daughter, my mother, an old lady who had once been her
governess, and had always lived with her since her marriage, the new
Lord, the Abbe, my father, and my uncle. When dinner was announced,
the peer advanced in new-blown dignity, to offer his arm as a matter of
course to my mother. My father’s pale face flushed crimson in a moment.
He touched the magnificent merchant-lord on the arm, and pointed
significantly, with a low bow, towards the decrepit old lady who had
once been my mother’s governess. Then walking to the other end of the
room, where the penniless Abbe was looking over a book in a corner,
he gravely and courteously led the little, deformed, limping
language-master, clad in a long, threadbare, black coat, up to my mother
(whose shoulder the Abbe’s head hardly reached), held the door open
for them to pass out first, with his own hand; politely invited the new
nobleman, who stood half-paralysed between confusion and astonishment,
to follow with the tottering old lady on his arm; and then returned to
lead the peer’s daughter down to dinner himself. He only resumed his
wonted expression and manner, when he had seen the little Abbe--the
squalid, half-starved representative of mighty barons of the olden
time--seated at the highest place of the table by my mother’s side.

It was by such accidental circumstances as these that you discovered how
far he was proud. He never boasted of his ancestors; he never even spoke
of them, except when he was questioned on the subject; but he never
forgot them. They were the very breath of his life; the deities of his
social worship: the family treasures to be held precious beyond all
lands and all wealth, all ambitions and all glories, by his children and
his children’s children to the end of their race.

In home-life he performed his duties towards his family honourably,
delicately, and kindly. I believe in his own way he loved us all; but
we, his descendants, had to share his heart with his ancestors--we were
his household property as well as his children. Every fair liberty was
given to us; every fair indulgence was granted to us. He never displayed
any suspicion, or any undue severity. We were taught by his direction,
that to disgrace our family, either by word or action, was the one fatal
crime which could never be forgotten and never be pardoned. We were
formed, under his superintendence, in principles of religion, honour,
and industry; and the rest was left to our own moral sense, to our own
comprehension of the duties and privileges of our station. There was no
one point in his conduct towards any of us that we could complain of;
and yet there was something always incomplete in our domestic relations.

It may seem incomprehensible, even ridiculous, to some persons, but it
is nevertheless true, that we were none of us ever on intimate terms
with him. I mean by this, that he was a father to us, but never a
companion. There was something in his manner, his quiet and unchanging
manner, which kept us almost unconsciously restrained. I never in my
life felt less at my ease--I knew not why at the time--than when I
occasionally dined alone with him. I never confided to him my schemes
for amusement as a boy, or mentioned more than generally my ambitious
hopes, as a young man. It was not that he would have received such
confidences with ridicule or severity, he was incapable of it; but that
he seemed above them, unfitted to enter into them, too far removed by
his own thoughts from such thoughts as ours. Thus, all holiday councils
were held with old servants; thus, my first pages of manuscript, when
I first tried authorship, were read by my sister, and never penetrated
into my father’s study.

Again, his mode of testifying displeasure towards my brother or myself,
had something terrible in its calmness, something that we never forgot,
and always dreaded as the worst calamity that could befall us.

Whenever, as boys, we committed some boyish fault, he never displayed
outwardly any irritation--he simply altered his manner towards us
altogether. We were not soundly lectured, or vehemently threatened, or
positively punished in anyway; but, when we came in contact with him,
we were treated with a cold, contemptuous politeness (especially if our
fault showed a tendency to anything mean or ungentlemanlike) which
cut us to the heart. On these occasions, we were not addressed by our
Christian names; if we accidentally met him out of doors, he was sure to
turn aside and avoid us; if we asked a question, it was answered in the
briefest possible manner, as if we had been strangers. His whole
course of conduct said, as though in so many words--You have rendered
yourselves unfit to associate with your father; and he is now making you
feel that unfitness as deeply as he does. We were left in this domestic
purgatory for days, sometimes for weeks together. To our boyish feelings
(to mine especially) there was no ignominy like it, while it lasted.

I know not on what terms my father lived with my mother. Towards my
sister, his demeanour always exhibited something of the old-fashioned,
affectionate gallantry of a former age. He paid her the same attention
that he would have paid to the highest lady in the land. He led her
into the dining-room, when we were alone, exactly as he would have led a
duchess into a banqueting-hall. He would allow us, as boys, to quit the
breakfast-table before he had risen himself; but never before she had
left it. If a servant failed in duty towards _him,_ the servant was
often forgiven; if towards _her,_ the servant was sent away on the
spot. His daughter was in his eyes the representative of her mother: the
mistress of his house, as well as his child. It was curious to see the
mixture of high-bred courtesy and fatherly love in his manner, as he
just gently touched her forehead with his lips, when he first saw her in
the morning.

In person, my father was of not more than middle height. He was very
slenderly and delicately made; his head small, and well set on his
shoulders--his forehead more broad than lofty--his complexion singularly
pale, except in moments of agitation, when I have already noticed its
tendency to flush all over in an instant. His eyes, large and gray,
had something commanding in their look; they gave a certain unchanging
firmness and dignity to his expression, not often met with. They
betrayed his birth and breeding, his old ancestral prejudices, his
chivalrous sense of honour, in every glance. It required, indeed, all
the masculine energy of look about the upper part of his face, to redeem
the lower part from an appearance of effeminacy, so delicately was it
moulded in its fine Norman outline. His smile was remarkable for its
sweetness--it was almost like a woman’s smile. In speaking, too, his
lips often trembled as women’s do. If he ever laughed, as a young
man, his laugh must have been very clear and musical; but since I can
recollect him, I never heard it. In his happiest moments, in the gayest
society, I have only seen him smile.

There were other characteristics of my father’s disposition and manner,
which I might mention; but they will appear to greater advantage,
perhaps, hereafter, connected with circumstances which especially called
them forth.

IV.

When a family is possessed of large landed property, the individual of
that family who shows least interest in its welfare; who is least fond
of home, least connected by his own sympathies with his relatives, least
ready to learn his duties or admit his responsibilities, is often that
very individual who is to succeed to the family inheritance--the eldest
son.

My brother Ralph was no exception to this remark. We were educated
together. After our education was completed, I never saw him, except
for short periods. He was almost always on the continent, for some years
after he left college. And when he returned definitely to England, he
did not return to live under our roof. Both in town and country he was
our visitor, not our inmate.

I recollect him at school--stronger, taller, handsomer than I was; far
beyond me in popularity among the little community we lived with; the
first to lead a daring exploit, the last to abandon it; now at the
bottom of the class, now at the top--just that sort of gay, boisterous,
fine-looking, dare-devil boy, whom old people would instinctively turn
round and smile after, as they passed him by in a morning walk.

Then, at college, he became illustrious among rowers and cricketers,
renowned as a pistol shot, dreaded as a singlestick player. No wine
parties in the university were such wine parties as his; tradesmen gave
him the first choice of everything that was new; young ladies in the
town fell in love with him by dozens; young tutors with a tendency to
dandyism, copied the cut of his coat and the tie of his cravat; even the
awful heads of houses looked leniently on his delinquencies. The gay,
hearty, handsome young English gentleman carried a charm about him that
subdued everybody. Though I was his favourite butt, both at school
and college, I never quarrelled with him in my life. I always let him
ridicule my dress, manners, and habits in his own reckless, boisterous
way, as if it had been a part of his birthright privilege to laugh at me
as much as he chose.

Thus far, my father had no worse anxieties about him than those
occasioned by his high spirits and his heavy debts. But when he returned
home--when the debts had been paid, and it was next thought necessary
to drill the free, careless energies into something like useful
discipline--then my father’s trials and difficulties began in earnest.

It was impossible to make Ralph comprehend and appreciate his position,
as he was desired to comprehend and appreciate it. The steward gave up
in despair all attempts to enlighten him about the extent, value, and
management of the estates he was to inherit. A vigorous effort was
made to inspire him with ambition; to get him to go into parliament. He
laughed at the idea. A commission in the Guards was next offered to
him. He refused it, because he would never be buttoned up in a red
coat; because he would submit to no restraints, fashionable or military;
because in short, he was determined to be his own master. My father
talked to him by the hour together, about his duties and his prospects,
the cultivation of his mind, and the example of his ancestors; and
talked in vain. He yawned and fidgetted over the emblazoned pages of his
own family pedigree, whenever they were opened before him.

In the country, he cared for nothing but hunting and shooting--it was as
difficult to make him go to a grand county dinner-party, as to make him
go to church. In town, he haunted the theatres, behind the scenes as
well as before; entertained actors and actresses at Richmond; ascended
in balloons at Vauxhall; went about with detective policemen, seeing
life among pickpockets and housebreakers; belonged to a whist club,
a supper club, a catch club, a boxing club, a picnic club, an amateur
theatrical club; and, in short, lived such a careless, convivial life,
that my father, outraged in every one of his family prejudices and
family refinements, almost ceased to speak to him, and saw him as rarely
as possible. Occasionally, my sister’s interference reconciled them
again for a short time; her influence, gentle as it was, was always
powerfully felt for good, but she could not change my brother’s nature.
Persuade and entreat as anxiously as she might, he was always sure to
forfeit the paternal favour again, a few days after he had been restored
to it.

At last, matters were brought to their climax by an awkward love
adventure of Ralph’s with one of our tenants’ daughters. My father
acted with his usual decision on the occasion. He determined to apply
a desperate remedy: to let the refractory eldest son run through his
career in freedom, abroad, until he had well wearied himself, and could
return home a sobered man. Accordingly, he procured for my brother
an attache’s place in a foreign embassy, and insisted on his leaving
England forthwith. For once in a way, Ralph was docile. He knew and
cared nothing about diplomacy; but he liked the idea of living on the
continent, so he took his leave of home with his best grace. My father
saw him depart, with ill-concealed agitation and apprehension; although
he affected to feel satisfied that, flighty and idle as Ralph was, he
was incapable of voluntarily dishonouring his family, even in his most
reckless moods.

After this, we heard little from my brother. His letters were few and
short, and generally ended with petitions for money. The only important
news of him that reached us, reached us through public channels.

He was making quite a continental reputation--a reputation, the bare
mention of which made my father wince. He had fought a duel; he had
imported a new dance from Hungary; he had contrived to get the smallest
groom that ever was seen behind a cabriolet; he had carried off the
reigning beauty among the opera-dancers of the day from all competitors;
a great French cook had composed a great French dish, and christened
it by his name; he was understood to be the “unknown friend,” to whom
a literary Polish countess had dedicated her “Letters against the
restraint of the Marriage Tie;” a female German metaphysician, sixty
years old, had fallen (Platonically) in love with him, and had taken to
writing erotic romances in her old age. Such were some of the rumours
that reached my father’s ears on the subject of his son and heir!

After a long absence, he came home on a visit. How well I remember
the astonishment he produced in the whole household! He had become a
foreigner in manners and appearance. His mustachios were magnificent;
miniature toys in gold and jewellery hung in clusters from his
watch-chain; his shirt-front was a perfect filigree of lace and cambric.
He brought with him his own boxes of choice liqueurs and perfumes; his
own smart, impudent, French valet; his own travelling bookcase of French
novels, which he opened with his own golden key. He drank nothing but
chocolate in the morning; he had long interviews with the cook, and
revolutionized our dinner table. All the French newspapers were sent to
him by a London agent. He altered the arrangements of his bed-room; no
servant but his own valet was permitted to enter it. Family portraits
that hung there, were turned to the walls, and portraits of French
actresses and Italian singers were stuck to the back of the canvasses.
Then he displaced a beautiful little ebony cabinet which had been in the
family three hundred years; and set up in its stead a Cyprian temple of
his own, in miniature, with crystal doors, behind which hung locks
of hair, rings, notes written on blush-coloured paper, and other
love-tokens kept as sentimental relics. His influence became
all-pervading among us. He seemed to communicate to the house the change
that had taken place in himself, from the reckless, racketty young
Englishman to the super-exquisite foreign dandy. It was as if the
fiery, effervescent atmosphere of the Boulevards of Paris had insolently
penetrated into the old English mansion, and ruffled and infected its
quiet native air, to the remotest corners of the place.

My father was even more dismayed than displeased by the alteration in
my brother’s habits and manners--the eldest son was now farther from
his ideal of what an eldest son should be, than ever. As for friends and
neighbours, Ralph was heartily feared and disliked by them, before
he had been in the house a week. He had an ironically patient way of
listening to their conversation; an ironically respectful manner of
demolishing their old-fashioned opinions, and correcting their slightest
mistakes, which secretly aggravated them beyond endurance. It was worse
still, when my father, in despair, tried to tempt him into marriage,
as the one final chance of working his reform; and invited half the
marriageable young ladies of our acquaintance to the house, for his
especial benefit.

Ralph had never shown much fondness at home, for the refinements of
good female society. Abroad, he had lived as exclusively as he possibly
could, among women whose characters ranged downwards by infinitesimal
degrees, from the mysteriously doubtful to the notoriously bad. The
highly-bred, highly-refined, highly-accomplished young English beauties
had no charm for him. He detected at once the domestic conspiracy of
which he was destined to become the victim. He often came up-stairs, at
night, into my bed-room; and while he was amusing himself by derisively
kicking about my simple clothes and simple toilette apparatus; while he
was laughing in his old careless way at my quiet habits and monotonous
life, used to slip in, parenthetically, all sorts of sarcasms about our
young lady guests. To him, their manners were horribly inanimate; their
innocence, hypocrisy of education. Pure complexions and regular features
were very well, he said, as far as they went; but when a girl could not
walk properly, when she shook hands with you with cold fingers, when
having good eyes she could not make a stimulating use of them, then it
was time to sentence the regular features and pure complexions to be
taken back forthwith to the nursery from which they came. For _his_
part, he missed the conversation of his witty Polish Countess, and
longed for another pancake-supper with his favourite _grisettes._

The failure of my father’s last experiment with Ralph soon became
apparent. Watchful and experienced mothers began to suspect that my
brother’s method of flirtation was dangerous, and his style of waltzing
improper. One or two ultra-cautious parents, alarmed by the laxity of
his manners and opinions, removed their daughters out of harm’s way,
by shortening their visits. The rest were spared any such necessity. My
father suddenly discovered that Ralph was devoting himself rather too
significantly to a young married woman who was staying in the house. The
same day he had a long private interview with my brother. What passed
between them, I know not; but it must have been something serious.
Ralph came out of my father’s private study, very pale and very
silent; ordered his luggage to be packed directly; and the next morning
departed, with his French valet, and his multifarious French goods and
chattels, for the continent.

Another interval passed; and then we had another short visit from him.
He was still unaltered. My father’s temper suffered under this second
disappointment. He became more fretful and silent; more apt to take
offence than had been his wont. I particularly mention the change thus
produced in his disposition, because that change was destined, at no
very distant period, to act fatally upon me.

On this last occasion, also, there was another serious disagreement
between father and son; and Ralph left England again in much the same
way that he had left it before.

Shortly after that second departure, we heard that he had altered
his manner of life. He had contracted, what would be termed in the
continental code of morals, a reformatory attachment to a woman older
than himself, who was living separated from her husband, when he met
with her. It was this lady’s lofty ambition to be Mentor and mistress,
both together! And she soon proved herself to be well qualified for her
courageous undertaking. To the astonishment of everyone who knew
him, Ralph suddenly turned economical; and, soon afterwards, actually
resigned his post at the embassy, to be out of the way of temptation!
Since that, he has returned to England; has devoted himself to
collecting snuff-boxes and learning the violin; and is now living
quietly in the suburbs of London, still under the inspection of the
resolute female missionary who first worked his reform.

Whether he will ever become the high-minded, high-principled country
gentleman, that my father has always desired to see him, it is useless
for me to guess. On the domains which he is to inherit, I shall never
perhaps set foot again: in the halls where he will one day preside as
master, I shall never more be sheltered. Let me now quit the subject of
my elder brother, and turn to a theme which is nearer to my heart; dear
to me as the last remembrance left that I can love; precious beyond all
treasures in my solitude and my exile from home.

My sister!--well may I linger over your beloved name in such a record
as this. A little farther on, and the darkness of crime and grief will
encompass me; here, my recollections of you kindle like a pure light
before my eyes--doubly pure by contrast with what lies beyond. May your
kind eyes, love, be the first that fall on these pages, when the writer
has parted from them for ever! May your tender hand be the first that
touches these leaves, when mine is cold! Backward in my narrative,
Clara, wherever I have but casually mentioned my sister, the pen has
trembled and stood still. At this place, where all my remembrances of
you throng upon me unrestrained, the tears gather fast and thick beyond
control; and for the first time since I began my task, my courage and my
calmness fail me.

It is useless to persevere longer. My hand trembles; my eyes grow dimmer
and dimmer. I must close my labours for the day, and go forth to gather
strength and resolution for to-morrow on the hill-tops that overlook the
sea.

V.

My sister Clara is four years younger than I am. In form of face, in
complexion, and--except the eyes--in features, she bears a striking
resemblance to my father. Her expressions however, must be very like
what my mother’s was. Whenever I have looked at her in her silent and
thoughtful moments, she has always appeared to freshen, and even to
increase, my vague, childish recollections of our lost mother. Her
eyes have that slight tinge of melancholy in their tenderness, and that
peculiar softness in their repose, which is only seen in blue eyes. Her
complexion, pale as my father’s when she is neither speaking nor moving,
has in a far greater degree than his the tendency to flush, not merely
in moments of agitation, but even when she is walking, or talking on any
subject that interests her. Without this peculiarity her paleness would
be a defect. With it, the absence of any colour in her complexion but
the fugitive uncertain colour which I have described, would to some eyes
debar her from any claims to beauty. And a beauty perhaps she is not--at
least, in the ordinary acceptation of the term.

The lower part of her face is rather too small for the upper, her figure
is too slight, the sensitiveness of her nervous organization is too
constantly visible in her actions and her looks. She would not fix
attention and admiration in a box at the opera; very few men passing her
in the street would turn round to look after her; very few women
would regard her with that slightingly attentive stare, that steady
depreciating scrutiny, which a dashing decided beauty so often receives
(and so often triumphs in receiving) from her personal inferiors among
her own sex. The greatest charms that my sister has on the surface, come
from beneath it.

When you really knew her, when she spoke to you freely, as to a
friend--then, the attraction of her voice, her smile her manner,
impressed you indescribably. Her slightest words and her commonest
actions interested and delighted you, you knew not why. There was
a beauty about her unassuming simplicity, her natural--exquisitely
natural--kindness of heart, and word, and manner, which preserved
its own unobtrusive influence over you, in spite of all other rival
influences, be they what they might. You missed and thought of her,
when you were fresh from the society of the most beautiful and the most
brilliant women. You remembered a few kind, pleasant words of hers when
you forgot the wit of the wittiest ladies, the learning of the most
learned. The influence thus possessed, and unconsciously possessed,
by my sister over every one with whom she came in contact--over men
especially--may, I think be very simply accounted for, in very few
sentences.

We live in an age when too many women appear to be ambitious of morally
unsexing themselves before society, by aping the language and the
manners of men--especially in reference to that miserable modern
dandyism of demeanour, which aims at repressing all betrayal of warmth
of feeling; which abstains from displaying any enthusiasm on any
subject whatever; which, in short, labours to make the fashionable
imperturbability of the face the faithful reflection of the fashionable
imperturbability of the mind. Women of this exclusively modern
order, like to use slang expressions in their conversation; assume
a bastard-masculine abruptness in their manners, a bastard-masculine
licence in their opinions; affect to ridicule those outward developments
of feeling which pass under the general appellation of “sentiment.”
 Nothing impresses, agitates, amuses, or delights them in a hearty,
natural, womanly way. Sympathy looks ironical, if they ever show it:
love seems to be an affair of calculation, or mockery, or contemptuous
sufferance, if they ever feel it.

To women such as these, my sister Clara presented as complete a contrast
as could well be conceived. In this contrast lay the secret of her
influence, of the voluntary tribute of love and admiration which
followed her wherever she went.

Few men have not their secret moments of deep feeling--moments when,
amid the wretched trivialities and hypocrisies of modern society, the
image will present itself to their minds of some woman, fresh,
innocent, gentle, sincere; some woman whose emotions are still warm and
impressible, whose affections and sympathies can still appear in her
actions, and give the colour to her thoughts; some woman in whom we
could put as perfect faith and trust, as if we were children; whom we
despair of finding near the hardening influences of the world; whom we
could scarcely venture to look for, except in solitary places far away
in the country; in little rural shrines, shut up from society, among
woods and fields, and lonesome boundary-hills. When any women happen to
realise, or nearly to realise, such an image as this, they possess that
universal influence which no rivalry can ever approach. On them really
depends, and by then is really preserved, that claim upon the sincere
respect and admiration of men, on which the power of the whole sex is
based--the power so often assumed by the many, so rarely possessed but
by the few.

It was thus with my sister. Thus, wherever she went, though without
either the inclination, or the ambition to shine, she eclipsed women
who were her superiors in beauty, in accomplishments, in brilliancy of
manners and conversation--conquering by no other weapon than the purely
feminine charm of everything she said, and everything she did.

But it was not amid the gaiety and grandeur of a London season that her
character was displayed to the greatest advantage. It was when she was
living where she loved to live, in the old country-house, among the old
friends and old servants who would every one of them have died a hundred
deaths for her sake, that you could study and love her best. Then, the
charm there was in the mere presence of the kind, gentle, happy young
English girl, who could enter into everybody’s interests, and be
grateful for everybody’s love, possessed its best and brightest
influence. At picnics, lawn-parties, little country gatherings of all
sorts, she was, in her own quiet, natural manner, always the presiding
spirit of general comfort and general friendship. Even the rigid laws
of country punctilio relaxed before her unaffected cheerfulness and
irresistible good-nature. She always contrived--nobody ever knew
how--to lure the most formal people into forgetting their formality,
and becoming natural for the rest of the day. Even a heavy-headed,
lumbering, silent country squire was not too much for her. She managed
to make him feel at his ease, when no one else would undertake the task;
she could listen patiently to his confused speeches about dogs, horses,
and the state of the crops, when other conversations were proceeding in
which she was really interested; she could receive any little
grateful attention that he wished to pay her--no matter how awkward or
ill-timed--as she received attentions from any one else, with a manner
which showed she considered it as a favour granted to her sex, not as a
right accorded to it.

So, again, she always succeeded in diminishing the long list of those
pitiful affronts and offences, which play such important parts in the
social drama of country society. She was a perfect Apostle-errant of
the order of Reconciliation; and wherever she went, cast out the devil
Sulkiness from all his strongholds--the lofty and the lowly alike. Our
good rector used to call her his Volunteer Curate; and declare that
she preached by a timely word, or a persuasive look, the best practical
sermons on the blessings of peace-making that were ever composed.

With all this untiring good-nature, with all this resolute industry
in the task of making every one happy whom she approached, there was
mingled some indescribable influence, which invariably preserved her
from the presumption, even of the most presuming people. I never knew
anybody venturesome enough--either by word or look--to take a liberty
with her. There was something about her which inspired respect as well
as love. My father, following the bent of his peculiar and favourite
ideas, always thought it was the look of her race in her eyes, the
ascendancy of her race in her manners. I believe it to have proceeded
from a simpler and a better cause. There is a goodness of heart, which
carries the shield of its purity over the open hand of its kindness: and
that goodness was hers.

To my father, she was more, I believe, than he himself ever imagined--or
will ever know, unless he should lose her. He was often, in his
intercourse with the world, wounded severely enough in his peculiar
prejudices and peculiar refinements--he was always sure to find the
first respected, and the last partaken by _her._ He could trust in her
implicitly, he could feel assured that she was not only willing, but
able, to share and relieve his domestic troubles and anxieties. If he
had been less fretfully anxious about his eldest son; if he had wisely
distrusted from the first his own powers of persuading and reforming,
and had allowed Clara to exercise her influence over Ralph more
constantly and more completely than he really did, I am persuaded that
the long-expected epoch of my brother’s transformation would have really
arrived by this time, or even before it.

The strong and deep feelings of my sister’s nature lay far below the
surface--for a woman, too far below it. Suffering was, for her, silent,
secret, long enduring; often almost entirely void of outward vent or
development. I never remember seeing her in tears, except on rare and
very serious occasions. Unless you looked at her narrowly, you would
judge her to be little sensitive to ordinary griefs and troubles. At
such times, her eyes only grew dimmer and less animated than usual; the
paleness of her complexion became rather more marked; her lips closed
and trembled involuntarily--but this was all: there was no sighing,
no weeping, no speaking even. And yet she suffered acutely. The very
strength of her emotions was in their silence and their secresy. I, of
all others--I, guilty of infecting with my anguish the pure heart that
loved me--ought to know this best!

How long I might linger over all that she has done for _me!_ As I now
approach nearer and nearer to the pages which are to reveal my fatal
story, so I am more and more tempted to delay over those better and
purer remembrances of my sister which now occupy my mind. The first
little presents--innocent girlish presents--which she secretly sent to
me at school; the first sweet days of our uninterrupted intercourse,
when the close of my college life restored me to home; her first
inestimable sympathies with my first fugitive vanities of embryo
authorship, are thronging back fast and fondly on my thoughts, while I
now write.

But these memories must be calmed and disciplined. I must be collected
and impartial over my narrative--if it be only to make that narrative
show fairly and truly, without suppression or exaggeration, all that I
have owed to her.

Not merely all that I _have_ owed to her; but all that I owe to her
now. Though I may never see her again, but in my thoughts; still she
influences, comforts, cheers me on to hope, as if she were already the
guardian spirit of the cottage where I live. Even in my worst moments of
despair, I can still remember that Clara is thinking of me and sorrowing
for me: I can still feel that remembrance, as an invisible hand of mercy
which supports me, sinking; which raises me, fallen; which may yet lead
me safely and tenderly to my hard journey’s end.

VI.

I have now completed all the preliminary notices of my near relatives,
which it is necessary to present in these pages; and may proceed at once
to the more immediate subject of my narrative.

Imagine to yourself that my father and my sister have been living for
some months at our London residence; and that I have recently joined
them, after having enjoyed a short tour on the continent.

My father is engaged in his parliamentary duties. We see very little of
him. Committees absorb his mornings--debates his evenings. When he has
a day of leisure occasionally, he passes it in his study, devoted to his
own affairs. He goes very little into society--a political dinner, or a
scientific meeting are the only social relaxations that tempt him.

My sister leads a life which is not much in accordance with her simple
tastes. She is wearied of balls, operas, flower-shows, and all other
London gaieties besides; and heartily longs to be driving about the
green lanes again in her own little poney-chaise, and distributing
plum-cake prizes to the good children at the Rector’s Infant School.
But the female friend who happens to be staying with her, is fond of
excitement; my father expects her to accept the invitations which he is
obliged to decline; so she gives up her own tastes and inclinations as
usual, and goes into hot rooms among crowds of fine people, hearing the
same glib compliments, and the same polite inquiries, night after night,
until, patient as she is, she heartily wishes that her fashionable
friends all lived in some opposite quarter of the globe, the farther
away the better.

My arrival from the continent is the most welcome of events to her. It
gives a new object and a new impulse to her London life.

I am engaged in writing a historical romance--indeed, it is principally
to examine the localities in the country where my story is laid, that I
have been abroad. Clara has read the first half-dozen finished chapters,
in manuscript, and augurs wonderful success for my fiction when it is
published. She is determined to arrange my study with her own hands; to
dust my books, and sort my papers herself. She knows that I am already
as fretful and precise about my literary goods and chattels, as
indignant at any interference of housemaids and dusters with my library
treasures, as if I were a veteran author of twenty years’ standing; and
she is resolved to spare me every apprehension on this score, by taking
all the arrangements of my study on herself, and keeping the key of the
door when I am not in need of it.

We have our London amusements, too, as well as our London employments.
But the pleasantest of our relaxations are, after all, procured for
us by our horses. We ride every day--sometimes with friends, sometimes
alone together. On these latter occasions, we generally turn our horses’
heads away from the parks, and seek what country sights we can get
in the neighbourhood of London. The northern roads are generally our
favourite ride.

Sometimes we penetrate so far that we can bait our horses at a little
inn which reminds me of the inns near our country home. I see the same
sanded parlour, decorated with the same old sporting prints, furnished
with the same battered, deep-coloured mahogany table, and polished elm
tree chairs, that I remember in our own village inn. Clara, also, finds
bits of common, out of doors, that look like _our_ common; and trees
that might have been transplanted expressly for her, from _our_ park.

These excursions we keep a secret, we like to enjoy them entirely by
ourselves. Besides, if my father knew that his daughter was drinking
the landlady’s fresh milk, and his son the landlord’s old ale, in the
parlour of a suburban roadside inn, he would, I believe, be apt to
suspect that both his children had fairly taken leave of their senses.

Evening parties I frequent almost as rarely as my father. Clara’s good
nature is called into requisition to do duty for me, as well as for
him. She has little respite in the task. Old lady relatives and friends,
always ready to take care of her, leave her no excuse for staying
at home. Sometimes I am shamed into accompanying her a little more
frequently than usual; but my old indolence in these matters soon
possesses me again. I have contracted a bad habit of writing at night--I
read almost incessantly in the day time. It is only because I am fond of
riding, that I am ever willing to interrupt my studies, and ever ready
to go out at all.

Such were my domestic habits, such my regular occupations and
amusements, when a mere accident changed every purpose of my life, and
altered me irretrievably from what I was then, to what I am now.

It happened thus:

VII.

I had just received my quarter’s allowance of pocket-money, and had gone
into the city to cash the cheque at my father’s bankers.

The money paid, I debated for a moment how I should return homewards.
First I thought of walking: then of taking a cab. While I was
considering this frivolous point, an omnibus passed me, going westward.
In the idle impulse of the moment, I hailed it, and got in.

It was something more than an idle impulse though. If I had at that time
no other qualification for the literary career on which I was entering,
I certainly had this one--an aptitude for discovering points of
character in others: and its natural result, an unfailing delight in
studying characters of all kinds, wherever I could meet with them.

I had often before ridden in omnibuses to amuse myself by observing the
passengers. An omnibus has always appeared to me, to be a perambulatory
exhibition-room of the eccentricities of human nature. I know not any
other sphere in which persons of all classes and all temperaments are so
oddly collected together, and so immediately contrasted and confronted
with each other. To watch merely the different methods of getting into
the vehicle, and taking their seats, adopted by different people, is to
study no incomplete commentary on the infinitesimal varieties of human
character--as various even as the varieties of the human face.

Thus, in addition to the idle impulse, there was the idea of amusement
in my thoughts, as I stopped the public vehicle, and added one to the
number of the conductor’s passengers.

There were five persons in the omnibus when I entered it. Two
middle-aged ladies, dressed with amazing splendour in silks and satins,
wearing straw-coloured kid gloves, and carrying highly-scented pocket
handkerchiefs, sat apart at the end of the vehicle; trying to look as if
they occupied it under protest, and preserving the most stately
gravity and silence. They evidently felt that their magnificent outward
adornments were exhibited in a very unworthy locality, and among a very
uncongenial company.

One side, close to the door, was occupied by a lean, withered old man,
very shabbily dressed in black, who sat eternally mumbling something
between his toothless jaws. Occasionally, to the evident disgust of
the genteel ladies, he wiped his bald head and wrinkled forehead with a
ragged blue cotton handkerchief, which he kept in the crown of his hat.

Opposite to this ancient sat a dignified gentleman and a sickly
vacant-looking little girl. Every event of that day is so indelibly
marked on my memory, that I remember, not only this man’s pompous look
and manner, but even the words he addressed to the poor squalid little
creature by his side. When I entered the omnibus, he was telling her
in a loud voice how she ought to dispose of her frock and her feet when
people got into the vehicle, and when they got out. He then impressed on
her the necessity in future life, when she grew up, of always having
the price of her fare ready before it was wanted, to prevent unnecessary
delay. Having delivered himself of this good advice, he began to hum,
keeping time by drumming with his thick Malacca cane. He was still
proceeding with this amusement--producing some of the most acutely
unmusical sounds I ever heard--when the omnibus stopped to give
admission to two ladies. The first who got in was an elderly
person--pale and depressed--evidently in delicate health. The second was
a young girl.



Among the workings of the hidden life within us which we may experience
but cannot explain, are there any more remarkable than those mysterious
moral influences constantly exercised, either for attraction or
repulsion, by one human being over another? In the simplest, as in the
most important affairs of life, how startling, how irresistible is their
power! How often we feel and know, either pleasurably or painfully, that
another is looking on us, before we have ascertained the fact with our
own eyes! How often we prophesy truly to ourselves the approach of a
friend or enemy, just before either have really appeared! How strangely
and abruptly we become convinced, at a first introduction, that we shall
secretly love this person and loathe that, before experience has guided
us with a single fact in relation to their characters!

I have said that the two additional passengers who entered the vehicle
in which I was riding, were, one of them, an elderly lady; the other, a
young girl. As soon as the latter had seated herself nearly opposite
to me, by her companion’s side, I felt her influence on me directly--an
influence that I cannot describe--an influence which I had never
experienced in my life before, which I shall never experience again.

I had helped to hand her in, as she passed me; merely touching her arm
for a moment. But how the sense of that touch was prolonged! I felt it
thrilling through me--thrilling in every nerve, in every pulsation of my
fast-throbbing heart.

Had I the same influence over her? Or was it I that received, and she
that conferred, only? I was yet destined to discover; but not then--not
for a long, long time.

Her veil was down when I first saw her. Her features and her expression
were but indistinctly visible to me. I could just vaguely perceive that
she was young and beautiful; but, beyond this, though I might imagine
much, I could see little.

From the time when she entered the omnibus, I have no recollection of
anything more that occurred in it. I neither remember what passengers
got out, or what passengers got in. My powers of observation, hitherto
active enough, had now wholly deserted me. Strange! that the capricious
rule of chance should sway the action of our faculties that a trifle
should set in motion the whole complicated machinery of their exercise,
and a trifle suspend it.

We had been moving onward for some little time, when the girl’s
companion addressed an observation to her. She heard it imperfectly,
and lifted her veil while it was being repeated. How painfully my heart
beat! I could almost hear it--as her face was, for the first time,
freely and fairly disclosed!

She was dark. Her hair, eyes, and complexion were darker than usual in
English women. The form, the look altogether, of her face, coupled
with what I could see of her figure, made me guess her age to be about
twenty. There was the appearance of maturity already in the shape of
her features; but their expression still remained girlish, unformed,
unsettled. The fire in her large dark eyes, when she spoke, was latent.
Their languor, when she was silent--that voluptuous languor of black
eyes--was still fugitive and unsteady. The smile about her full lips (to
other eyes, they might have looked _too_ full) struggled to be
eloquent, yet dared not. Among women, there always seems something left
incomplete--a moral creation to be superinduced on the physical--which
love alone can develop, and which maternity perfects still further, when
developed. I thought, as I looked on her, how the passing colour would
fix itself brilliantly on her round, olive cheek; how the expression
that still hesitated to declare itself, would speak out at last, would
shine forth in the full luxury of its beauty, when she heard the first
words, received the first kiss, from the man she loved!

While I still looked at her, as she sat opposite speaking to her
companion, our eyes met. It was only for a moment--but the sensation of
a moment often makes the thought of a life; and that one little instant
made the new life of my heart. She put down her veil again immediately;
her lips moved involuntarily as she lowered it: I thought I could
discern, through the lace, that the slight movement ripened to a smile.

Still there was enough left to see--enough to charm. There was the
little rim of delicate white lace, encircling the lovely, dusky throat;
there was the figure visible, where the shawl had fallen open, slender,
but already well developed in its slenderness, and exquisitely supple;
there was the waist, naturally low, and left to its natural place and
natural size; there were the little millinery and jewellery ornaments
that she wore--simple and common-place enough in themselves--yet each
a beauty, each a treasure, on _her._ There was all this to behold, all
this to dwell on, in spite of the veil. The veil! how little of the
woman does it hide, when the man really loves her!

We had nearly arrived at the last point to which the omnibus would take
us, when she and her companion got out. I followed them, cautiously and
at some distance.

She was tall--tall at least for a woman. There were not many people in
the road along which we were proceeding; but even if there had been,
far behind as I was walking, I should never have lost her--never have
mistaken any one else for her. Already, strangers though we were, I felt
that I should know her, almost at any distance, only by her walk.

They went on, until we reached a suburb of new houses, intermingled with
wretched patches of waste land, half built over. Unfinished streets,
unfinished crescents, unfinished squares, unfinished shops, unfinished
gardens, surrounded us. At last they stopped at a new square, and rang
the bell at one of the newest of the new houses. The door was opened,
and she and her companion disappeared. The house was partly detached.
It bore no number; but was distinguished as North Villa. The
square--unfinished like everything else in the neighbourhood--was called
Hollyoake Square.

I noticed nothing else about the place at that time. Its newness and
desolateness of appearance revolted me, just then. I had satisfied
myself about the locality of the house, and I knew that it was her home;
for I had approached sufficiently near, when the door was opened, to
hear her inquire if anybody had called in her absence. For the present,
this was enough. My sensations wanted repose; my thoughts wanted
collecting. I left Hollyoake Square at once, and walked into the
Regent’s Park, the northern portion of which was close at hand.

Was I in love?--in love with a girl whom I had accidentally met in an
omnibus? Or, was I merely indulging a momentary caprice--merely feeling
a young man’s hot, hasty admiration for a beautiful face? These
were questions which I could not then decide. My ideas were in utter
confusion, all my thoughts ran astray. I walked on, dreaming in full
day--I had no distinct impressions, except of the stranger beauty whom
I had just seen. The more I tried to collect myself, to resume the easy,
equable feelings with which I had set forth in the morning, the less
self-possessed I became. There are two emergencies in which the wisest
man may try to reason himself back from impulse to principle; and try
in vain:--the one when a woman has attracted him for the first time; the
other, when, for the first time, also, she has happened to offend him.

I know not how long I had been walking in the park, thus absorbed yet
not thinking, when the clock of a neighbouring church struck three,
and roused me to the remembrance that I had engaged to ride out with
my sister at two o’clock. It would be nearly half-an-hour more before
I could reach home. Never had any former appointment of mine with Clara
been thus forgotten! Love had not yet turned me selfish, as it turns all
men, and even all women, more or less. I felt both sorrow and shame at
the neglect of which I had been guilty; and hastened homeward.

The groom, looking unutterably weary and discontented, was still leading
my horse up and down before the house. My sister’s horse had been sent
back to the stables. I went in; and heard that, after waiting for me an
hour, Clara had gone out with some friends, and would not be back before
dinner.

No one was in the house but the servants. The place looked dull, empty,
inexpressibly miserable to me; the distant roll of carriages along the
surrounding streets had a heavy boding sound; the opening and shutting
of doors in the domestic offices below, startled and irritated me; the
London air seemed denser to breathe than it had ever seemed before.
I walked up and down one of the rooms, fretful and irresolute. Once
I directed my steps towards my study; but retraced them before I had
entered it. Reading or writing was out of the question at that moment.

I felt the secret inclination strengthening within me to return to
Hollyoake Square; to try to see the girl again, or at least to ascertain
who she was. I strove--yes, I can honestly say, strove to repress the
desire. I tried to laugh it off, as idle and ridiculous; to think of my
sister, of the book I was writing, of anything but the one subject that
pressed stronger and stronger on me, the harder I struggled against
it. The spell of the syren was over me. I went out, hypocritically
persuading myself, that I was only animated by a capricious curiosity
to know the girl’s name, which once satisfied, would leave me at rest on
the matter, and free to laugh at my own idleness and folly as soon as I
got home again.

I arrived at the house. The blinds were all drawn down over the front
windows, to keep out the sun. The little slip of garden was left
solitary--baking and cracking in the heat. The square was silent;
desolately silent, as only a suburban square can be. I walked up and
down the glaring pavement, resolved to find out her name before
I quitted the place. While still undecided how to act, a shrill
whistling--sounding doubly shrill in the silence around--made me look
up.

A tradesman’s boy--one of those town Pucks of the highway; one of those
incarnations of precocious cunning, inveterate mischief, and impudent
humour, which great cities only can produce--was approaching me with his
empty tray under his arm. I called to him to come and speak to me. He
evidently belonged to the neighbourhood, and might be made of some use.

His first answer to my inquiries, showed that his master served the
household at North Villa. A present of a shilling secured his attention
at once to the few questions of any importance which I desired to put
to him. I learned from his replies, that the name of the master of the
house was “Sherwin:” and that the family only consisted of Mr. and Mrs.
Sherwin, and the young lady, their daughter.

My last inquiry addressed to the boy was the most important of all. Did
he know what Mr. Sherwin’s profession or employment was?

His answer startled me into perfect silence. Mr. Sherwin kept a large
linen-draper’s shop in one of the great London thoroughfares! The
boy mentioned the number, and the side of the way on which the house
stood--then asked me if I wanted to know anything more. I could only
tell him by a sign that he might leave me, and that I had heard enough.

Enough? If he had spoken the truth, I had heard too much.

A linen-draper’s shop--a linen-draper’s daughter! Was I still in
love?--I thought of my father; I thought of the name I bore; and this
time, though I might have answered the question, I dared not.

But the boy might be wrong. Perhaps, in mere mischief, he had been
deceiving me throughout. I determined to seek the address he had
mentioned, and ascertain the truth for myself.

I reached the place: there was the shop, and there the name “Sherwin”
 over the door. One chance still remained. This Sherwin and the Sherwin
of Hollyoake Square might not be the same.

I went in and purchased something. While the man was tying up the
parcel, I asked him whether his master lived in Hollyoake Square.
Looking a little astonished at the question, he answered in the
affirmative.

“There was a Mr. Sherwin I once knew,” I said, forging in those words
the first link in the long chain of deceit which was afterwards to
fetter and degrade me--“a Mr. Sherwin who is now, as I have heard,
living somewhere in the Hollyoake Square neighbourhood. He was a
bachelor--I don’t know whether my friend and your master are the same?”

“Oh dear no, Sir! My master is a married man, and has one daughter--Miss
Margaret--who is reckoned a very fine young lady, Sir!” And the man
grinned as he spoke--a grin that sickened and shocked me.

I was answered at last: I had discovered all. Margaret!--I had heard her
name, too. Margaret!--it had never hitherto been a favourite name with
me. Now I felt a sort of terror as I detected myself repeating it, and
finding a new, unimagined poetry in the sound.

Could this be love?--pure, first love for a shopkeeper’s daughter, whom
I had seen for a quarter of an hour in an omnibus, and followed home for
another quarter of an hour? The thing was impossible. And yet, I felt
a strange unwillingness to go back to our house, and see my father and
sister, just at that moment.

I was still walking onward slowly, but not in the direction of home,
when I met an old college friend of my brother’s, and an acquaintance
of mine--a reckless, good-humoured, convivial fellow. He greeted me at
once, with uproarious cordiality; and insisted on my accompanying him to
dine at his club.

If the thoughts that still hung heavy on my mind were only the morbid,
fanciful thoughts of the hour, here was a man whose society would
dissipate them. I resolved to try the experiment, and accepted his
invitation.

At dinner, I tried hard to rival him in jest and joviality; I drank much
more than my usual quantity of wine--but it was useless. The gay words
came fainting from my heart, and fell dead on my lips. The wine fevered,
but did not exhilarate me. Still, the image of the dark beauty of the
morning was the one reigning image of my thoughts--still, the influence
of the morning, at once sinister and seductive, kept its hold on my
heart.

I gave up the struggle. I longed to be alone again. My friend soon found
that my forced spirits were flagging; he tried to rouse me, tried to
talk for two, ordered more wine, but everything failed. Yawning at last,
in undisguised despair, he suggested a visit to the theatre.

I excused myself--professed illness--hinted that the wine had been
too much for me. He laughed, with something of contempt as well as
good-nature in the laugh; and went away to the play by himself evidently
feeling that I was still as bad a companion as he had found me at
college, years ago.

As soon as we parted I felt a sense of relief. I hesitated, walked
backwards and forwards a few paces in the street; and then, silencing
all doubts, leaving my inclinations to guide me as they would--I turned
my steps for the third time in that one day to Hollyoake Square.

The fair summer evening was tending towards twilight; the sun stood
fiery and low in a cloudless horizon; the last loveliness of the last
quietest daylight hour was fading on the violet sky, as I entered the
square.

I approached the house. She was at the window--it was thrown wide open.
A bird-cage hung rather high up, against the shutter-panel. She was
standing opposite to it, making a plaything for the poor captive canary
of a piece of sugar, which she rapidly offered and drew back again,
now at one bar of the cage, and now at another. The bird hopped and
fluttered up and down in his prison after the sugar, chirping as if he
enjoyed playing _his_ part of the game with his mistress. How lovely she
looked! Her dark hair, drawn back over each cheek so as just to leave
the lower part of the ear visible, was gathered up into a thick simple
knot behind, without ornament of any sort. She wore a plain white dress
fastening round the neck, and descending over the bosom in numberless
little wavy plaits. The cage hung just high enough to oblige her to look
up to it. She was laughing with all the glee of a child; darting the
piece of sugar about incessantly from place to place. Every moment, her
head and neck assumed some new and lovely turn--every moment her figure
naturally fell into the position which showed its pliant symmetry best.
The last-left glow of the evening atmosphere was shining on her--the
farewell pause of daylight over the kindred daylight of beauty and
youth.

I kept myself concealed behind a pillar of the garden-gate; I looked,
hardly daring either to move or breathe; for I feared that if she saw or
heard me, she would leave the window. After a lapse of some minutes, the
canary touched the sugar with his beak.

“There, Minnie!” she cried laughingly, “you have caught the runaway
sugar, and now you shall keep it!”

For a moment more, she stood quietly looking at the cage; then raising
herself on tip-toe, pouted her lips caressingly to the bird, and
disappeared in the interior of the room.

The sun went down; the twilight shadows fell over the dreary square;
the gas lamps were lighted far and near; people who had been out for a
breath of fresh air in the fields, came straggling past me by ones and
twos, on their way home--and still I lingered near the house, hoping she
might come to the window again; but she did not re-appear. At last,
a servant brought candles into the room, and drew down the Venetian
blinds. Knowing it would be useless to stay longer, I left the square.

I walked homeward joyfully. That second sight of her completed what the
first meeting had begun. The impressions left by it made me insensible
for the time to all boding reflections, careless of exercising the
smallest self-restraint. I gave myself up to the charm that was at
work on me. Prudence, duty, memories and prejudices of home, were all
absorbed and forgotten in love--love that I encouraged, that I dwelt
over in the first reckless luxury of a new sensation.

I entered our house, thinking of nothing but how to see her, how to
speak to her, on the morrow; murmuring her name to myself; even while my
hand was on the lock of my study door. The instant I was in the room, I
involuntarily shuddered and stopped speechless. Clara was there! I was
not merely startled; a cold, faint sensation came over me. My first look
at my sister made me feel as if I had been detected in a crime.

She was standing at my writing-table, and had just finished stringing
together the loose pages of my manuscript, which had hitherto laid
disconnectedly in a drawer. There was a grand ball somewhere, to which
she was going that night. The dress she wore was of pale blue crape (my
father’s favourite colour, on her). One white flower was placed in her
light brown hair. She stood within the soft steady light of my lamp,
looking up towards the door from the leaves she had just tied together.
Her slight figure appeared slighter than usual, in the delicate material
that now clothed it. Her complexion was at its palest: her face looked
almost statue-like in its purity and repose. What a contrast to the
other living picture which I had seen at sunset!

The remembrance of the engagement that I had broken came back on me
avengingly, as she smiled, and held my manuscript up before me to look
at. With that remembrance there returned, too--darker than ever--the
ominous doubts which had depressed me but a few hours since. I tried to
steady my voice, and felt how I failed in the effort, as I spoke to her:

“Will you forgive me, Clara, for having deprived you of your ride
to-day? I am afraid I have but a bad excuse--”

“Then don’t make it, Basil; or wait till papa can arrange it for you, in
a proper parliamentary way, when he comes back from the House of Commons
to-night. See how I have been meddling with your papers; but they were
in such confusion I was really afraid some of these leaves might have
been lost.”

“Neither the leaves nor the writer deserve half the pains you have taken
with them; but I am really sorry for breaking our engagement. I met an
old college friend--there was business too, in the morning--we dined
together--he would take no denial.”

“Basil, how pale you look! Are you ill?”

“No; the heat has been a little too much for me--nothing more.”

“Has anything happened? I only ask, because if I can be of any use--if
you want me to stay at home--”

“Certainly not, love. I wish you all success and pleasure at the ball.”

For a moment she did not speak; but fixed her clear, kind eyes on me
more gravely and anxiously than usual. Was she searching my heart, and
discovering the new love rising, an usurper already, in the place where
the love of her had reigned before?

Love! love for a shopkeeper’s daughter! That thought came again, as she
looked at me! and, strangely mingled with it, a maxim I had often heard
my father repeat to Ralph--“Never forget that your station is not yours,
to do as you like with. It belongs to us, and belongs to your children.
You must keep it for them, as I have kept it for you.”

“I thought,” resumed Clara, in rather lower tones than before, “that I
would just look into your room before I went to the ball, and see that
everything was properly arranged for you, in case you had any idea of
writing tonight; I had just time to do this while my aunt, who is going
with me, was upstairs altering her toilette. But perhaps you don’t feel
inclined to write?”

“I will try at least.”

“Can I do anything more? Would you like my nosegay left in the
room?--the flowers smell so fresh! I can easily get another. Look at the
roses, my favourite white roses, that always remind me of my own garden
at the dear old Park!”

“Thank you, Clara; but I think the nosegay is fitter for your hand than
my table.”

“Good night, Basil.”

“Good night.”

She walked to the door, then turned round, and smiled as if she were
about to speak again; but checked herself, and merely looked at me for
an instant. In that instant, however, the smile left her face, and the
grave, anxious expression came again. She went out softly. A few minutes
afterwards the roll of the carriage which took her and her companion
to the ball, died away heavily on my ear. I was left alone in the
house--alone for the night.

VIII.

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.”

IX.

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.

X.

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!

XI.

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!”

XII.

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!




PART II.


I.

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

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