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!