V.
The autumn was now over; the winter--a cold, gloomy winter--had fairly
come. Five months had nearly elapsed since Clara and my father had
departed for the country. What communication did I hold with them,
during that interval?
No personal communication with either--written communication only with
my sister. Clara's letters to me were frequent. They studiously
avoided anything like a reproach for my long absence; and were
confined almost exclusively to such details of country life as the
writer thought likely to interest me. Their tone was as
affectionate--nay, more affectionate, if possible--than usual; but
Clara's gaiety and quiet humour, as a correspondent, were gone. My
conscience taught me only too easily and too plainly how to account
for this change--my conscience told me who had altered the tone of my
sister's letters, by altering all the favourite purposes and favourite
pleasures of her country life.
I was selfishly enough devoted to my own passions and my own
interests, at this period of my life; but I was not so totally dead to
every one of the influences which had guided me since childhood, as to
lose all thought of Clara and my father, and the ancient house that
was associated with my earliest and happiest recollections. Sometimes,
even in Margaret's beloved presence, a thought of Clara put away from
me all other thoughts. And, sometimes, in the lonely London house, I
dreamed--with the strangest sleeping oblivion of my marriage, and of
all the new interests which it had crowded into my life--of country
rides with my sister, and of quiet conversations in the old gothic
library at the Hall. Under such influences as these, I twice resolved
to make amends for my long absence, by joining my father and my sister
in the country, even though it were only for a few days--and, each
time, I failed in my resolution. On the second occasion, I had
actually mustered firmness enough to get as far as the railway
station; and only at the last moment faltered and hung back. The
struggle that it cost me to part for any length of time from Margaret,
I had overcome; but the apprehension, as vivid as it was vague, that
something--I knew not what--might happen to her in my absence, turned
my steps backward at starting. I felt heartily ashamed of my own
weakness; but I yielded to it nevertheless.
At last, a letter arrived from Clara, containing a summons to the
country, which I could not disobey.
"I have never asked you," she wrote, "to come and see us for my sake;
for I would not interfere with any of your interests or any of your
plans; but I now ask you to come here for your own sake--just for one
week, and no more, unless you like to remain longer. You remember papa
telling you, in your room in London, that he believed you kept some
secret from him. I am afraid this is preying on his mind: your long
absence is making him uneasy about you. He does not say so; but he
never sends any message, when I write; and if I speak about you, he
always changes the subject directly. Pray come here, and show yourself
for a few days--no questions will be asked, you may be sure. It will
do so much good; and will prevent--what I hope and pray may never
happen--a serious estrangement between papa and you. Recollect, Basil,
in a month or six weeks we shall come back to town; and then the
opportunity will be gone."
As I read these lines, I determined to start for the country at once,
while the effect of them was still fresh on my mind. Margaret, when I
took leave of her, only said that she should like to be going with
me--"it would be such a sight for her, to see a grand country house
like ours!" Mr. Sherwin laughed as coarsely as usual, at the
difficulties I made about only leaving his daughter for a week. Mrs.
Sherwin very earnestly, and very inaccountably as I then thought,
recommended me not to be away any longer than I had proposed. Mr.
Mannion privately assured me, that I might depend on him in my absence
from North Villa, exactly as I had always depended on him, during my
presence there. It was strange that his parting words should be the
only words which soothed and satisfied me on taking leave of London.
The winter afternoon was growing dim with the evening darkness, as I
drove up to the Hall. Snow on the ground, in the country, has always a
cheerful look to me. I could have wished to see it on the day of my
arrival at home; but there had been a thaw for the last week--mud and
water were all about me--a drizzling rain was falling--a raw, damp
wind was blowing--a fog was rising, as the evening stole on--and the
ancient leafless elms in the park avenue groaned and creaked above my
head drearily, as I approached the house.
My father received me with more ceremony than I liked. I had known,
from a boy, what it meant when he chose to be only polite to his own
son. What construction he had put on my long absence and my
persistence in keeping my secret from him, I could not tell; but it
was evident that I had lost my usual place in his estimation, and lost
it past regaining merely by a week's visit. The estrangement between
us, which my sister had feared, had begun already.
I had been chilled by the desolate aspect of nature, as I approached
the Hall; my father's reception of me, when I entered the house,
increased the comfortless and melancholy impressions produced on my
mind; it required all the affectionate warmth of Clara's welcome, all
the pleasure of hearing her whisper her thanks, as she kissed me, for
my readiness in following her advice, to restore my equanimity. But
even then, when the first hurry and excitement of meeting had passed
away, in spite of her kind words and looks, there was something in her
face which depressed me. She seemed thinner, and her constitutional
paleness was more marked than usual. Cares and anxieties had evidently
oppressed her--was I the cause of them?
The dinner that evening proceeded very heavily and gloomily. My father
only talked on general and commonplace topics, as if a mere
acquaintance had been present. When my sister left us, he too quitted
the room, to see some one who had arrived on business. I had no heart
for the company of the wine bottles, so I followed Clara.
At first, we only spoke of her occupations since she had been in the
country; I was unwilling, and she forbore, to touch on my long stay in
London, or on my father's evident displeasure at my protracted
absence. There was a little restraint between us, which neither had
the courage to break through. Before long, however, an accident,
trifling enough in itself, obliged me to be more candid; and enabled
her to speak unreservedly on the subject nearest to her heart.
I was seated opposite to Clara, at the fire-place, and was playing
with a favourite dog which had followed me into the room. While I was
stooping towards the animal, a locket containing some of Margaret's
hair, fell out of its place in my waistcoat, and swung towards my
sister by the string which attached it round my neck. I instantly hid
it again; but not before Clara, with a woman's quickness, had detected
the trinket as something new, and drawn the right inference, as to the
use to which I devoted it.
An expression of surprise and pleasure passed over her face; she rose,
and putting her hands on my shoulders, as if to keep me still in the
place I occupied, looked at me intently.
"Basil!" she exclaimed, "if that is all the secret you have been
keeping from us, how glad I am! When I see a new locket drop out of my
brother's waistcoat--" she continued, observing that I was too
confused to speak--"and when I find him colouring very deeply, and
hiding it again in a great hurry, I should be no true woman if I did
not make my own discoveries, and begin to talk about them directly."
I made an effort--a very poor one--to laugh the thing off. Her
expression grew serious and thoughtful, while she still fixed her eyes
on me. She took my hand gently, and whispered in my ear: "Are you
going to be married, Basil? Shall I love my new sister almost as much
as I love you?"
At that moment the servant came in with tea. The interruption gave me
a minute for consideration. Should I tell her all? Impulse answered,
yes--reflection, no. If I disclosed my real situation, I knew that I
must introduce Clara to Margaret. This would necessitate taking her
privately to Mr. Sherwin's house, and exposing to her the humiliating
terms of dependence and prohibition on which I lived with my own wife.
A strange medley of feelings, in which pride was uppermost, forbade me
to do that. Then again, to involve my sister in my secret, would be to
involve her with me in any consequences which might be produced by its
disclosure to my father. The mere idea of making her a partaker in
responsibilities which I alone ought to bear, was not to be
entertained for a moment. As soon as we were left together again, I
said to her:
"Will you not think the worse of me, Clara, if I leave you to draw
your own conclusions from what you have seen? only asking you to keep
strict silence on the subject to every one. I can't speak yet, love,
as I wish to speak: you will know why, some day, and say that my
reserve was right. In the meantime, can you be satisfied with the
assurance, that when the time comes for making my secret known, you
shall be the first to know it--the first I put trust in?"
"As you have not starved my curiosity altogether," said Clara,
smiling, "but have given it a little hope to feed on for the present,
I think, woman though I am, I can promise all you wish. Seriously,
Basil," she continued, "that telltale locket of yours has so
pleasantly brightened some very gloomy thoughts of mine about you,
that I can now live happily on expectation, without once mentioning
your secret again, till you give me leave to do so."
Here my father entered the room, and we said no more. His manner
towards me had not altered since dinner; and it remained the same
during the week of my stay at the Hall. One morning, when we were
alone, I took courage, and determined to try the dangerous ground a
little, with a view towards my guidance for the future; but I had no
sooner begun by some reference to my stay in London, and some apology
for it, than he stopped me at once.
"I told you," he said, gravely and coldly, "some months ago, that I
had too much faith in your honour to intrude on affairs which you
choose to keep private. Until you have perfect confidence in me, and
can speak with complete candour, I will hear nothing. You have not
that confidence now--you speak hesitatingly--your eyes do not meet
mine fairly and boldly. I tell you again, I will hear nothing which
begins with such common-place excuses as you have just addressed to
me. Excuses lead to prevarications, and prevarications to--what I will
not insult you by imagining possible in _your_ case. You are of age,
and must know your own responsibilities and mine. Choose at once,
between saying nothing, and saying all."
He waited a moment after he had spoken, and then quitted the room. If
he could only have known how I suffered, at that instant, under the
base necessities of concealment, I might have confessed everything;
and he must have pitied, though he might not have forgiven me.
This was my first and last attempt at venturing towards the revelation
of my secret to my father, by hints and half-admissions. As to boldly
confessing it, I persuaded myself into a sophistical conviction that
such a course could do no good, but might do much harm. When the
wedded happiness I had already waited for, and was to wait for still,
through so many months, came at last, was it not best to enjoy my
married life in convenient secrecy, as long as I could?--best, to
abstain from disclosing my secret to my father, until necessity
absolutely obliged, or circumstances absolutely invited me to do so?
My inclinations conveniently decided the question in the affirmative;
and a decision of any kind, right or wrong, was enough to tranquillise
me at that time.
So far as my father was concerned, my journey to the country did no
good. I might have returned to London the day after my arrival at the
Hall, without altering his opinion of me--but I stayed the whole week
nevertheless, for Clara's sake.
In spite of the pleasure afforded by my sister's society, my visit was
a painful one. The selfish longing to be back with Margaret, which I
could not wholly repress; my father's coldness; and the winter gloom
and rain which confined us almost incessantly within doors, all tended
in their different degrees to prevent my living at ease in the Hall.
But, besides these causes of embarrassment, I had the additional
mortification of feeling, for the first time, as a stranger in my own
home.
Nothing in the house looked to me what it used to look in former
years. The rooms, the old servants, the walks and views, the domestic
animals, all appeared to have altered, or to have lost something,
since I had seen them last. Particular rooms that I had once been fond
of occupying, were favourites no longer: particular habits that I had
hitherto always practised in the country, I could only succeed in
resuming by an effort which vexed and fretted me. It was as if my life
had run into a new channel since my last autumn and winter at the
Hall, and now refused to flow back at my bidding into its old course.
Home seemed home no longer, except in name.
As soon as the week was over, my father and I parted exactly as we had
met. When I took leave of Clara, she refrained from making any
allusion to the shortness of my stay; and merely said that we should
soon meet again in London. She evidently saw that my visit had weighed
a little on my spirits, and was determined to give to our short
farewell as happy and hopeful a character as possible. We now
thoroughly understood each other; and that was some consolation on
leaving her.
Immediately on my return to London I repaired to North Villa.
Nothing, I was told, had happened in my absence, but I remarked some
change in Margaret. She looked pale and nervous, and was more silent
than I had ever known her to be before, when we met. She accounted for
this, in answer to my inquiries, by saying that confinement to the
house, in consequence of the raw, wintry weather, had a little
affected her; and then changed the subject. In other directions,
household aspects had not deviated from their accustomed monotony. As
usual, Mrs. Sherwin was at her post in the drawing-room; and her
husband was reading the evening paper, over his renowned old port, in
the dining-room. After the first five minutes of my arrival, I adapted
myself again to my old way of life at Mr. Sherwin's, as easily as if I
had never interrupted it for a single day. Henceforth, wherever my
young wife was, there, and there only, would it be home for _me!_
Late in the evening, Mr. Mannion arrived with some business letters
for Mr. Sherwin's inspection. I sent for him into the hall to see me,
as I was going away. His hand was never a warm one; but as I now took
it, on greeting him, it was so deadly cold that it literally chilled
mine for the moment. He only congratulated me, in the usual terms, on
my safe return; and said that nothing had taken place in my
absence--but in his utterance of those few words, I discovered, for
the first time, a change in his voice: his tones were lower, and his
articulation quicker than usual. This, joined to the extraordinary
coldness of his hand, made me inquire whether he was unwell. Yes, he
too had been ill while I was away--harassed with hard work, he said.
Then apologising for leaving me abruptly, on account of the letters he
had brought with him, he returned to Mr. Sherwin, in the dining-room,
with a greater appearance of hurry in his manner than I had ever
remarked in it on any former occasion.
I had left Margaret and Mr. Mannion both well--I returned, and found
them both ill. Surely this was something that had taken place in my
absence, though they all said that nothing had happened. But trifling
illnesses seemed to be little regarded at North Villa--perhaps,
because serious illness was perpetually present there, in the person
of Mrs. Sherwin.