‘I’ll seize the few hours of happiness you have thrown in my way, Mary,’ said he, as she clung to him and called him her adored glorious Adrian, ‘but these kisses and tears of thine, and this intoxicating beauty, shall not change my resolution. I will rend you, my lovely rose, entirely from me; I’ll plant you in your father’s garden again: I must do it, he compels me.’
‘I don’t care,’ said the duchess, swallowing the delicious draught of the moment, and turning from the dark future to the glorious present shrined in Zamorna. ‘But if you do divorce me, Zamorna, will you never, never take me back to you? Must I die inevitably before I am twenty?’ The duke looked at her in silence; he could not cut off hope.
‘The event has not taken place yet, Mary, and there lingers a possibility that it may be averted. But, love, should I take the crown off that sweet brow, the crown I placed over those silken curls on the day of our coronation, do not live hopeless. You may on some moonlight night hear Adrian’s whistle under your window when you least expect it. Then step out on to the parapet; I’ll lift you in my arms from thence to the terrace. From that time for ever, Mary, though Angria shall have no queen, a Percy shall have no daughter.’
‘Adrian,’ said the duchess, ‘how different you are, how very different when I get close to you. At a distance you appear quite unapproachable. I wish, I wish my father was as near to you now as I am — or at least almost as near; because I am your creeping plant, I twine about you like ivy, and he is a tree to grow side by side with you. If he were in this room I should be satisfied.’
What answer Zamorna made I know not, but he brought down the curtain.
[An interval ensues; Zamorna is ultimately victorious and the rebellion put down; he is reconciled with Northangerland, against the vigorous objections of his advisors, and Mary is saved from the death which could surely have followed a permanent separation from her ‘Adrian’. However, we next see Zamorna trying to extricate himself once again from his tenacious ‘creeping plant’. He has bid good-bye to his family and is about to set off for Angria.]
The barouche stood at the door, the groom and the valet were waiting, and the duke, with a clouded countenance, was proceeding to join them, when his wife came forwards.
‘You have forgotten me, Adrian — ‘ she said in a very quiet tone, but her eye meantime flashed expressively. He started, for in truth he had forgotten her.
‘Good-bye then, Mary,’ he said, giving her a hurried kiss and embrace. She detained his hand.
‘Pray, how long am I to stay here?’ she asked. ‘Why do you leave me at all? Why am I not to go with you?’ ‘It is such weather,’ he answered. ‘When this storm passes over I will send for you — -’
‘When will that be?’ pursued the duchess, following his steps as he strode into the hall.
‘Soon — soon my love — perhaps in a day or two — there now — don’t be unreasonable — of course you cannot go today — -’
‘I can and I will,’ answered the duchess quickly. ‘I have had enough of Alnwick, you shall not leave me behind you.’
‘Go into the room, Mary. The door is open and the wind blows on you far too keenly. Don’t you see how it drifts the snow in — -’
“I will not go into the room. I’ll step into the carriage as I am. If you refuse to wait till I can prepare, perhaps you will be humane enough to let me have a share of your cloak — ‘ She shivered as she spoke. Her hair and her dress floated in the cold blast that blew in through the open entrance, strewing the hall with snow and dead leaves.
‘You might wait till it is milder. I don’t think it will do your grace any good to be out today — -’
‘But I must go, Mary — The Christmas recess is over and business presses.’
‘Then do take me; I am sure I can bear it.’
‘Out of the question. You may well clasp those small, silly hands — so thin I can almost see through them; and you may shake your curls over your face — to hide its paleness from me, I suppose. What is the matter? Crying? Good! What the devil am I do to with her? Go to your father, Mary. He has spoilt you.’ ‘Adrian, I cannot live at Alnwick without you,’ said the duchess earnestly, ‘It recalls too forcibly the very bitterest days of my life. I’ll not be separated from you again except by violence — -’
The task of persuasion was no very easy one, for his own false play, his alienations, and his unnumbered treacheries had filled her mind with hideous phantoms of jealousy, had weakened her nerves and made them a prey to a hundred vague apprehensions; fears that never wholly left her except when she was actually in his arms or at least in his immediate presence.
‘I tell you, Mary,’ he said, regarding her with a smile half expressive of fondness — half of vexation — ‘I tell you I will send for you in two or three days — . Probably I shall be a week in Angria, not more — -‘
‘A week! and your grace considers that but a short time? To me it will be most wearisome — ‘
‘The horses will be frozen if they stand much longer,’ returned the duke, not heeding her last remark. ‘Come, wipe your eyes and be a little philosopher for once. There, let me have one smile before I go. A week will be over directly — this is not like setting out for a campaign.’
‘Don’t forget to send for me in two days,’ pleaded the duchess as Zamorna released her from his arms.
‘No, no, I’ll send for you tomorrow — if the weather is settled enough. And,’ half mimicking her voice, ‘don’t be jealous of me, Mary — unless you’re afraid of the superior charms of Enara and Warner. Good-bye — ‘ He was gone. She hurried to the window; he passed it. In three minutes the barouche swept with muffled sound round the lawn, shot down the carriage road, and was quickly lost in the thickening whirl of the snow storm.
[Mina, in the meantime, waits patiently for Zamorna at Rivaulx. As it happens, Lord Hartford is desperately in love with Mina; outraged by Zamorna’s careless treatment of her, he decides to visit her and propose. He makes several attempts to broach the subject, but Mina pointedly avoids taking his meaning. Finally, however, his ardour becomes unmistakeable.]
Miss Laury agitatedly rose; she approached Hartford.
‘My lord, you have been very kind to me, and I feel very grateful for that kindness. Perhaps sometime I may be able to repay it — we know not how the chances of fortune may turn; the weak have aided the strong. I will watch vigilantly for the slightest opportunity to serve you, but do not talk in this way. I scarcely know whither your words tend.’ Lord Hartford paused a moment before he replied. Gazing at her with bended brows and folded arms, he said,
‘Miss Laury, what do you think of me?’
‘That you are one of the noblest hearts in the world,’ she replied unhesitatingly. She was standing just before Hartford, looking up at him, her hair falling back from her brow, shading with exquisite curls her temples and her slender neck. Her small sweet features, with that high seriousness deepening their beauty, were lit up by eyes so large, so dark, so swimming, so full of pleading benignity: an expression of alarmed regard, as if she at once feared for, and pitied, the sinful abstraction of a great mind.
Hartford could not stand it. He could have borne female anger or terror, but the look of enthusiastic gratitude, softened by compassion, nearly unmanned him. He turned his head for a moment aside, but then passion prevailed. Her beauty when he looked again struck through him a maddening sensation, whetted to acute power by a feeling like despair.
‘You shall love me!’ he exclaimed desperately. ‘Do I not love you? Would I not die for you? Must I in return receive only the cold regard of friendship? I am no platonist, Miss Laury — I am not your friend. I am, hear me, madam, your declared lover. Nay, you shall not leave me, by heaven! I am stronger than you are — ‘ She had stepped a pace or two back, appalled by his vehemence. He thought she meant to withdraw; determined not to be so balked, he clasped her at once in both his arms and kissed her furiously rather than fondly. Miss Laury did not struggle.
; ‘Hartford,’ said she, steadying her voice, though it faltered in spite of her effort, ‘this must be our parting scene. I will never see you again if you do not restrain yourself.’ Hartford saw that she turned pale and he felt her tremble violently. His arms relaxed their hold. He allowed her to leave him. She sat down on a chair opposite and hurriedly wiped her brow, which was damp and marble-pale.
‘Now, Miss Laury,’ said his lordship, ‘no man in the world loves you as I do. Will you accept my title and my coronet? I fling them at your feet.’
‘My lord, do you know whose I am?’ she replied in a hollow, very suppressed tone. ‘Do you know with what a sound those proposals fall on my ear, how impious and blasphemous they seem to be? Do you at all conceive how utterly impossible it is that I should ever love you? I thought you a true-hearted faithful man; I find that you are a traitor.’
‘And do you despise me?’ asked Hartford.
‘No, my lord, I do not.’ She paused and looked down. The colour rose rapidly into her pale face; she sobbed, not in tears, but in the overmastering approach of an impulse born of a warm heart. Again she looked up. Her eyes had changed, their aspect burning with a wild bright inspiration.
‘Hartford,’ said she, ‘had I met you long since, before I left home and dishonoured my father, I would have loved you. O, my lord, you know not how truly. I would have married you and made it the glory of my life to cheer and brighten your hearth. But I cannot do so now — never.
‘I saw my present master when he had scarcely attained manhood. Do you think, Hartford, I will tell you what feelings I had for him? No tongue could express them: they were so fervid, so glowing in their colour, that they effaced everything else. I lost the power of properly appreciating the value of the world’s opinion, of discerning the difference between right and wrong. I have never in my life contradicted Zamorna, never delayed obedience to his commands. I could not! He was sometimes more to me than a human being, he superseded all things: all affections, all interests, all fears or hopes or principles. Unconnected with him, my mind would be a blank — cold, dead, susceptible only of a sense of despair. How I should sicken if I were torn from him and thrown to you! Do not ask it — I would die first. No woman that ever loved my master could consent to leave him. There is nothing like him elsewhere. Hartford, if I were to be your wife, if Zamorna only looked at me, I should creep back like a slave to my former service. I should disgrace you as I have long since disgraced all my kindred. Think of that, my lord, and never say you love me again — -‘
[Hartford, stung to recklessness, finally insults Mina by a sarcastic reference to her as Zamorna’s ‘gentle mistress’ whom he visits when he is tired by ‘the turmoil of business and the teasing of matrimony’. They part abruptly, in bitterness.
More desperate than ever, Hartford challenges Zamorna to a duel; furious that ‘a coarse Angrian squire’ should seek to ‘possess anything that had ever been mine’, the duke inflicts a near-fatal wound on his rival.
Having dismissed Hartford, and unaware of the ensuing duel, Mina returns to her daily tasks, and to waiting for the duke. Mary, less patent than Mina, can wait no longer, and sets out for Zamorna’s country house. An accident with her carriage lands her instead at Mina’s Cross of Rivaulx, which is on the grounds of the duke’s estate.]
Miss Laury was sitting after breakfast in a small library. Her desk lay before her, and two large ruled quartos filled with items and figures which she seemed to be comparing. Behind her chair stood a tall, well-made, soldierly, young man with light hair. His dress was plain and gentlemanly; the epaulette on one shoulder alone indicated an official capacity. He watched with a fixed look of attention the movements of the small fingers, which ascended in rapid calculation of long columns of accounts. It was strange to see the absorption of mind expressed in Miss Laury’s face; the gravity of her smooth, white brow, shaded with drooping curls; the scarcely perceptible and unsmiling movement of her lips — though those lips in their rosy sweetness seemed formed only for smiles. An hour or more lapsed in the employment, the room meantime continuing in profound silence broken only by an occasional observation addressed by Miss Laury to the gentleman behind her concerning the legitimacy of some items, or the absence of some stray farthing, wanted to complete the necessary of the sum total. In the balancing of the books she displayed a most businesslike sharpness and strictness. The slightest fault was detected and remarked on in few words, but with a quick searching glance. However, the accountant had evidently been accustomed to her surveillance, for on the whole his books were a specimen of mathematical correctness.
‘Very well,’ said Miss Laury, as she closed the volumes. ‘Your accounts do you credit, Mr O’Neill. You may tell his grace that all is quite right. Your memoranda tally with my own exactly.’ Mr O’Neill bowed.
‘Thank you, madam.’ Taking up his books, he seemed about to leave the room. Before he did so, however, he turned and said,
‘The duke wished me to inform you, madam, that he would probably be here about four or five o’clock in the afternoon.’
‘Today?’ asked Miss Laury in an accent of surprise. ‘Yes, madam.’ She paused a moment, then said quickly,
‘Very well, sir.’ Mr O’Neill now took his leave with another bow of low and respectful obeisance. Miss Laury returned it with a slight abstracted bow; her thoughts were all caught up and hurried away by that last communication. For a long time after the door had closed, she sat with her head on her hand, lost in a tumultuous flush of ideas — anticipations awakened by that simple sentence, ‘The duke will be here today.’
The striking of the timepiece roused her. She remembered that twenty tasks waited her direction. Always active, always employed, it was not her custom to while away hours in dreaming. She rose, closed her desk, and left the quiet library for busier scenes.
Four o’clock came and Miss Laury’s foot was heard on the staircase, descending from her chamber. She crossed the large, light passage, an apparition of feminine elegance and beauty. She had dressed herself splendidly: the robe of black satin became at once her slender form, which it enveloped in full and shining folds, and her bright, blooming complexion, which it set off by the contrast of colour. Glittering through her curls there was a band of fine diamonds, and drops of the same pure gem trembled from her small, delicate ears. These ornaments, so regal in their nature, had been the gift of royalty, and were worn now chiefly for the associations of soft and happy moments which their gleam might be supposed to convey.
She entered her drawing room and stood by the window. From thence appeared one glimpse of the high-road, visible through the thickening shades of Rivaulx; even that was now almost concealed by the frozen mist in which the approach of twilight was wrapt. All was very quiet, both in the house and in the wood. A carriage drew near, she heard the sound. She saw it shoot through the fog. But it was not Zamorna.
She had not gazed a minute before her experienced eye discerned that there was something wrong with the horses — the harness had got entangled, or they were frightened. The coachman had lost command over them, they were plunging violently. She rung the bell; a servant entered; she ordered immediate assistance to be despatched to that carriage on the road. Two grooms presently hurried down the drive to execute her commands, but before they could reach the spot, one of the horses, in its gambols, had slipped on the icy road and fallen. The others grew more unmanageable, and presently the carriage lay overturned on the roadside. One of Miss Laury’s messengers came back. She threw up the window.
‘Anybody hurt?’
‘I hope not much, madam.’
‘Who is in the carriage?’
‘Only one lady, and she seems to have fainted. She looked very white when I opened the door. What is to be done, madam?’ Miss Laury, with Irish frankness, answered directly.
‘Bring the lady in directly, and make the servants comfortable.’
‘Yes, madam.’
Miss Laury shut her window; it was very cold. Not man
y minutes elapsed before the lady, in the arms of her own servant, was slowly brought up the lawn and ushered into the drawing-room.
‘Lay her on the sofa,’ said Miss Laury. The lady’s travelling cloak was carefully removed, and a thin figure became apparent in a dark silk dress: the cushions of down scarcely sunk under the pressure, it was so light.
Her swoon was now passing off. The genial warmth of the fire, which shone full on her, revived her. Opening her eyes, she looked up at Miss Laury’s face, who was bending close over her, wetting her lips with some cordial. Recognising a stranger, she shyly turned her glance aside. She looked keenly round the room, and seeing the perfect elegance of its arrangement, the cheerful and tranquil glow of a hearthlight, she appeared to grow more composed.
‘To whom am I indebted for this kindness? Where am I?’
‘In a hospitable country, madam. The Angrians never turn their backs on strangers.’
‘I know I am in Angria,’ she said quietly, ‘but where? What is the name of this house, and who are you?’
Miss Laury coloured slightly. It seemed as if there were some undefinable reluctance to give her real name; she knew she was widely celebrated — too widely; most likely the lady would turn from her in contempt if she heard it. Miss Laury felt she could not bear that.
Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Page 211
