“No; — no. I will bear it all — from you.”
“Well! His success had not lessened my love. Though then I could have no hope, — though you were utterly removed from me, — all that could not change me. There it was, — as though my arm or my leg had been taken from me. It was bad to live without an arm or leg, but there was no help. I went on with my life and tried not to look like a whipped cur; — though John from time to time would tell me that I failed. But now; — now that it has again all changed, — what would you have me do now? It may be that after all my limb may be restored to me, that I may be again as other men are, whole, and sound, and happy; — so happy! When it may possibly be within my reach am I not to look for my happiness?” He paused, but she wept on without speaking a word. “There are those who will say that I should wait till all these signs of woe have been laid aside. But why should I wait? There has come a great blot upon your life, and is it not well that it should be covered as quickly as possible?”
“It can never be covered.”
“You mean that it can never be forgotten. No doubt there are passages in our life which we cannot forget, though we bury them in the deepest silence. All this can never be driven out of your memory, — nor from mine. But it need not therefore blacken all our lives. In such a condition we should not be ruled by what the world thinks.”
“Not at all. I care nothing for what the world thinks. I am below all that. It is what I think: I myself, — of myself.”
“Will you think of no one else? Are any of your thoughts for me, — or for your father?”
“Oh, yes; — for my father.”
“I need hardly tell you what he wishes. You must know how you can best give him back the comfort he has lost.”
“But, Arthur, even for him I cannot do everything.”
“There is one question to be asked,” he said, rising from her feet and standing before her; — “but one; and what you do should depend entirely on the answer which you may be able truly to make to that.”
This he said so solemnly that he startled her.
“What question, Arthur?”
“Do you love me?” To this question at the moment she could make no reply. “Of course I know that you did not love me when you married him.”
“Love is not all of one kind.”
“You know what love I mean. You did not love me then. You could not have loved me, — though, perhaps, I thought I had deserved your love. But love will change, and memory will sometimes bring back old fancies when the world has been stern and hard. When we were very young I think you loved me. Do you remember seven years ago at Longbarns, when they parted us and sent me away, because — because we were so young? They did not tell us then, but I think you knew. I know that I knew, and went nigh to swear that I would drown myself. You loved me then, Emily.”
“I was a child then.”
“Now you are not a child. Do you love me now, — to-day? If so, give me your hand, and let the past be buried in silence. All this has come, and gone, and has nearly made us old. But there is life before us yet, and if you are to me as I am to you it is better that our lives should be lived together.” Then he stood before her with his hand stretched out.
“I cannot do it,” she said.
“And why?”
“I cannot be other than the wretched thing I have made myself.”
“But do you love me?”
“I cannot analyse my heart. Love you; — yes! I have always loved you. Everything about you is dear to me. I can triumph in your triumphs, rejoice at your joy, weep at your sorrows, be ever anxious that all good things may come to you; — but, Arthur, I cannot be your wife.”
“Not though it would make us happy, — Fletchers and Whartons all alike?”
“Do you think I have not thought it over? Do you think that I have forgotten your first letter? Knowing your heart, as I do know it, do you imagine that I have spent a day, an hour, for months past, without asking myself what answer I should make to you if the sweet constancy of your nature should bring you again to me? I have trembled when I have heard your voice. My heart has beat at the sound of your footstep as though it would burst! Do you think I have never told myself what I had thrown away? But it is gone, and it is not now within my reach.”
“It is; it is,” he said, throwing himself on his knees, and twining his arms round her.
“No; — no; — no; — never. I am disgraced and shamed. I have lain among the pots till I am foul and blackened. Take your arms away. They shall not be defiled,” she said as she sprang to her feet. “You shall not have the thing that he has left.”
“Emily, — it is the only thing in the world that I crave.”
“Be a man and conquer your love, — as I will. Get it under your feet and press it to death. Tell yourself that it is shameful and must be abandoned. That you, Arthur Fletcher, should marry the widow of that man, — the woman that he had thrust so far into the mire that she can never again be clean; — you, the chosen one, the bright star among us all; — you, whose wife should be the fairest, the purest, the tenderest of us all, a flower that has yet been hardly breathed on! While I — Arthur,” she said, “I know my duty better than that. I will not seek an escape from my punishment in that way, — nor will I allow you to destroy yourself. You have my word as a woman that it shall not be so. Now I do not mind your knowing whether I love you or no.” He stood silent before her, not able for the moment to go on with his prayer. “And now, go,” she said. “God bless you, and give you some day a fair and happy wife. And, Arthur, do not come again to me. If you will let it be so, I shall have a delight in seeing you; — but not if you come as you have come now. And, Arthur, spare me with papa. Do not let him think that it is all my fault that I cannot do the thing which he wishes.” Then she left the room before he could say another word to her.
But it was all her fault. No; — in that direction he could not spare her. It must be told to her father, though he doubted his own power of describing all that had been said. “Do not come again to me,” she had said. At the moment he had been left speechless; but if there was one thing fixed in his mind, it was the determination to come again. He was sure now, not only of love that might have sufficed, — but of hot, passionate love. She had told him that her heart had beat at his footsteps, and that she had trembled as she listened to his voice; — and yet she expected that he would not come again! But there was a violence of decision about the woman which made him dread that he might still come in vain. She was so warped from herself by the conviction of her great mistake, so prone to take shame to herself for her own error, so keenly alive to the degradation to which she had been submitted, that it might yet be impossible to teach her that, though her husband had been vile and she mistaken, yet she had not been soiled by his baseness.
He went at once to the old barrister’s chambers and told him the result of the meeting. “She is still a fool,” said the father, not understanding at second-hand the depths of his daughter’s feeling.
“No, sir, — not that. She feels herself degraded by his degradation. If it be possible we must save her from that.”
“She did degrade herself.”
“Not as she means it. She is not degraded in my eyes.”
“Why should she not take the only means in her power of rescuing herself and rescuing us all from the evil that she did? She owes it to you, to me, and to her brother.”
“I would hardly wish her to come to me in payment of such a debt.”
“There is no room left,” said Mr. Wharton angrily, “for soft sentimentality. Well; — she must take her bed as she makes it. It is very hard on me, I know. Considering what she used to be, it is marvellous to me that she should have so little idea left of doing her duty to others.”
Arthur Fletcher found that the barrister was at the moment too angry to hear reason, or to be made to understand anything of the feelings of mixed love and admiration with which he himself was animated at the moment. He was obliged th
erefore to content himself with assuring the father that he did not intend to give up the pursuit of his daughter.
CHAPTER LXXV
The Great Wharton Alliance
When Mr. Wharton got home on that day he said not a word to Emily as to Arthur Fletcher. He had resolved to take various courses, — first to tell her roundly that she was neglecting her duty to herself and to her family, and that he would no longer take her part and be her good friend unless she would consent to marry the man whom she had confessed that she loved. But as he thought of this he became aware, — first that he could not carry out such a threat, and then that he would lack even the firmness to make it. There was something in her face, something even in her dress, something in her whole manner to himself, which softened him and reduced him to vassalage directly he saw her. Then he determined to throw himself on her compassion and to implore her to put an end to all this misery by making herself happy. But as he drew near home he found himself unable to do even this. How is a father to beseech his widowed daughter to give herself away in a second marriage? And therefore when he entered the house and found her waiting for him, he said nothing. At first she looked at him wistfully, — anxious to learn by his face whether her lover had been with him. But when he spoke not a word, simply kissing her in his usual quiet way, she became cheerful in manner and communicative. “Papa,” she said, “I have had a letter from Mary.”
“Well, my dear.”
“Just a nice chatty letter, — full of Everett, of course.”
“Everett is a great man now.”
“I am sure that you are very glad that he is what he is. Will you see Mary’s letter?” Mr. Wharton was not specially given to reading young ladies’ correspondence, and did not know why this particular letter should be offered to him. “You don’t suspect anything at Wharton, do you?” she asked.
“Suspect anything! No; I don’t suspect anything.” But now, having had his curiosity aroused, he took the letter which was offered to him and read it. The letter was as follows: —
Wharton, Thursday.
Dearest Emily, —
We all hope that you had a pleasant journey up to London, and that Mr. Wharton is quite well. Your brother Everett came over to Longbarns the day after you started and drove me back to Wharton in the dog-cart. It was such a pleasant journey, though, now I remember, it rained all the way. But Everett has always so much to say that I didn’t mind the rain. I think it will end in John taking the hounds. He says he won’t, because he does not wish to be the slave of the whole county; — but he says it in that sort of way that we all think he means to do it. Everett tells him that he ought, because he is the only hunting man on this side of the county who can afford to do it without feeling it much; and of course what Everett says will go a long way with him. Sarah [Sarah was John Fletcher’s wife] is rather against it. But if he makes up his mind she’ll be sure to turn round. Of course it makes us all very anxious at present to know how it is to end, for the Master of the Hounds always is the leading man in our part of the world. Papa went to the bench at Ross yesterday and took Everett with him. It was the first time that Everett had sat there. He says I am to tell his father he has not hung anybody as yet.
They have already begun to cut down, or what they call stubb up, Barnton Spinnies. Everett said that it is no good keeping it as a wood, and papa agreed. So it is to go into the home farm, and Griffiths is to pay rent for it. I don’t like having it cut down as the boys always used to get nuts there, but Everett says it won’t do to keep woods for little boys to get nuts.
Mary Stocking has been very ill since you went, and I’m afraid she won’t last long. When they get to be so very bad with rheumatism I almost think it’s wrong to pray for them, because they are in so much pain. We thought at one time that mamma’s ointment had done her good, but when we came to inquire, we found she had swallowed it. Wasn’t it dreadful? But it didn’t seem to do her any harm. Everett says that it wouldn’t make any difference which she did.
Papa is beginning to be afraid that Everett is a Radical. But I’m sure he’s not. He says he is as good a Conservative as there is in all Herefordshire, only that he likes to know what is to be conserved. Papa said after dinner yesterday that everything English ought to be maintained. Everett said that according to that we should have kept the Star Chamber. “Of course I would,” said papa. Then they went at it, hammer and tongs. Everett had the best of it. At any rate he talked the longest. But I do hope he is not a Radical. No country gentleman ought to be a Radical. Ought he, dear?
Mrs. Fletcher says you are to get the lozenges at Squire’s in Oxford Street, and be sure to ask for the Vade mecum lozenges. She is all in a flutter about the hounds. She says she hopes John will do nothing of the kind because of the expense; but we all know that she would like him to have them. The subscription is not very good, only £1500, and it would cost him ever so much a year. But everybody says that he is very rich and that he ought to do it. If you see Arthur give him our love. Of course a member of Parliament is too busy to write letters. But I don’t think Arthur ever was good at writing. Everett says that men never ought to write letters. Give my love to Mr. Wharton.
I am, dearest Emily,
Your most affectionate Cousin,
Mary Wharton.
“Everett is a fool,” said Mr. Wharton as soon as he had read the letter.
“Why is he a fool, papa?”
“Because he will quarrel with Sir Alured about politics before he knows where he is. What business has a young fellow like that to have an opinion either one side or the other, before his betters?”
“But Everett always had strong opinions.”
“It didn’t matter as long as he only talked nonsense at a club in London, but now he’ll break that old man’s heart.”
“But, papa, don’t you see anything else?”
“I see that John Fletcher is going to make an ass of himself and spend a thousand a year in keeping up a pack of hounds for other people to ride after.”
“I think I see something else besides that.”
“What do you see?”
“Would it annoy you if Everett were to become engaged to Mary?”
Then Mr. Wharton whistled. “To be sure she does put his name into every line of her letter. No; it wouldn’t annoy me. I don’t see why he shouldn’t marry his second cousin if he likes. Only if he is engaged to her, I think it odd that he shouldn’t write and tell us.”
“I’m sure he’s not engaged to her yet. She wouldn’t write at all in that way if they were engaged. Everybody would be told at once, and Sir Alured would never be able to keep it a secret. Why should there be a secret? But I’m sure she is very fond of him. Mary would never write about any man in that way unless she were beginning to be attached to him.”
About ten days after this there came two letters from Wharton Hall to Manchester Square, the shortest of which shall be given first. It ran as follows: —
My dear Father, —
I have proposed to my cousin Mary, and she has accepted me. Everybody here seems to like the idea. I hope it will not displease you. Of course you and Emily will come down. I will tell you when the day is fixed.
Your affectionate son,
Everett Wharton.
This the old man read as he sat at breakfast with his daughter opposite to him, while Emily was reading a very much longer letter from the same house. “So it’s going to be just as you guessed,” he said.
“I was quite sure of it, papa. Is that from Everett? Is he very happy?”
“Upon my word, I can’t say whether he’s happy or not. If he had got a new horse he would have written at much greater length about it. It seems, however, to be quite fixed.”
“Oh, yes. This is from Mary. She is happy at any rate. I suppose men never say so much about these things as women.”
“May I see Mary’s letter?”
“I don’t think it would be quite fair, papa. It’s only a girl’s rhapsody about the man sh
e loves, — very nice and womanly, but not intended for any one but me. It does not seem that they mean to wait very long.”
“Why should they wait? Is any day fixed?”
“Mary says that Everett talks about the middle of May. Of course you will go down.”
“We must both go.”
“You will at any rate. Don’t promise for me just at present. It must make Sir Alured very happy. It is almost the same as finding himself at last with a son of his own. I suppose they will live at Wharton altogether now, — unless Everett gets into Parliament.”
But the reader may see the young lady’s letter, though her future father-in-law was not permitted to do so, and will perceive that there was a paragraph at the close of it which perhaps was more conducive to Emily’s secrecy than her feelings as to the sacred obligations of female correspondence.
Monday, Wharton.
Dearest Emily, —
I wonder whether you will be much surprised at the news I have to tell you. You cannot be more so than I am at having to write it. It has all been so very sudden that I almost feel ashamed of myself. Everett has proposed to me, and I have accepted him. There; — now you know it all. Though you never can know how very dearly I love him and how thoroughly I admire him. I do think that he is everything that a man ought to be, and that I am the most fortunate young woman in the world. Only isn’t it odd that I should always have to live all my life in the same house, and never change my name, — just like a man, or an old maid? But I don’t mind that because I do love him so dearly and because he is so good. I hope he will write to you and tell you that he likes me. He has written to Mr. Wharton, I know. I was sitting by him and his letter didn’t take him a minute. But he says that long letters about such things only give trouble. I hope you won’t think my letter troublesome. He is not sitting by me now but has gone over to Longbarns to help to settle about the hounds. John is going to have them after all. I wish it hadn’t happened just at this time because all the gentlemen do think so much about it. Of course Everett is one of the committee.
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