The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
she replied; and after he had spoken quite bitterly against my father, (they never liked each other,) he said, that, however he might feel towards him as his guardian, there was nothing that he could not forget and forgive in the father of his wife,—which did not make me respect him any more, you may be sure, and showed me that it was useless to appeal to his generosity. My life now was miserable indeed.
"'About this time, my aunt in Scotland sent for me to pay her a visit. She was in failing health, and wanted cheerful companionship, and I had always been a favorite with her as a child. She lived alone with a couple of old servants in a small village far in the wilds of –shire. My father, of course, opposed my going, alleging, as his reason, the long journey (we were then living in W–, in Shropshire) that I should have to take alone. To my astonishment, Frank took my part, insisting on my being allowed to go. Whether it was that he thought that when far away from home, in the seclusion of the Scotch village where my aunt lived, I should think more kindly of him, or whether he wished to touch me by a show of magnanimity, I cannot tell; but so it was, and I went.'
"Lina here paused a moment, thoughtfully.
"'But, Lina,' I said, 'if the young man was well educated, rich, and seemed only to have the one fault of loving you so well, why would you not marry him? Ma chère,' I said, 'you throw away your good fate. You see what a service it would be to your family. (I speak as your friend, you comprehend.) You save your father; you make the young man happy; all could be arranged so charmingly! I should like to see you married, ma chère; and then, your duty as a daughter!'
"'Oh, yes, yes! she cried; 'I would do, oh, anything almost, to shield my poor father and mother! Perhaps once, once, I might; but it is too late now. I cannot marry Frank. Oh, Madame, it is as impossible as if I were dead!'
"'This is a strange story, Lina,' I said. 'What do you mean? Tell me, my child, or I shall think you crazy.'
"She laid her head on her hands, which were clasped on the top of the escritoire, and half whispered,—
"'I am engaged,—I am married to some one else.'
"I sprang from my seat, and caught her hands.
"'You married, Lina? you? the quiet girl who has been teaching the children so well all these months?'
"'Yes, Madame,' she said, with all her usual composure, 'and to a man I love with my whole soul, with my whole life. The future may seem dim, but I have little fear when I remember I am Arthur's wife, and that his love will be strong to help me whenever I relieve him of the promise I have obliged him to make not to reveal our marriage. Frank will be three-and-twenty in one year and a half from now; till then, he cannot, without great difficulty, harm my father, and by that time I trust his fancy for me will have passed away, and he will be willing to treat with my father about his property without personal feeling to aggravate his sense of the wrong that has been done him. He is in the East now with Colonel Lucas, his other guardian, who has not been without his suspicions of Frank's liking for me, and is not at all unwilling, I think, to keep him out of the way for a while.'
"'Does no one know of this, Lina?' I asked, 'no one suspect it?'
"'Only two persons,' she replied,—'indeed, I may as well tell you at once, Madame,—beside Mrs. Baxter and her husband, at whose house the ceremony took place. They were then staying in the neighborhood of H–, a few miles from my aunt's house. It was at Mrs. Baxter's I first met Arthur: he was a distant connection of hers. He and his Cousin Marmaduke had come up for the shooting and fishing for a few weeks in the autumn. My aunt was a genial, bright old lady, fond of the society of young people, spite of her ill health, and invited the young men frequently to her house. In that way I saw a great deal of them both.'
"'Who was the gentleman, Lina? Had you seen him before this visit? But,' seeing she hesitated, 'if you do not wish to disclose more, say so frankly; what you have already told me I will guard as a secret,—you need not fear.'
"'Oh, Madame,' interrupted Lina, suddenly throwing herself on the floor at my feet, 'it's not that,—do not say that, dear Madame! It is a great comfort to me to tell you all this; sometimes I feel so lonely when by any chance I do not get a letter from him the day I expect one.'
"Her voice faltered, and she leaned forward, burying her face in her hands; I saw her breast shaken with weeping.
"'Tell me all, ma pauvre petite!' I said; 'tell me everything.'
"Then seeing she still continued weeping, I said, playfully,—
"'So you get letters from him, do you? I have never known this. You know, ma chérie, that that is against the rules of my pension; but when people are married,—c'est une autre chose! But how is it that I have never found this out? Ah, because you have charge of all the letters to and from the post!'
"'Yes, Madame,' she said, looking up with a smile. 'I have sometimes felt so unhappy, because I seemed to be doing a dishonest thing; but it would have been so hard to go without them, and I knew how kind and good you were. If you would like to see one of his letters,' she continued, half shyly, but with dignified gravity, 'I have one here'; and she drew a large letter from her pocket and handed it to me.
"Here it is," said Madame, taking the first from the bundle in her hand.
The handwriting was firm and regular; the letter was long, but, though the whole breathed but one feeling of the deepest and tenderest affection, it was hardly what would be called a "love-letter." There were criticisms of new works, and further references to books of a kind that showed the writer to be a man of scholarly tastes. After we had looked at this one, Madame handed us others from the packet, all marked by the same characteristics as the first. Here and there were little pictures of the writer's every-day life. He told of his being out on the moors at sunrise shooting with his Cousin Marmaduke, or riding round the estate giving orders about the transplanting of certain trees, "which are set as you have suggested, and are growing as fast as they can till you come to walk under their shade," or in the library at evening, when the place beside him seems so void where she should be. Then there were other letters, speaking of – –, the poet, who was coming down to spend a few weeks with him, and write verses under his elms at Aylesford Grange; but in one and all Lina was the central idea round which all other interests merely turned, and the source from which all else drew its charm.
"As soon," said Madame, continuing her narration, "as I had finished reading the letter, I entreated Lina to go on with her curious history.
"'I met Arthur,' she said, 'first at Mrs. Baxter's, as I said before. He is the noblest man I have ever known,—so good, so clever, so pure in heart! His Cousin Marmaduke, who was there at the same time, paid me great attention, but I never liked him; there was always something repulsive to me in his black eyes; I never trusted him; and beside Arthur,—oh, it seemed like the contrast between night and day! I don't know why it was, Madame, but I never felt that he loved Arthur really, though Arthur had done a great deal for him, got him his commission in the army, and paid off some of his debts; but he never seemed as if he quite forgave Arthur for standing in the way of his being the lord of the manor himself and possessor of Aylesford. There are some mean-spirited people who are proud too. They can receive favors, while they resent the obligation. He was of that kind, I think, and hated Arthur for his very generosity.
"'One evening, as I was walking up the shrubbery, I met Marmaduke. He had ridden over with Arthur, as they often did, to spend the evening. He had caught sight of me, he said, as they came up the avenue, and, under pretext of something being wrong with his horse's bridle, had stopped, and let Arthur go on to the house alone. He had long waited for this opportunity of speaking to me alone, he said, as I must have known. Then, amid the basest of vague insinuations against Arthur, he dared to proffer me his odious love. Oh, Madame, I was angry! A woman cannot bear feigned love,—it stings like hatred; still less can she bear to hear one she loves spoken of as I had heard him speak of Arthur. I hardly know what I said, but it must have expressed my feeling; for he tried to taunt me in return with being in love with Arthur and Aylesford. I only smiled, and walked on. Then he sprang after me, and vowed I should not leave him so,—that he loved me madly, spite of my scorn, spite of my foolish words. He knew well I did not love Arthur, that I was ambitious