CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

THE NEXT DAY.

The hours of a sleepless night were not too long for Hope to revolve what he must say and do on the morrow. He must meet Enderby; and the day would probably decide Margaret's fate. That this decision would implicate his own happiness or misery was a subordinate thought. It was not till after he had viewed Margaret's case in every light, in which apprehension could place it, that he dwelt upon what the suffering to himself must be of seeing Margaret, day by day, living on, in meek patience, amidst the destruction of hope and happiness which his attachment had caused. When he did dwell upon it, his heart sank within him. All that had made him unhappy seemed of late to have pa.s.sed away.

For many months he had seen Margaret satisfied in her attachment to another; he had seen Hester coming out n.o.bly from the trial of adversity, in which all her fine qualities had been exercised, and her weaknesses almost subdued. She had been not only the devoted wife, but patient and generous towards her foes, full of faith and cheerfulness in her temper, and capable of any degree of self-denial in the conduct of her daily life. She had been of late all that in the days of their engagement--in the days when he had dealt falsely with his own mind--he had trusted she would be. A friendship, whose tenderness was life enough for them both, had grown up in his soul, and he had been at peace. It had been a subject of incessant thankfulness to him, that the evil of what he could now hardly consider as a false step had been confined to himself--that his struggles, his strivings, the dreadful solitary conflicts of a few months, had not been in vain; that he had fulfilled the claims of both relations, and marred no one's peace. Now, he was plunged into the struggle again. The cause was at an end; but consequences, of perhaps endless wretchedness, remained to be borne.

His secret was known, and made the basis of untruths to which the whole happiness of his household, so victoriously struggled for, so carefully cherished by him, and so lately secured, must be sacrificed. Again and again he turned from the fearful visions of Margaret cast off, of the estrangement of the sisters, of the possible loss of some of their fair fame--from these harrowing thoughts he turned again and again to consider what must be done.--The most certain thing was, that he must not by word, look, pause, or admission, countenance to Enderby himself the supposition that he had not preferred Hester at the time she became his wife. In the present state of their attachment, this was the merest justice to her. Nothing that it was in Mrs Grey's power to reveal bore a relation to any time later than his early, and, it might be a.s.sumed, superficial, intercourse with the sisters and, as far as he knew, no one else, unless it were Frank (by this time in possession of the facts), had ever conceived of the true state of the case. He must decline all question about his domestic relations, except as far as Margaret was concerned. Beyond this, he would allow of no inquisition, and would forbid all speculation. For Margaret's sake, no less than Hester's, this was necessary. If she should ever be Enderby's wife, it was of the utmost importance that Enderby should not, in his most secret soul, hold this information, however strongly he might be convinced that Margaret was in ignorance of it, and had never loved any but himself. There must be no admission to Enderby of that which had been truth, but which would become untruth by being first admitted now. There must be entire silence upon the whole subject of himself.--As to Margaret, he did not see what could be done, but to declare his true and perfect belief that she had never loved any but Enderby. But alas! what chance was there of this testimony being received; the very point of Enderby's accusation being, that they both looked, perhaps in self-delusion, at the connection with him as their security from the consequences of Hope's weakness in marrying Hester? It was all confused--all wretched--all nearly hopeless. Margaret would be sacrificed without knowing why-- would have her heart wrung with the sense of injury in addition to her woe.

From reflections and antic.i.p.ations, Hope rose early to the great duty of the day. He told Hester that he was going to meet Enderby in the meadows, to receive a full explanation of his conduct of the preceding day; and that it was probable that he should bring home whatever tidings it might be Margaret's lot to hear.

He found, during the long and anxious conversation in the meadow, that he had need of all the courage, calmness, and discretion he could command. It was a cruel trial to one whose wont it had been from his childhood to converse in "simplicity and G.o.dly sincerity,"--it was a cruel trial to hear evidence, upon evidence brought of what he knew to have been fact, and to find connected with this, revolting falsehoods, against which he could only utter the indignation of his soul. When he afterwards reflected how artfully the facts and falsehoods were connected, he could no longer wonder at Enderby's convictions, nor at the conduct which proceeded from them. There was in Enderby this morning no undue anger, no contempt which could excite anger in another;--no doubt cast by him upon Hope's honour, or Margaret's purity of mind, as the world esteems purity. However this might have been before their meeting of yesterday, it was now clear that, though immoveably convinced of their mutual attachment, he supposed it to have been entertained as innocently as it was formed;--that Hope had been wrought upon by Mrs Grey, and by a consciousness of Hester's love; that he had married from a false sense of honour, and then discovered his mistake;--that he had striven naturally, and with success, to persuade himself that Margaret loved his friend, while Margaret had made the same effort, and would have married that friend for security and with the hope of rest in a home of her own, with one whom she might possibly love and to whom she was bound by his love of herself.

As for the evidence on which his belief was founded, there seemed to be no end to it. Hope could do little but listen to the detail. If he had been sitting in judgment on the conduct of an imputed criminal, he would have wrestled with the evidence obstinately and long; but what could he do, when it was the lover of his sister-in-law who was declaring why his confidence in her was gone, and he must resume his plighted faith? None but those who had done the mischief could repair it; and least of all, Hope himself. He could only make one single, solemn protestation of his belief that Margaret had loved none but Enderby, and deny the truth of every statement that was inconsistent with this.

The exhibition of the evidence showed how penetrating, how sagacious, as well as how industrious, malice can be. There seemed to be no circ.u.mstance connected with the sisters and their relation to Mr Hope, that Mrs Rowland had not laid hold of. Mrs Grey's visit to Hope during his convalescence; his subsequent seclusion, and his depression when he reappeared--all these were noted; and it was these which sent Enderby to Mrs Grey for an explanation, which she had not had courage or judgment to withhold--which, indeed, she had been hurried into giving. She had admitted all that had pa.s.sed between herself and Mr Hope--his consternation at finding that it was Hester who loved him, and whom he must marry, and the force with which Mrs Grey had felt herself obliged to urge that duty upon him. Enderby connected with this his own observations and feelings at the time; his last summer's conviction that it was Margaret whom Hope loved; his rapturous surprise on hearing of the engagement being to Hester; and his wonder at the coldness with which his friend received his congratulations. He now thought that he must have been doomed to blindness not to have discerned the truth through all this.--Then there was his own intrusion during the interview which Hope had with Margaret;--their countenances had haunted him ever since. Hope's was full of constraint and anxiety;--he was telling his intentions:--Margaret's face was downcast, and her att.i.tude motionless; she was hearing her doom.--Then, after Hope was married, all Deerbrook was aware of his failure of spirits; and of Margaret's no less. It was a matter of common remark, that there must be something amiss--that all was not right at home. They had, then, doubtless discovered that the attachment was mutual; and they might well be wretched.--Those who ought to know best had been convinced of this at an earlier stage of the intercourse. Mrs Rowland had met at Cheltenham a young officer, an intimate friend of Mr Hope's family, who would not be persuaded that it was not to the younger sister that Mr Hope was married. He declared that he knew, from the highest authority, that Hope was attached to Margaret, and that the attachment was returned. It was not till Mrs Rowland had shown him the announcement of the marriage in an old Blickley newspaper, which she happened to have used in packing her trunk, that he would believe that it was the elder sister who was Hope's wife.--There was one person, however, who had known the whole, Enderby said; perhaps she was the only person who had been aware of it all: and that was his mother.

In answer to Hope's exclamations upon the absurdity of this, Enderby said, that a thousand circ.u.mstances rose up to confirm Mrs Rowland's statement that her mother had known all, and had learned it from Margaret herself. Margaret had confided in her old friend as in a mother; and nothing could be more natural--nothing probably more necessary to an overburdened heart. This explained his mother's never having shown his letters to Margaret--the person for whom, as she knew, they were chiefly written. This explained the words of concern about the domestic troubles of the Hopes, which, now and then during her long confinement, she had dropped in Phoebe's hearing, and even in her letters to her son. She had repeatedly regretted that Margaret would not leave her sister's house, and return to Birmingham--saying that income and convenience were not to be thought of for a moment, in comparison with some other considerations. In fact she had--it was weakness, perhaps, but one not to be too hardly judged under the circ.u.mstances--she had revealed the whole to her daughter under injunctions to secrecy, which had been strictly observed while she lived, and broken now only for a brother's sake, and after a long conflict between obligations apparently contradictory. When, from her deathbed, she had welcomed Margaret as a daughter-in-law, it was in the grat.i.tude which it was natural for a mother to feel, on finding the attachment of an only son at length appreciated and rewarded. When she had implored Mrs Rowland to receive Margaret as a sister, and had seen them embrace, her generous spirit had rejoiced in her young friend's conquest of an unhappy pa.s.sion; and she had meant to convey to Priscilla an admonition to bury in oblivion what had become known to her, and to forgive Margaret for having loved any one but Philip. Priscilla could not make a difficulty at such a time, and in such a presence; she had submitted to the embrace, but her soul had recoiled from it; she had actually fainted under the shock: and ever since, she had declared to her brother, with a pertinacity which he had been unable to understand-- which, indeed, had looked like sheer audacity, that he would never marry Margaret Ibbotson. Philip was now convinced that he had done his sister much wrong. Her temper and conduct were in some instances indefensible; but since he had learned all this, and become aware how much of what he had censured had been said and done out of affection for himself, he had been disposed rather to blame her for the lateness of her explanations, than for any excess of zeal on his account,--zeal which he admitted had carried her a point or two beyond the truth in some of her aims. These statements about the condition of Margaret's mind were borne out by circ.u.mstances known to others. When Margaret had been rescued from drowning, Hope was heard to breathe, as he bent over her, "Oh G.o.d! my Margaret!" and it was observed that she rallied instantly on hearing the exclamation, and repaid him with a look worthy of his words. This had been admitted to Enderby himself by the one who heard it, and who might be trusted to speak of it to no one else. Then, it was known that when Margaret was in the habit of taking long walks alone, towards the end of the winter, she was met occasionally by her brother-in-law in his rides--naturally enough. Their conversation had been overheard, once at least, when they consulted about the peace of their home--how much of a certain set of circ.u.mstances they should communicate to Mrs Hope, and whether or not Mr Enderby was engaged to a lady abroad. Without these testimonies, Enderby felt that he had only to recur to his own experience to be convinced that Margaret had never loved him, though striving to persuade herself, as well as him, that she did. The calmness with which she had received his avowals that first evening last winter, struck him with admiration at the time: he now understood it better. He wondered he had felt so little till now the coldness of the tone of her correspondence. The first thing which awakened him to an admission of it, was her refusal to marry him in the spring. She shrank, as she avowed, from leaving her present residence--she might have said, from quitting those she loved best.

It was clear that in marrying she was to make a sacrifice to duty--to secure innocence and safety for herself and those who were dearest to her; and that, when the time drew near, she recoiled from the effort.

Enderby was thankful that all had become clear in time for her release and his own.

The horror with which Hope listened to this was beyond what he had prepared himself for--beyond all that he had yet endured. Enderby seemed quite willing to hear him; but what could be said? Only that which he had planned. His protest against the truth of certain of the statements, and the justice of some of the constructions of facts, was strong. He declared that, in his perfect satisfaction with his domestic state, his happiness with his beloved and honoured wife, he would admit of no question about his family affairs, as far as he and Hester were concerned. He denied at once and for ever, all that went to show that Margaret had for a moment regarded him otherwise than as a friend and a brother; and declared that the bare mention to her of the idea which was uppermost in Enderby's mind would be a cruelty and insult which could never be retrieved. He was not going to plead for her. Bitterly as she must suffer, it was from a cause which lay too deep for cure--from a want of faith in her in one who ought to know her best, but from whom she would be henceforth best separated, if what he had been saying was his deliberate belief and judgment.--Enderby declaring that it was so, and that it was his intention to release Margaret from her engagement, gently and carefully, without useless explanation and without reproach, there was nothing more to be said or done. Hope prophesied, in parting, that, of all the days of Enderby's life, this was perhaps that of which he would one day most heartily repent; and while he spoke, he felt that this same day was the one which he might himself find the most difficult to endure. He left Enderby still pacing the meadow, and walked homewards with a heart weighed down with grief--a grief which yet he would fain have increased to any degree of intensity by taking Margaret's upon himself.

Margaret was at the breakfast-table with her sister when he entered.

Her eyes were swollen, but her manner was gentle and composed. She looked up at Edward, when he appeared, with an expression of timid expectation in her face, which went to his soul. A few words pa.s.sed--a very few, and then no more was said.

"Yes; I have seen him. He is very wretched. He will not come, but we shall hear something, I have no doubt. A strange persuasion which I cannot remove, of a prior attachment--of a want of frankness and confidence. He will explain himself presently. But his persuasion is irremoveable."

Hester had much to say of him out of her throbbing heart; but she looked at Margaret, and restrained herself. What must there be in _that_ heart? To utter one word would be irreverent. The breakfast pa.s.sed in an almost unbroken silence.

It had not been long over when the expected letter came. Hope never saw it; but there was no need: he perfectly antic.i.p.ated its contents, while to her for whom they were written they were incomprehensible.

"I spare you and myself the misery of an interview. It must be agonising to you, and there would be dishonour as well as pain to me, in witnessing that agony. If, as I fully believe, you have been hitherto blind to the injustice of your connecting yourself with me, from a sense of duty and expediency, when you had not a first genuine love to give, I think you will see it now; and I pity your suffering in the discovery. There is only one point on which I wish or intend to hang any reproach. Why did you not, when I had become ent.i.tled to your confidence, lay your heart fully open to me? Did I not do so by you? Did I not reveal to you even the transient fancy which I entertained long ago, and which I showed my faith in you, her friend, by revealing? If you had only done the same--if you had only let me know, without a hint as to the object, that you had been attached, and that you believed I might succeed to your affections in time--if you had done this, I do not say that we should then have been what I so lately trusted we were to be, for my soul is jealous--has been made so by what I thought you--and will bear none but a first, and an entire, and an exclusive love: but in that case I should have cherished you in my inmost heart, as all that I have believed you to be, though not destined for me.

"But I do not blame you. You have done what you meant to be right; though, from too great regard to one set of considerations, you have mistaken the right, and have sacrificed me. I make allowance for your difficulty, and, for my own part, pardon you, and testify most sincerely and earnestly to the purity of your mind and intentions. Do not reject this parting testimony. I offer it because I would not have you think me harsh, or suppose that pa.s.sion has made me unjust.

I love you too deeply to do more than mourn. I have no heart to blame, except for your want of confidence. Of that I have a right to complain: but, for the rest, spare yourself the effort of self-justification. It is not needed. I do not accuse you. You were right in saying yesterday that I love you still. I shall ever love you, be our separate lives what they may. G.o.d bless you!

"PE."

"Will you not wait, my dearest Margaret?" said Hester, when, within half an hour of the arrival of Enderby's letter, she met her sister on the stairs, with the reply in her hand, sealed, and ready to be sent. "Why such haste? The events of your life may hang on this day, on this one letter. Can it be right to be so rapid in what you think and do?"

"The event of my life is decided," she replied, "unless--No--the event of my life _is_ decided. I have nothing more to wait for. I have written what I think, and it must go."

It was as follows:--

"I have nothing to say in reply to your letter, for I cannot understand it. Yet I wonder less at your letter than at your having written it instead of coming to me, to say all that is in your mind.

At some moments I still think that you will--I feel that you are on your way hither, and I fancy that this dreadful dream of your displeasure will pa.s.s away. It is the first time in my life that any one has been seriously and lastingly displeased with me; and, though I feel that I have not deserved it, I am very wretched that you, of all others, should blame me, and cease to trust me. There ought to be some comfort in the thought that your anger is without cause: but I cannot find such comfort; for I feel that though I could endure your loss by long absence or death, I cannot live in the spirit in which I should wish to live, without your esteem.

"It is useless, alas! to entreat of you to come and explain yourself, or in some other way to put me in possession of the cause of your anger. If you could resist the claims I had upon you for confidence before I knew what was going to befall me--if you could resist the demand I made yesterday, I fear there is little use in imploring you to do me justice. If I thought there was any chance, I would submit to entreat, though I would not have you, any more than myself, forget that I have a right to demand. But indeed I would yield everything that I dare forego, to have you awakened from this strange delusion which makes us both wretched. It is no time for pride now. I care not how fully you know what I feel. I only wish that you could see into my soul as into your own; for then you would not misjudge me as you do. I care not what any one may think of my throwing myself upon the love which I am certain you feel for me, if I can only persuade you to tell me what you mean, and to hear what I shall then have to say. What can I now say? I will not reproach you, for I know you must be even, if possible, more miserable than I: but yet, how can I help feeling that you have been unjust and harsh with me? Yes; though the tone of your letter seems to be gentle, and you clearly mean it to be so, I feel that you have been very harsh to me. Nothing that you can do shall ever make me so cruel to you. You may rest satisfied that, if we should not meet again, I will never be unjust to you. To every one about me it will appear that you are fickle and dishonourable--that you have acted towards me as it is in the nature of some men to act towards the women whose affections they possess; in the nature of some men, but not in yours. I know you to be incapable of anything worse than error and mistrust (and, till yesterday, I could not have believed you capable of this much wrong): and you may trust me to impute to you nothing worse than this. Suffering as I now am, as we both are, under this error and mistrust, may I not implore you, for your own sake (for mine it is too late), to nourish the weak part of yourself, to question your own unworthy doubts, and to study the best parts of the minds you meet, till you grow a.s.sured (as a religious man ought to be) that there can be no self-interest, and much less falsehood, mixed up with any real affection--with any such affection as has existed between us two?

"I must not write more; for I do not know, I cannot conjecture, how you may receive what I have written, thinking of me as you now do. It seems strange to remember that at this time yesterday, in this very chair, I was writing to you. Oh how differently! Is it possible that it was only yesterday--such a world of misery as we have lived through since? But I can write no more. It may be that you will despise me in every line as you read: after what has happened, I cannot tell.

Notwithstanding all I have said about trusting, I feel at this moment as if I could never depend on anything in this world again. If you should come within this hour and explain all, how could I be sure that the same thing might not happen again? But do not let this weigh a moment with you, if indeed you think of coming. If I do not see you to-day, I shall never see you. I will then bear in mind, as you desire, and as I cannot help, that you love me still; but how little comfort is there in such love, when trust is gone! G.o.d comfort us both!

"Margaret Ibbotson."

Mrs Rowland was crossing the hall at the moment that her maid Betsy opened the door to Mr Hope's errand-boy, and took in this letter.

"Where are you carrying that letter?" said she, as Betsy pa.s.sed her.

"To the study, ma'am, against Mr Enderby comes in. It is for Mr Enderby, ma'am."

"Very well."

The letter was placed on the study mantelpiece; the place of deposit for letters for absent members of the family. Mrs Rowland meantime resumed her seat in the drawing-room, where the nursemaid was amusing the baby.

Mamma took the baby, and sent the maid away. She had a strong belief that her brother might be found somewhere in the shrubbery, though some feeling had prevented her telling the servant so when the letter was taken in. She went, with the baby in her arms, into the study, to see whether Philip was visible in any part of the garden that could be seen thence. But she stopped short of the window. The handwriting on the address of the letter troubled her sight. More than half-persuaded, as she was, of the truth of much that she had told her brother, strenuously as she had nourished the few facts she was in possession of, till she had made them yield a double crop of inferences, she was yet conscious of large exaggerations of what she knew, and of huge additions to what she believed to be probabilities, and had delivered as facts. There was in that handwriting a prophecy of detection: and, like other cowards, she began to tamper with her reason and conscience.

"There is great mischief in letters at such times," she thought. "They are so difficult to answer! and it is so possible to produce any effect that may be wished by them! As my husband was reading the other day--'It is so easy to be virtuous, to be perfect, upon paper!' Nothing that the girl can say ought to alter the state of the case: it can only hara.s.s Philip's feelings, and perhaps cause all the work to be gone over again. His letter was meant to be final, I am confident, from his intending to go away this evening. There should have been no answer.

This letter is a pure impertinence, and ought to be treated as such. It is a sort of duty to use it as it deserves. Many parents (at least I know old Mr Boyle did) burn letters which they know to contain offers to daughters whom they do not wish to part with. Mr Boyle had no scruple; and I am sure this is a stronger case. Better end the whole affair at once; and then Philip will be free to form a better connection. He will thank me one day for having broken off this."

She carried the letter into the drawing-room, slowly contemplating it as she went. She thought, for one fleeting instant, of reading it. She was not withheld by honour, but by fear. She shrank from encountering its contents. She glanced over the mantelpiece, and saw that the lucifer-matches were at hand. To make the letter burn quickly, it was necessary to unfold it. She put the child down upon the rug--a favourite play-place, for the sake of the gay pink and green shavings which, at this time of the year, curtained the grate. While baby crawled, and gazed quietly and contentedly there, Mrs Rowland broke the seal of Margaret's letter, turning her eyes from the writing, laid the blistered sheet in the hearth, and set fire to it. The child set up a loud crow of delight at the flame. At that moment, even this simple and familiar sound startled its mother out of all power of self-control.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the child with a vehemence which frightened it into a shrill cry. She feared the nursemaid would come before all the sparks were out; and she tried to quiet the baby by dancing it before the mirror over the mantelpiece. She met her own face there, white as ashes; and the child saw nothing that could amuse it, while its eyes were blinded with tears. She opened the window to let it hearken to the church clock; and the device was effectual. Baby composed its face to serious listening, before the long succession of strokes was finished, and allowed the tears to be wiped from its cheeks.

One thing more remained to be done. Mrs Rowland heard a step in the hall, and looked out: it was Betsy's.

"I thought it was you. Pray desire cook to send up a cup of broth for Miss Rowland's lunch; and be sure and let Miss Rowland know, the moment it is ready. Mr Enderby is in the shrubbery, I think."

"Yes, ma'am; seeing he was there, I was coming to ask about the letter, ma'am, to carry it to him."

"Oh, that letter--I sent it to him. He has got it. Tell cook directly about the broth."

At lunch-time, one of the children was desired to summon Uncle Philip.

Mrs Rowland took care to meet him at the garden door. She saw him cast a wistful eye towards the study mantelpiece, as he pa.s.sed the open door.

His sister observed that she believed it was past post time for this half-week. He sighed deeply; and she felt that no sigh of his had ever so gone to her heart before.

"Why, mamma! do look!" cried George, as well as a mouthful of bread would allow. "Look at the chimney! Where are all the shavings gone?

There is the knot at the top that they were tied together with, but not a bit of shaving left. Have they blown up the chimney?"

"What will poor baby say?" exclaimed Matilda. "All the pretty pink and green gone!"

"There is some tinder blowing about," observed George. "I do believe they have been burnt."

"Shut the window, George, will you? There is no bearing this draught.

There is no bearing Betsy's waste either. She has burned those shavings somehow in cleaning the grate. Her carelessness is past endurance."

"Make her buy some new shavings, mamma, for baby's sake."

"Do be quiet, and get your lunch. Hand your uncle the dish of currants."

Philip languidly picked a few bunches. He had noticed nothing that had pa.s.sed, as his sister was glad to observe. Besides being too much accustomed, to hear complaints of the servants to give any heed to them, he was now engrossed with his own wretched thoughts. Every five minutes that pa.s.sed without bringing a reply from Margaret, went to confirm his most painful impressions.