"You could not have imagined it," she answered--"you could not have believed it possible; he has married that girl whom you saw at Bridman--Alice Tracy."

Married to Alice Tracy! Was it possible? What a crowd of conjectures, recollections, suppositions, and fears, rushed upon me at that moment!

"What does he say about it? What does he write? When did it happen? May I see his letter?" were the questions which I addressed with breathless rapidity to Mrs. Middleton, who seemed entirely taken aback by the manner in which I received this startling intelligence.

"Here is a strange letter," she said, "from Henry himself; another from my father, who, as you may imagine, is indignant; and one from Mrs. Tracy, which is at once impertinent and hypocritical. I hardly know whether I am acting rightly in showing you Henry's. It _is_ so extraordinary; but you must explain to me several things which I have never hitherto questioned you about; and, perhaps together, we may find out the secret of this wretched marriage. I have not ventured to show this strange letter to your uncle; he thinks that it is only from my father that I have heard of Henry's marriage; and I am afraid I am doing wrong in letting you see it; but I am so bewildered--"

I interrupted her by drawing the letters almost forcibly out of her hand. She suffered me to do so, and watched me while I read them. I was conscious of this at first; but the interest was so absorbing, that I soon forgot her presence, and everything, but the letters themselves. I read Henry's first: it was as follows:--

"My dear Sister,

"You have known me long enough not to be surprised at any extravagance that I may be guilty of. You know also that I am somewhat of a fatalist, and that I maintain that our destiny in life is marked out for us in a manner which we can neither withstand nor counteract. I have just done what is commonly called a foolish thing--very likely it is foolish; all I can say is, that I could not help doing it. It is done, and therefore the fewer remonstrances or lamentations that are made on the subject the better. I am married. Last Thursday I married, at--Church, Mrs. Tracy's grand-daughter. Her name is Alice; she is very pretty, and has been well brought up. She has five thousand pounds of her own, left her by an uncle, who died some time ago. I have, as you know, about as much. My father, of course, refuses to see her; and, I conclude, Mr.

Middleton will do the same. Do you remember, Mary, the time when, sitting at my bedside, you would kiss my forehead, and tell me how you would love my wife? We used to talk of her, and describe her. She was to be tall; her eyes were to be dark, and their long fringing lashes were to sweep her cheek; her throat was to be white and graceful as a swan's; genius was to give light to her eyes, and eloquence to her words; and you, sister, _you_, on my marriage-day, were to have placed the blossoms of orange flower in the dark hair of my bride.

You remember it, don't you? Well, my bride is fair, very fair; but not like the bride we had imagined--or rather that we had foreseen; for, sister, we have seen her, have we not--walking in beauty by our sides? Have we not gazed upon her till we have fancied her a thing too bright, too lovely, for the earth she treads upon? My bride was not kissed by you; she stood by my side, and you were not there to say, 'G.o.d bless her!' She put her cold hand into mine, and looked steadily into my face; there was no colour in her cheek; no emotion in her voice. It was all as calm as the life that lies before me. Mary, you had better write and wish me joy; and tell Ellen to wish me joy too; but do not show my letter to your husband; it is not calm enough for his inspection.

"Yours, dear Mary, ever yours,

"Henry Lovell."

There was something inexpressibly painful to me in the tone of this letter; it seemed the sequel of one part of my last conversation with Henry; a pure and innocent existence, he had said, must be sacrificed, and doomed to hopeless disappointment, if I persisted in my refusal. I had persisted, and Alice was sacrificed, though to what I knew not; but to some mysterious necessity--to some secret obligation. A loveless marriage--a lonely pa.s.sage through life--and G.o.d only knew what secret trials--what withering of the heart--what solitude of the soul--what measure of that hope deferred, which makes the heart sick--of that craving void which nothing fills, were to be hers, who had grown up and blossomed like the rose in the wilderness, and who had been, like her own poor flower, too rudely transplanted, doomed perhaps like it, to wither and to die. It was strange, that, never having seen Alice but once, I should have felt such a deep and complete conviction of her goodness and purity, of the angelic nature of the spirit which was shrouded in that fair form, that as the idea of guilt in her intercourse with Henry, so now, that of worldliness, of ambition, or of indelicacy, in having made this secret marriage, never presented itself to my mind.

Perhaps it might yet turn out well; he might grow to love and to prize her, and she would stand between him and me like an angel of peace. He could not but admire the faultless beauty of her face; the poetical nature of her mind; the calm simplicity of her character. I said this to myself; but while I said it, my heart whispered a denial. I knew Henry too well.

I had seen too clearly what he admired in me--what subdued him in some measure to my influence, even in his fiercest moments of irritation. It was the very points in my mind and character which were most different from hers. The very defects in myself, that made me look upon her, as a lost and ruined sinner might gaze on a picture of the blessed Virgin, these very defects were what riveted and enthralled him. His last words rang in my ears as I looked on his blotted and hasty signature, and my heart sunk within me as I _felt_ "that all was not over between us."

The next letter I read was from Mr. Lovell; it was thus worded:--

"My dear Mary,

"Your affection for your brother has always been so great, that I dread the effect which my present communication will have upon you. It will take you by surprise, as it has done me. That Henry should give us subjects of regret and annoyance would be no strange occurrence; but that he (the goodness of whose understanding, at least, has never been called in question)--that he should have acted in so deplorably foolish a manner, is more than one would be prepared for; the natural refinement of his character alone might have preserved him from a connection which is really disgraceful. It is better to tell you the fact at once, for you certainly could never have imagined or foreseen such an event. Your brother, without having made the slightest communication to me, or to any one else, as far as I can find out, married, last Thursday, at Bromley Church, the grand-daughter of the woman who was your nurse, and afterwards his. He looks wretchedly ill and unhappy, and gives no explanation of his conduct, further than by repeating, that as he was certain that I would not give my consent to his marriage (and he is right there), he thought it best to put the matter at once beyond discussion. In some ways, bad as it is, it might have been worse. I find that the girl is only seventeen--very handsome--has been well brought up for a person in her rank of life, and has a fortune of 5000 _l_. I have refused to see her, as I am determined to mark my indignation to Henry in the strongest manner; and I never, under any circ.u.mstances, will consent to see her relations, who have behaved, in my opinion, as ill as possible in hurrying on this marriage.

"Some time hence, it may be advisable to notice his wife; and, for his sake, to try as much as possible to withdraw her from the society and the influence of her relations; but this will be a subject for after-consideration.

"And now, my dear Mary, G.o.d bless you. I feel for you, as I know you will for me, in this unpleasant affair. I hope your beautiful Ellen will not take to heart this abominable marriage. Mr. Middleton was perfectly right in preventing her from throwing herself away on that worthless brother of yours; but I wish with all my heart they had eloped together.

"Your affectionate Father,

"William Lovell."

Mrs. Tracy's letter was as follows:--

"Madam,

"The announcement of Mr. Lovell's marriage with my grand-daughter, Alice, will probably have surprised you disagreeably. As he has, I find, written by this day's post to communicate it to you, I take the liberty of addressing to you a few lines on the subject. I grieve that myself or any one belonging to me should be the means of causing you grief or annoyance. But, Madam, remember who it was that said, 'Judge not, and you shall not be judged; condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.' Obey that injunction now, and visit not the sins of others on an angel of goodness and purity,--the dust of whose feet, some whom you cherish in your bosom are not worthy to wipe off. I love you, Mrs. Middleton, and would not willingly give you pain; but do not try me too severely by ill-usage of that child, whom my dying son bequeathed to me, and who is now your brother's wife. As G.o.d will judge one day betwixt you and me, be kind to her; her presence and her prayers may sanctify your home, and bring down a blessing on your head. If you are tempted to say in your heart, 'Why did this angel of goodness and purity consent to a secret marriage?--why did this saint, whose prayers are to bring down a blessing on our home, enter our family without our sanction?'--if you are tempted to say this, Mrs. Middleton--yet say it not. Alice has lived alone with her flowers, and with her Bible. She has never opened a novel; she has never conversed with any one but me, and with him who is now her husband, and that but little. She knows nothing of the world and its customs. She was asked as Rebecca was asked--'Wilt thou go with this man?' and she said 'I will go.' I told her it was her duty to marry Mr. Lovell, and she married him; and if you should say, Mrs. Middleton, that it was not her duty to marry him, and that I deceived her as well as you,--again I say, 'Judge not, condemn not;' and thus you may escape a fearful judgment--an awful condemnation."

"Is not that letter the very height of cant and impertinence?"

said my aunt, as I laid it down on the table.

"It is a strange letter," I answered; "but what she says of Alice I am certain must be true. It tallies exactly with the impression she made upon me, and with what I should have supposed her part to have been in the whole affair."

"But how can her grandmother justify her own conduct to herself, if it is so?"

"G.o.d only knows," I answered; "but if you love me, my dearest aunt,--if you wish me to be happy,--if my supplications have any weight with you..."

"_If_ they have, Ellen?"

"No, no!" I exclaimed,--"not _if_--I will not say _if_ they have, for I _know_ they have. I know you love me, and I know that you will do all you can to make Henry happy with Alice. I shall not have a moment's peace if they are not happy."

"Angel!" said my aunt, as she pressed her lips to my cheek. I drew back with a thrill of horror.

"Never call me an angel,--never say that again: I cannot bear it. I am not disclaiming,--I am not humble,--I am only cowardly. I cannot explain to you everything; indeed, I hardly know if I understand myself, or Henry, or anything; but thus much I do know, that if Alice Tracy has gained his regard--wildly as he talks in that strange letter--if she has a hold on his affections, I shall bless her every day of my life,--she will have saved me from inexpressible misery. Oh, my dearest dear aunt,--write to Henry, write to Alice to-day,--immediately: do not wait for my uncle's permission--write at once."

I seized on the inkstand, and putting paper and pen before her, I stood by in anxious expectation. She sighed heavily, and then said to me:--

"Ellen, will you never again speak openly to me? If you did not care about Henry, what has made you so wretched lately?

Why are your spirits broken?--why is your cheek pale and your step heavy? You deceive yourself, my child; you love Henry, and it is only excitement that at this moment gives you false strength."

"Whether I ever have loved Henry," I replied, "is a mystery to myself. I think not;--indeed I believe I can truly say that I never loved him; though at one moment I fancied that I did; and if, yesterday, you had come to me and told me that my uncle had consented to my marrying him,--nay, that he wished me to do so;--had you yourself asked me to marry your brother, I should have refused--yesterday, to-day, always."

"Then you have quarrelled with him," quickly rejoined Mrs.

Middleton; "and this marriage of his is the result of wounded feeling,--perhaps of a misunderstanding between you. Poor Henry!"

There was a little irritation in my aunt's manner of saying these last words; and I was on the point of telling her what Henry had proposed and urged upon me in our last interview, and of thus justifying myself from any imputation of having behaved ill to him; but I instantly felt that this would be unfair and ungenerous, especially at this moment. Besides, was I not in his power, and could I venture to accuse him who held in his hands the secret of my fate? So again I shut up my heart, and closed my lips to her who loved me with a love which would have made the discovery of that fatal secret almost amount to a death-blow.

She seemed now to understand better my anxiety for the happiness of her brother and of his young wife. She seemed to think that I was conscious of having, in some manner or other, behaved ill to Henry, and driven him to this marriage, and that I was anxious to make all the amends in my power. But when she had drawn the paper before her, and was beginning to write, she put down her pen, and exclaimed: "But if he does not love her, what induced him to choose _her?_ To make us all wretched!--to inflict upon himself such a connection! I cannot understand it!"

Again and again she cross-questioned me about Alice, about that one memorable visit of mine to Bridman Manor, about Henry's manner to her, and hers to him. I answered in the way best calculated to remove her prejudices, to allay her anxieties, to encourage her hopes of eventual happiness for Henry. My angry feelings with regard to him had for the time quite subsided; I pitied him from the bottom of my heart, and remembered what he had said of a similarity in our destinies.

It seemed to me, that he too was bound by some stern necessity, by some secret influence, to work mischief to himself and to others; and it was with intense eagerness that after Mrs. Middleton had written a kind and soothing letter to him (in which she expressed the hope that when in London, where we were going in three months' time, she should see Alice, whom she was prepared to receive and to love as a sister) I scaled it, and gave it to the servant who was just setting off for the post town. She wrote a few lines also to Mrs. Tracy, in which she expressed, in severe terms, her sense of the impropriety, if not of the guilt of her conduct with respect to her own grandchild, as well as with regard to a family, whose indignation she could not but feel that she had justly incurred. Her letter to her father she did not communicate to me. Mr. Middleton took little notice of the whole affair. One day that his wife was beginning to discuss the subject before him, he said, "My dear Mary, there are persons and things about which the less is said the better, and your brother and his marriage are of that number." Another time, when she remarked to him that I was looking much better, he observed, "I am glad that she has come to her senses." Now and then there came letters from Henry to Mrs. Middleton, but she never showed them to me. When I made any inquiries about them, she told me such facts as that he had taken a small house in--street; that he had been with his father once or twice, but that he still refused to see Alice. When I asked if Henry seemed happy, or at least contented, she answered that it had always been difficult to make out his state of mind from what he wrote, and now more so than ever; and then she would abruptly change the subject. My intense curiosity, my still more intense anxiety to hear about them, seemed to give her the idea, that, though my pride had been wounded, I still cared for him. Indeed so much of my future peace of mind turned upon the direction which his feelings would take, that my manner was probably well calculated to give this impression. In despair of overcoming it, unable to speak out, too proud to repeat what I saw she did not believe, I shut myself up in that resolute silence, in that systematic reserve, which had now become habitual to me; but I looked forward to our journey to London with nervous anxiety, and saw the time for its approach with a mixture of hope and fear.

CHAPTER IX.

"Dans le sein du bonheur que son ame desire, Pres d'an amant qu'elle aime et qui brule a ses pieds, Ses yeux remplis d'amour, de larmes sont noyes."

"Vous me desesperez; Vous m'etes cher sans doute, et ma tendresse extreme Est le comble des maux pour ce coeur qui vous aime."

"O ciel! expliquez-vous, quoi toujours me troubler, Se peut-il?" "Dieu puissant, que ne puis-je parler?"

About three weeks before the 1st of March, which was the day fixed upon for our removal to town, I had been taking a long ride, and came home at about four o'clock. My habit was wet and heavy, and I walked with difficulty across the hall, up-stairs, and along the pa.s.sage which led to my room. As I was pa.s.sing before the door of what was called the south bed-room, my eyes suddenly fell on two trunks covered with mud, and on the bra.s.s plates of which was stamped the name of "Edward Middleton, Esq." At the same moment the door opened, and he stood before me. I felt myself turning as white as a sheet, and was obliged to lean against the wall to prevent myself from falling. He seized my hand, and said, with apparent cordiality, "How are you, Ellen?"

I do not know what I said to him; there was a mist before my eyes, a murmur in my ears, and a feeling about my heart that I was strangely happy, though dreadfully frightened. Soon I was alone in my room, with my feet on the fender, and my eyes fixed on the burning embers, and repeating to myself over and over again, "How are you, Ellen?" and then I remembered that he knew _all_, that he had seen _all_, that he had left Elmsley because he could not bear to stay, knowing all he did, and I trembled; and hiding my face in my hands, I cried as if my heart would break. Then a new thought came to me, and brought an extraordinary peace with it. I would tell him everything, and he should decide what I ought to do; his decision should be law to me; I would submit to it humbly, and obediently, although it might be that I was never to see again any of those whom I loved, and spend my future life in loneliness and penance.

The dressing-bell rang; my maid came in with a muslin gown on her arm, and some camellias in her hand, and there was again a flutter at my heart, as if dressing and going down-stairs and dining, had been as different things yesterday from what they were to-day, as the tamest prose is from the most exciting poetry.