"Thank G.o.d!" murmured Oaklands, and sinking into a chair, the strong man, overcome by this sudden revulsion of feeling, buried his face in his hands and wept like a child. There is no sight so affecting as that of manhood's tears. It seems natural for a woman's feelings to find vent in weeping; and though all our sympathies are enlisted in her behalf, we deem it an April shower, which we hope to see ere long give place to the sunshine of a smile; but tears are foreign to the sterner nature of man, and any emotion powerful enough to call them forth indicates a depth and intensity of feeling which, like the sirocco of the desert, carries all before it in its resistless fury. f.a.n.n.y must have been more than woman if she could have remained an unmoved spectator of Harry Oaklands'

agitation.

Apparently relinquishing her intention of quitting the room, she stood with her hands clasped, regarding him with a look of mixed interest and alarm; but as his broad chest rose and fell, convulsed by the sobs he in vain endeavoured to repress, she drew nearer to him, exclaiming:--

"Mr. Oaklands, are you ill? Shall I ring for a gla.s.s of water?" Then, finding he was unable to answer her, completely overcome, she continued, "Oh! what is all this? what have I said? what have I done? Harry, speak to me; tell me, are you angry with me?" and laying her hand gently on his shoulder, she gazed up in his face with a look of the most piteous entreaty.

-375-- Her light touch seemed to recall him to himself, and uncovering his face, he made a strong effort to regain composure, which, after a moment or two, appeared attended with success; and taking her hand between his own, he said, with a faint smile:--

"I have frightened you--have I not? The last time I shed tears was at my mother's funeral, and I had never thought to weep again; but what pain of body and anguish of mind were powerless to accomplish, joy has effected in an instant. This must all seem very strange to you, dear f.a.n.n.y; even I myself am surprised at the depth and vehemence of my own feelings; but if you knew the agony of mind I have undergone since the night of that hateful charade--f.a.n.n.y, did it never occur to you that I loved you with a love different to that of a brother?"

As she made no reply, merely turning away her head, while a blush, faint as the earliest glance of young-eyed Morning, mantled on her cheek, he continued, "Yes, f.a.n.n.y, I have known and loved you from childhood, and your affection has become, unconsciously as it were, one of the strongest ties that render life dear to me; still I frankly confess, that till the idea of your loving another occurred to me, I was blind to the nature of my own affection. To be with you, to see and talk to you daily, to cultivate your talents, to lead you to admire the beauties that 1 admire, to take interest in the pursuits which interested me, was happiness enough--I wished for nothing more. Then came that business of the duel, and the affectionate kindness with which you forestalled my every wish; the delicate tenderness and ready tact which enabled you to be more than a daughter--a guardian angel--to my father, in the days of his heavy sorrow--sorrow which my ungoverned pa.s.sions had brought upon his grey head--all these things endeared you to me still more. Next followed a period of estrangement and separation, during which, as I now see, an undefined craving for your society preyed upon my spirits, and, as I verily believe, r.e.t.a.r.ded my recovery. Hence, the moment I felt the slightest symptoms of returning health, my determination to revisit Heathfield. When we again met, I fancied you were ill and out of spirits."

"It was no fancy," murmured f.a.n.n.y in a low voice, as though thinking aloud.

"Indeed!" questioned Harry; "and will you not tell me the cause?"

"Presently; I did not mean to speak--to interrupt you."

-376-- "My sole wish and occupation," he continued, "was to endeavour to interest and amuse you, and to restore your cheerfulness, which I believed the anxiety and fatigue occasioned by my illness to have banished; and I nattered myself I was in some degree succeeding, when Lawless's arrival and his openly professed admiration of you seemed to change the whole current of my thoughts--nay, my very nature itself. I became sullen and morose; and the feeling of dislike with which I beheld Lawless's attentions to you gradually strengthened to a deep and settled hatred; it was only by exercising the most unceasing watchfulness and self-control that I refrained from quarrelling with him; but so engrossed was I by the painful interest I felt in all that was pa.s.sing around me, that I never gave myself time to a.n.a.lyse my feelings; and it was not until the night of the charade that I became fully aware of their true character; it was not till then I learned that happiness could not exist for me unless you shared it. Conceive my wretchedness when, at the very moment in which this conviction first dawned upon me, I saw from Lawless's manner that in his attentions to you he was evidently in earnest, and that, as far as I could judge, you were disposed to receive those attentions favourably. My mind was instantly made up; I only waited till events should prove whether my suspicions were correct, and in case of their turning out so, feeling utterly unfit to endure the sight of Lawless's happiness, determined immediately to start for the Continent. Prank, who taxing me with my wretched looks, elicited from me an avowal of the truth, told me Lawless was about to make you an offer; Coleman (probably in jest, but it chimed in too well with my own fears for me to dream of doubting him) that it had been accepted. The rest you know. And now, f.a.n.n.y," he continued, his voice again trembling from the excess of his anxiety, "if you feel that you can never bring yourself to look upon me in any other light than as a brother, I will adhere to my determination of leaving England, and trust to time to reconcile me to my fate; but if, by waiting months, nay years, I may hope one day to call you my own, gladly will I do so--gladly will I submit to any conditions you may impose. My happiness is in your hands. Tell me, dear f.a.n.n.y, must I go abroad to-morrow?"

And what do you suppose she told him, reader? That he must go? Miss Martineau would have highly approved of her doing so; so would the late Poor-law Commissioners, and so would many a modern Draco, who, with -377-- the life-blood that should have gone to warm his own stony heart, scribbles a code to crush the kindly affections and genial home-sympathies of his fellow-men. But f.a.n.n.y was no female philosopher; she was only a pure, true-hearted, trustful, loving woman; and so she gave him to understand that he need not set out on his travels, thereby losing a fine opportunity of "regenerating society," and vindicating the dignity of her s.e.x. And this was not all she told him either; for, having by his generous frankness won her confidence, he succeeded in gaining from her the secret of her heart--a secret which, an hour before, she would have braved death in its most horrible form rather than reveal. And then her happy lover learned how her affection for him, springing up in the pleasant days of childhood, had grown with her growth, and strengthened with her strength; until it became a deep and all-absorbing pa.s.sion--the great reality of her spirit-life; for love such as hers, outstripping the bounds of time, links itself even with our hopes beyond the grave;--how, when he lay stretched upon the bed of suffering, oscillating between life and death, the bitter anguish that the thought of separation occasioned her, enlightened her as to the true nature of her feelings; how, as his recovery progressed, to watch over him, and minister to his comfort, was happiness beyond expression to her;--how, when he left the cottage, everything seemed changed and dark, and a gulf appeared to have interposed between them, which she deemed impa.s.sable;--how, in the struggle to conceal, and, if possible, conquer her attachment, she studiously avoided all intercourse with him, and how the struggle ended in the loss of health and spirits;--how, during his absence, she felt it a duty still to bear up against these feelings of despair, and to endure her sad lot with patient resignation, and succeeded in some degree, till his return once again rendered all her efforts fruitless;--and how she then avoided him more studiously than before, although she saw, and sorrowed over the evident pain her altered manner caused him;--how, always fearing lest he should question her as to her changed behaviour, and by word or sign she should betray the deep interest she felt in him, she had gladly availed herself of Lawless's attentions as a means of avoiding Harry's kind attempts to amuse and occupy her--attempts which, at the very moment she was wounding him by rejecting them, only rendered him yet dearer to her;--and how she had gone on, thinking only of Harry and herself, until Lawless's offer had brought her unhappiness to a climax, by adding self-reproach to -378-- her other sources of unhappiness. All this, and much more, did she relate; for if her coral lips did not frame every syllable, her tell-tale blushes filled up the gaps most eloquently.

And Harry Oaklands?--Well, he did nothing desperate; but after his first transports had subsided into a more deep and tranquil joy, he sat, with her little white hand clasped in his own, and looked into her loving eyes, and for one bright half-hour two of the wanderers in this vale of tears were perfectly and entirely happy.

CHAPTER XLVII -- A CURE FOR THE HEARTACHE

"One woman's fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; n.o.ble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, and an excellent musician."

--_Much Ado About Nothing_.

"YES! they were very happy, f.a.n.n.y and Oaklands, as they revelled in the bright certainty of their mutual love, and entranced by the absorbing contemplation of their new-found happiness, forgot in the sunshine of each other's presence the flight of moments, whilst I, involuntarily contrasting the fair prospect that lay open before them with the dark cloudland of my own gloomy fortunes, had soon traversed in thought the distance to Barstone Priory, and become immersed in fruitless speculations as to what might eventually be the result of Mr. Vernor's sordid and cruel policy. It was now longer than usual since I had heard from Clara; suspense and impatience were rapidly increasing into the most painful anxiety, and I had all but determined, if the next day's post brought no relief, to disobey her injunctions to the contrary, and once again make an attempt to see her. Oh! it is hard to be banished from the presence of those we love--with an ear attuned to the gentle music of some well-remembered voice, to be forced to listen to the cold, unmeaning commonplaces of society--with the heart and mind engrossed by, and centred on, one dear object, to live in a strange, unreal fellowship with those around us, talking, moving, and acting mechanically--feeling, as it -379-- were, but the outward form and shadow of one's self, living two distinct and separate existences, present, indeed, in body, but in the only true vitality--the life of the spirit--utterly and completely absent. From reflections such as these, I was aroused by observing the deepening shades of evening, which were fast merging into night; and collecting my ideas, I remembered that there were many things which must be said and done in consequence of the unexpected turn events had taken.

No human being is so completely isolated that his actions do not in some degree affect others, and in the present instance this was peculiarly the case. Sir John and my mother must be let into the secret, and poor Lawless must learn the unsuccessful termination of his suit. But now, for the first time, the somewhat equivocal situation in which chance had placed me presented itself to my mind, and I felt a degree of embarra.s.sment, almost amounting to shame, at having to make my appearance, and confess that I had been lying _perdu_ during the whole of the preceding scene. Accident, however, stood my friend.

"I wonder where Frank is all this time!" exclaimed Harry, in reply to a remark of f.a.n.n.y's referring to the lateness of the hour: "I want to see him, and tell him of my happiness; I made him almost as miserable as myself this morning; he must be at the Hall, I suppose, but I'm sure your servant told me he was at home."

"She only spoke the truth if she did," said I, entering the drawing-room as coolly as if nothing unusual had occurred.

f.a.n.n.y started up with a slight shriek, and then, glancing at me with a countenance in which smiles and tears were strangely commingled, ran out of the room to hide her confusion, while Harry Oaklands--well, I hardly know what Harry did, but I have some vague idea that he hugged me, for I recollect feeling a degree of oppression on my breath, and an unpleasant sensation in my arms, for the next five minutes.

"So you have heard it all, you villain--have you?" he exclaimed, as soon as his first transports had a little subsided. "O Frank! my dear old fellow, I am so happy! But what a blind idiot I have been!"

"All's well that ends well," replied I, shaking him warmly by the hand; "they say lookers-on see most of the game, but in this case I was as blind as you were; it never for a moment occurred to me that f.a.n.n.y cared for you otherwise than as a sister. Indeed, I have -380-- sometimes been annoyed that she did not, as I considered, properly appreciate you; but I understand it all now, and am only too glad that her pale looks and low spirits can be so satisfactorily accounted for."

"Frank," observed Oaklands gravely, "there is only one thing which casts the slightest shade over my happiness; how are we to break this to Lawless? I can afford to pity him now, poor fellow I I know by my own feelings the pang that hearing of a rival's success will cost him."

"I don't think his feelings are quite as deep and intense as yours, Harry," replied I, smiling involuntarily at my reminiscences of the morning; "but I am afraid he will be terribly cut up about it; he was most unfortunately sanguine: I suppose I had better break it to him."

"Yes, and as soon as possible too," said Oaklands, "for I'm sure my manner will betray my happiness. I am the worst hand in the world at dissimulation. Walk back with me and tell him, and then stay and dine with us."

"Agreed," replied I; "only let me say half a dozen words to my mother; "and, rushing upstairs, I dashed into her room, told her the whole matter on the spot, incoherently, and without the slightest preparation, whereby I set her crying violently, to make up for which I kissed her abruptly (getting very wet in so doing), pulled down the bell-rope in obedience to the dictates of a sudden inspiration that she would be the better for a maid-servant, and left her in one of the most fearful states of confusion on record, flurried into a condition of nerves which set camphor-julep completely at defiance, and rendered trust in sal-volatile a very high act of faith indeed.

While Oaklands and I were walking up to the Hall, we overtook Coleman returning from shooting wild-fowl. As we came up with him, Oaklands seized him by the shoulder, exclaiming:--

"Well, Freddy, what sport, eh?"

"My dear Oaklands," returned he gravely, removing Harry's hand as he spoke, "that is a very bad habit of yours, and one which I advise you to get rid of as soon as possible; n.o.body who had ever endured one of your friendly gripes could say with truth that you hadn't _a vice_ about you."

"For which vile pun it would serve you right to repeat the dose,"

replied Oaklands, "only that I am not in a vindictive mood at present."

"Then you must have pa.s.sed the afternoon in some -381-- very mollifying atmosphere," returned Freddy, "for when I met you three hours ago, you seemed as if you could have cut anybody's throat with the greatest satisfaction."

The conscious half-cough, half-laugh, with which Oaklands acknowledged this sally, attracted Coleman's attention, and mimicking the sound, he continued, "A--ha--hem! and what may that mean? I say, there's some mystery going on here from which I'm excluded--that's not fair, though, you know. Come, be a little more transparent; give me a peep into the hidden recesses of your magnanimous mind; unclasp the richly bound volume of your secret soul; elevate me to the alt.i.tude of the Indian herb, or, in plain slang--Young England's chosen dialect--make me 'up to snuff'."

"May I enlighten him?" asked I.

"Yes, to be sure," replied Oaklands; "I'll go on, for I am anxious to speak to my father. Freddy, old boy! shake hands; I'm the happiest fellow in existence!" so saying, he seized and wrung Coleman's hand with a heartiness which elicited sundry grotesque contortions, indicative of agony, from that individual, and, bounding forward, was soon lost to sight in the deepening twilight.

"And so, you see," continued I, after having imparted to Coleman as much as I considered necessary of the state of affairs, a confidence which he received with mingled exclamations of surprise and delight--"and so, you see, we've not only got to tell Lawless that he is refused, poor fellow I but that f.a.n.n.y has accepted Oaklands; very awkward, isn't it?"

"It would be with anybody else," replied Coleman; "but I think there are ways and means of managing the thing which will prevent any very desperate consequences in the present instance; sundry ideas occur to me; would you mind my being in the room when you tell him?"

"As far as I am concerned, I should be only too glad to have you,"

returned I, "if you do not think it would annoy him."

"I'm not afraid of that," was the rejoinder; "as I wrote the offer for him, it strikes me I'm the very person he ought to select for his confidant."

"Do you think," he added, after a moment's thought, "Harry would sell those phaeton horses?"

"That's the line of argument you intend to bring forward by way of consolation, is it? Well, it is not such a bad notion," replied I; "but don't be too sure of success, '_Equo ne credite Tueri_': I doubt its being in the power -382-- of horse-flesh to carry such a weight of disappointment as I fear this news will occasion him."

"Well, I've other schemes to fall back upon if this should fail,"

returned Freddy; "and now let us get on, for the sooner we put him out of his misery the better."

"Where's the master?" inquired I, encountering Shrimp as we crossed the hall.

"He's upstairs, sir; in his own room, sir; a-going it like bricks, if you please, sir; you can hear him down here, Gents."

"Stop a minute--listen!" said Coleman; "I can hear him now."

As he spoke, the sound of some one running quickly in the room overhead was distinctly audible; then came a scuffling noise, and then a heavyish fall.

"What's he doing?" asked Coleman.

"He's a-trainin' of hisself for some match as must be a-coming off, sir; leastways so I take it; he's been a-going on like that for the last hour and a quarter, and wery well he's lasted out, I say; he'll be safe to win, don't you think, Gents?"