Though Mrs. Chump and Wilfrid, as they stood by the light of the lamp, saw no one, they themselves were seen. Lady Charlotte had arranged to give him a moment in advance to make his peace. She had settled it with that air of practical sense which her title made graceful to him. “I will follow; and I dare say I can complete what you leave unfinished,” she said. Her humorous sense of the aristocratic prestige was conveyed to him in a very taking smile. He scarcely understood why she should have planned so decisively to bring about a reconciliation between Mrs. Chump and his family; still, as it now chimed perfectly with his own views and wishes, he acquiesced in her scheme, giving her at the same time credit for more than common wisdom.
While Lady Charlotte lingered on the beach, she became aware of a figure that hung about her; as she was moving away, a voice of one she knew well enough asked to be directed to the house inhabited by Mrs. Chump. The lady was more startled than it pleased her to admit to herself.
“Don't you know me?” she said, bluntly.
“You!” went Emilia's voice.
“Why on earth are you here? What brings you here? Are you alone?” returned the lady.
Emilia did not answer.
“What extraordinary expedition are you making? But, tell me one thing: are you here of your own accord, or at somebody else's bidding?”
Impatient at the prospect of a continuation of silences, Lady Charlotte added, “Come with me.”
Emilia seemed to be refusing.
“The appointment was made at that house, I know,” said the lady; “but if you come with me, you will see him just as readily.”
At this instant, the lamp was placed on the pillar, showing Wilfrid, in his sailor's hat and overcoat, beside the fluttering Irishwoman.
“Come, I must speak to you first,” said Lady Charlotte hurriedly, thinking that she saw Emilia's hands stretch out. “Pray, don't go into attitudes. There he is, as you perceive; and I don't use witchcraft. Come with me; I will send for him. Haven't you learnt by this time that there's nothing he detests so much as a public display of the kind you're trying to provoke?”
Emilia half comprehended her.
“He changes when he's away from me,” she said, low toneless voice.
“Less than I fancied,” the lady thought.
Then she told Emilia that there was really no necessity for her to whine and be miserable; she was among friends, and so forth. The simplicity of her manner of speech found its way to Emilia's reason quicker than her arguments; and, in the belief that Wilfrid was speaking to Mrs. Chump on urgent private matters (she had great awe of the word 'business'), Emilia suffered herself to be led away. She uttered twice a little exclamation, as she looked back, that sounded exceedingly comical to Lady Charlotte's ears. They were the repressions of a poignant outcry. “Doggies make that noise,” thought the lady, and succeeded in feeling contemptuous.
Wilfrid, when he found that Lady Charlotte was not coming, bestowed a remark upon her sex, and went indoors for his letter. He considered it politic not to read it there, Mrs. Chump having grown so friendly, and even motherly, that she might desire, out of pure affection, to share the contents. He put it by and talked gaily, till Mrs. Chump, partly to account for the defection of the lady, observed that she knew they had a quarrel. She was confirmed in this idea on a note being brought in to him, over which, before opening it, he frowned and flushed. Aware of the treachery of his countenance, he continued doing so after his eyes had taken in the words, though there was no special ground furnished by them for any such exhibition. Mrs. Chump immediately, with a gaze of mightiest tribulation, burst out: “I'll help ye; 'pon my honour, I'll help ye. Oh! the arr'stocracy! Oh, their pride! But if I say, my dear, when I die (which it's so horrud to think of), you'll have a share, and the biggest—this vary cottage, and a good parrt o' the Bank property—she'll come down at that. And if ye marry a lady of title, I'll be 's good as my word, I will.”
Wilfrid pressed her fingers. “Can you ever believe that, I have called you a 'simmering pot of Emerald broth'?”
“My dear! annything that's lots o' words, Ye may call me,” returned Mrs. Chump, “as long as it's no name. Ye won't call me a name, will ye? Lots o' words—it's onnly as if ye peppered me, and I sneeze, and that's all; but a name sticks to yer back like a bit o' pinned paper. Don't call me a name,” and she wriggled pathetically.
“Yes,” said Wilfrid, “I shall call you Pole.”
“Oh! ye sweetest of young fellas!”
Mrs. Chump threw out her arms. She was on the point of kissing him, but he fenced with the open letter; and learning that she might read it, she gave a cry of joy.
“Dear W.!” she begins; and it's twice dear from a lady of title. She's just a multiplication-table for annything she says and touches. “Dear W.!” and the shorter time a single you the better. I'll have my joke, Mr. Wilfrud. “Dear W.!” Bless her heart now! I seem to like her next best to the Queen already.—“I have another plan. Ye'd better keep to the old; but it's two paths, I suppose, to one point.—Another plan. Come to me at the Dolphin, where I am alone. Oh, Lord! 'Alone,' with a line under it, Mr. Wilfrud! But there—the arr'stocracy needn't matter a bit.”
“It's a very singular proceeding not the less,” said Wilfrid. “Why didn't she go to the hotel where the others are, if she wouldn't come here?”
“But the arr'stocracy, Mr. Wilfrud! And alone—alone! d'ye see? which couldn't be among the others; becas of sweet whisperin'. 'Alone,'” Mrs. Chump read on; “'and to-morrow I'll pay my respects to what you call your simmering pot of Emerald broth.' Oh ye hussy! I'd say, if ye weren't a borrn lady. And signs ut all, 'Your faithful Charlotte.' Mr. Wilfrud, I'd give five pounds for this letter if I didn't know ye wouldn't part with it under fifty. And 'deed I am a simmerin' pot; for she'll be a relation, my dear! Go to 'r. I'll have your bed ready for ye here at the end of an hour; and to-morrrow perhaps, if Lady Charlotte can spare me, I'll condescend to see Ad'la.”
Wilfrid fanned her cheek with the note, and then dropped it on her neck and left the room. He was soon hurrying on his way to the Dolphin: midway he stopped. “There may be a bad shot in Bella's letter,” he thought. Shop-lights were ahead: a very luminous chemist sent a green ray into the darkness. Wilfrid fixed himself under it. “Confoundedly appropriate for a man reading that his wife has run away from him!” he muttered, and hard quickly plunged into matter quite as absorbing. When he had finished it he shivered. Thus it ran:
“My beloved brother,
“I bring myself to plain words. Happy those who can trifle with human language! Papa has at last taken us into his confidence. He has not spoken distinctly; he did us the credit to see that it was not necessary. If in our abyss of grief we loss delicacy, what is left?—what!
“The step he desired to take, Which We Opposed, he has anticipated, And Must Consummate.
“Oh, Wilfrid! you see it, do you not? You comprehend me I am surf! I should have said 'had anticipated.' How to convey to you! (but it would be unjust to him—to ourselves—were I to say emphatically what I have not yet a right to think). What I have hinted above is, after all; nothing but Cornelia's conjecture, I wish I could not say confirmed by mine. We sat with Papa two hours before any idea of his meaning dawned upon us. He first scolded us. We both saw from this that more was to come.
“I hope there are not many in this world to whom the thought of honour being tied to money ever appears possible. If it is so there is wide suffering—deep, for it, must be silent. Cornelia suggests one comfort for them that they will think less of poverty.
“Why was Brookfield ever bought? Our old peaceful City-life—the vacant Sundays!—my ears are haunted by their bells for Evening Service. I said 'There they go, the dowdy population of heaven!' I remember it now. It should be almost punishment enough to be certain that of all those people going to church, there cannot be one more miserable than we who stood at the old window ridiculing them. They at least do not feel that everything they hope for in human life is dependent upon one human will—the will of a mortal weather-vane! It is the case, and it must be conciliated. There is no half-measure—no choice. Feel that nothing you have ever dreamed of can be a disgrace if it is undergone to forestall what positively impends, and act immediately. I shall expect to see you in three days. She is to have the South-west bedroom (mine), for which she expressed a preference. Prepare every mind for the ceremony:—an old man's infatuation—money—we submit. It will take place in town. To have the Tinleys in the church! But this is certainly my experience, that misfortune makes me feel more and more superior to those whom I despise. I have even asked myself—was I so once? And, Apropos of Laura! We hear that their evenings are occupied in performing the scene at Besworth. They are still as distant as ever from Richford. Let me add that Albert Tinley requested my hand in marriage yesterday. I agree with Cornelia that this is the first palpable sign that we have sunk. Consequent upon the natural consequences came the interview with Papa.
“Dearest, dearest Wilfrid! can you, can I, can any one of us settle—that is, involve another life in doubt while doubt exists? Papa insists; his argument is, 'Now, now, and no delay.' I accuse nothing but his love. Excessive love is perilous for principle!
“You have understood me, I know, and forgiven me for writing so nakedly. I dare not reperuse it. You must satisfy him that Lady C. has fixed a date. Adela is incomprehensible. One day she sees a friend in Lady C., and again it is an enemy. Papa's immediate state of health is not alarming. Above all things, do not let the girl come near him. Papa will send the cheque you required.”
“When?” Wilfrid burst out upon Arabella's affectionate signature. “When will he send it? He doesn't do me the honour to mention the time. And this is his reply to a third application!”
The truth was that Wilfrid was in dire want of tangible cash simply to provision his yacht. The light kindled in him by this unsatisfied need made him keen to comprehend all that Arabella's attempt at plain writing designed to unfold.
“Good God, my father's the woman's trustee!” shaped itself in Wilfrid's brain.
And next: “If he marries her we may all be as poor as before.” That is to say, “Honour may be saved without ruin being averted.”
His immediate pressing necessity struck like a pulse through all the chords of dismal conjecture. His heart flying about for comfort, dropped at Emilia's feet.
“Bella's right,” he said, reverting to the green page in his hand; “we can't involve others in our scrape, whatever it may be.”
He ceased on the spot to be at war with himself, as he had been for many a day; by which he was taught to imagine that he had achieved a mental indifference to misfortune. This lightened his spirit considerably. “So there's an end of that,” he emphasized, as the resolve took form to tell Lady Charlotte flatly that his father was ruined, and that the son, therefore, renounced his particular hope and aspiration.
“She will say, in the most matter-of-fact way in the world, 'Oh, very well, that quite alters the case,'” said Wilfrid aloud, with the smallest infusion of bitterness. Then he murmured, “Poor old governor!” and wondered whether Emilia would come to this place according to his desire. Love, that had lain crushed in him for the few recent days, sprang up and gave him the thought, “She may be here now;” but, his eyes not being satiated instantly with a sight of her, the possibility of such happiness faded out.
“Blessed little woman!” he cried openly, ashamed to translate in tenderer terms the soft fresh blossom of love that his fancy conjured forth at the recollection of her. He pictured to himself hopefully, moreover, that she would be shy when they met. A contradictory vision of her eyes lifted hungry for his first words, or the pressure of his arm displeased him slightly. It occurred to him that they would be characterized as a singular couple. To combat this he drew around him all the mysteries of sentiment that had issued from her voice and her eyes. She had made Earth lovely to him and heaven human. She—what a grief for ever that her origin should be what it was! For this reason:—lovers must live like ordinary people outwardly; and say, ye Fates, how had she been educated to direct a gentlemen's household?
“I can't exist on potatoes,” he pronounced humorously.
But when his thoughts began to dwell with fitting seriousness on the woman-of-the-world tone to be expected from Lady Charlotte, he folded the mental image of Emilia closely to his breast, and framed a misty idea of a little lighted cottage wherein she sat singing to herself while he was campaigning. “Two or three fellows—Lumley and Fredericks—shall see her,” he thought. The rest of his brother officers were not even to know that he was married.
His yacht was lying in a strip of moonlight near Sir Twickenham's companion yawl. He gave one glance at it as at a history finished, and sent up his name to Lady Charlotte.
“Ah! you haven't brought the good old dame with you?” she said, rising to meet him. “I thought it better not to see her to-night.”
He acquiesced, mentioning the lateness of the hour, and adding, “You are alone?”
She stared, and let fall “Certainly,” and then laughed. “I had forgotten your regard for the proprieties. I have just sent my maid for Georgiana; she will sleep here. I preferred to come here, because those people at the hotel tire me; and, besides, I said I should sleep at the villa, and I never go back to people who don't expect me.”
Wilfrid looked about the room perplexed, and almost suspicious because of his unexplained perplexity. Her (as he deemed it—not much above the level of Mrs. Chump in that respect) aristocratic indifference to opinion and conventional social observances would have pleased him by daylight, but it fretted him now.
Lady Charlotte's maid came in to say that Miss Ford would join her. The maid was dismissed to her bed. “There's nothing to do there,” said her mistress, as she was moving to the folding-doors. The window facing seaward was open. He went straight to it and closed it. Next, in an apparent distraction, he went to the folding-doors. He was about to press the handle, when Lady Charlotte's quiet remark, “My bedroom,” brought him back to his seat, crying pardon.
“Have you had news?” she inquired. “You thought that a letter might be there. Bad, is it?”
“It is not good,” he replied, briefly.
“I am sorry.”
“That is—it tells me—” (Wilfrid disciplined his tongue) “that I—we are—a lieutenant on half-pay may say that he is ruined, I suppose, when his other supplies are cut off!...”
“I can excuse him for thinking it,” said Lady Charlotte. She exhibited no sign of eagerness for his statement of facts.
Her outward composure and a hard animation of countenance (which, having ceased the talking within himself, he had now leisure to notice) humiliated him. The sting helped him to progress.
“I may try to doubt it as much as I please, to avoid seeing what must follow.... I may shut my eyes in the dark, but when the light stares me in the face...I give you my word that I have not been justified even in imagining such a catastrophe.”
“The preamble is awful,” said Lady Charlotte, rising from her recumbent posture.
“Pardon me; I have no right to intrude my feelings. I learn to-day, for the first time, that we are—are ruined.”
She did not lift her eyebrows, or look fixedly; but without any change at all, said, “Is there no doubt about it?”
“None whatever.” This was given emphatically. Resentment at the perfect realization of her anticipated worldly indifference lent him force.
“Ruined?” she said.
“Yes.”
“You I'll be more so than you were a month ago. I mean, you tell me nothing new, I have known it.”
Amid the crush and hurry in his brain, caused by this strange communication, pressed the necessity to vindicate his honour.
“I give you the word of a gentleman, Lady Charlotte, that I came to you the first moment it has been made known to me. I never suspected it before this day.”
“Nothing would prompt me to disbelieve that.” She reached him her hand.
“You have known it!” he broke from a short silence.
“Yes—never mind how. I could not allude to it. Of course I had to wait till you took the initiative.”
The impulse to think the best of what we are on the point of renouncing is spontaneous. If at the same time this object shall exhibit itself in altogether new, undreamt-of, glorious colours, others besides a sentimentalist might waver, and be in some danger of clutching it a little tenderly ere it is cast off.
“My duty was to tell you the very instant it came to my knowledge,” he said, fascinated in his heart by the display of greatness of mind which he now half divined to be approaching, and wished to avoid.
“Well, I suppose that is a duty between friends?” said she.
“Between friends! Shall we still—always be friends?”
“I think I have said more than once that it won't be my fault if we are not.”
“Because, the greater and happier ambition to which I aspired...” This was what he designed to say, sentimentally propelled, by way of graceful exit, and what was almost printed on a scroll in his head for the tongue to read off fluently. He stopped at 'the greater,' beginning to stumble—to flounder; and fearing that he said less than was due as a compliment to the occasion, he said more.
By no means a quick reader of character, Lady Charlotte nevertheless perceived that the man who spoke in this fashion, after what she had confessed, must be sentimentally, if not actually, playing double.
Thus she came to his assistance: “Are you begging permission to break our engagement?”
“At least, whatever I do get I must beg for now!” He took refuge adroitly in a foolish reply, and it served him. That he had in all probability lost his chance by the method he had adopted, and by sentimentalizing at the wrong moment, was becoming evident, notwithstanding. In a sort of despair he attempted comfort by critically examining her features, and trying to suit them to one or other of the numerous models of Love that a young man carries about with him. Her eyes met his, and even as he was deciding against her on almost every point, the force of their frankness held his judgement in suspense.
“The world is rather harsh upon women in these cases,” she said, turning her head a lithe, with a conscious droop of the eyelids. “I will act as if we had an equal burden between us. On my side, what you have to tell me does not alter me. I have known it.... You see that I am just the same to you. For your part, you are free, if you please. That is fair dealing, is it not?”
The gentleman's mechanical assent provoked the lady's smile.
But Wilfrid was torn between a profound admiration of her and the galling reflection that until she had named the engagement, none had virtually existed which diplomacy, aided by time and accident, might not have stopped.
“You must be aware that I am portionless,” she continued. “I have—let me name the sum—a thousand pounds. It is some credit to me that I have had it five years and not spent it. Some men would think that a quality worth double the amount. Well, you will make up your mind to my bringing you no money;—I have a few jewels. En revanche, my habits are not expensive. I like a horse, but I can do without one. I like a large house, and can live in a small one. I like a French cook, and can dine comfortably off a single dish. Society is very much to my taste; I shall indulge it when I am whipped at home.”
Wilfrid took her hand and pressed his lips to the fingers, keeping his face ponderingly down. He was again so divided that the effort to find himself absorbed all his thinking faculties.
At last he muttered: “A lieutenant's pay!”—expecting her to reply, “We can wait,” as girls do that find it pleasant to be adored by curates, Then might follow a meditative pause—a short gaze at her, from which she could have the option of reflecting that to wait is not the privilege of those who have lived to acquire patience. The track he marked out was clever in a poor way; perhaps it was not positively unkind to instigate her to look at her age: but though he read character shrewdly, and knew hers pretty accurately, he was himself too much of a straw at the moment to be capable of leading-moves.
“We can make up our minds, without great difficulty, to regard the lieutenant's pay as nothing at all,” was Lady Charlotte's answer. “You will enter the Diplomatic Service. My interest alone could do that. If we are married, there would be plenty to see the necessity for pushing us. I don't know whether you could keep the lieutenancy; you might. I should not like you to quit the Army: an opening might come in it. There's the Indian Staff—the Persian Mission: they like soldiers for those Eastern posts. But we must take what we can get. We should, anyhow, live abroad, where in the matter of money society is more sensible. We should be able to choose our own, and advertize tea, brioche, and conversation in return for the delicacies of the season.”
“But you, Charlotte—you could never live that life!” Wilfrid broke in, the contemplation of her plain sincerity diminishing him to himself. “It would drag you down too horribly!”
“Remorse at giving tea in return for dinners and balls?”
“Ah! there are other things to consider.”
She blushed unwontedly.
Something, lighted by the blush, struck him as very feminine and noble.
“Then I may flatter myself that you love me?” he whispered.
“Do you not see?” she rejoined. “My project is nothing but a whim—a whim.”
The divided man saw himself whole, if not happy in the ranks of Diplomacy, with a resolute, frank, faithful woman (a lady of title) loving him, to back him. Fortune shone ahead, and on the road he saw where his deficiencies would be filled up by her. She was firm and open—he irresolute and self-involved. Animal courage both possessed. Their differences were so extreme that they met where they differed. It struck him specially now that she would be like Day to his spirit in continued intercourse. Young as he was he had wisdom to know the right meaning of the word “helpmate.” It was as if the head had dealt the heart a blow, saying, “See here the lady thou art to serve.” But the heart was a surly rebel. Lady Charlotte was fully justified in retorting upon his last question: “I think I also should ask, do you love me? It is not absolutely imperative for the occasion or for the catastrophe, I merely ask for what is called information.”
And yet, despite her flippancy, which was partly designed to relieve his embarrassment, her hand was moist and her eyes were singularly watchful.
“You who sneer at love!” He gave a musical murmur.
“Not at all. I think it a very useful part of the capital to begin the married business upon.”
“You unsay your own words.”
“Not 'absolutely imperative,' I think I said, if I remember rightly.”
“But I take the other view, Charlotte.”
“You imagine that there must be a little bit of love.”
“There should be no marriage without it.”
“On both sides?”
“At least, if not on both sides, one should bring such a love.”
“Enough for two! So, then, we are not to examine your basket?”
Touched by the pretty thing herein implied, he squeezed her hand.
“This is the answer?” said she.
“Can you doubt me?”
She rose from her seat. “Oh! if you talk in that style, I really am tempted to say that I do. Are there men—women and women—men? My dear Wilfrid, have we changed parts to-night?”
His quickness in retrieving a false position, outwardly, came to his aid. He rose likewise, and, while perfecting the minor details of an easy attitude against the mantelpiece, said: “I am so constituted, Charlotte, that I can't talk of my feelings in a business tone; and I avoid that subject unless... You spoke of a basket just now. Well, I confess I can't bring mine into the market and bawl out that I have so many pounds' weight of the required material. Would a man go to the market at all if he had nothing to dispose of? In plain words—since my fault appears to be, according to your reading, in the opposite direction—should I be here if my sentiments could not reply eloquently to your question?”
This very common masterpiece of cunning from a man in a corner, which suggests with so persuasive an air that he has ruled his actions up to the very moment when he faces you, and had almost preconceived the present occasion, rather won Lady Charlotte; or it seemed to, or the scene had been too long for her vigilance.
“In the affirmative?” she whispered, coming nearer to him.
She knew that she had only to let her right shoulder slip under his left arm, and he would very soon proclaim himself her lover as ardently as might be wished. Why did she hesitate to touch the blood of the man? It was her fate never to have her great heart read aright. Wilfrid could not know that generosity rather than iciness restrained her from yielding that one unknown kiss which would have given the final spring to passion in his breast. He wanted the justification of his senses, and to run headlong blindly. Had she nothing of a woman's instinct?
“In the affirmative!” was his serene reply.
“That means 'Yes.'” Her tone had become pleasantly soft.
“Yes, that means 'Yes,'” said he.
She shut her eyes, murmuring, “How happy are those who hear that they are loved!” and opening them, all her face being red, “Say it!” she pleaded. Her fingers fell upon his wrist. “I have this weakness, Wilfrid; I wish to hear you say it.”
The flush of her face, and tremour of her fingers, told of an unimagined agitation hardly to be believed, though seen and felt. Yet, still some sign, some shade of a repulsion in her figure, kept him as far from her as any rigid rival might have stipulated for.
The interrogation to the attentive heavens was partially framed in his mind, “How can I tell this woman I love her, without...” without putting his arm about her waist, and demonstrating it satisfactorily to himself as well as to her? In other words, not so framed, “How, without that frenzy which shall make me forget whether it be so or not?”
He remained in his attitude, incapable of moving or speaking, but fancying, that possibly he was again to catch a glimpse of the vanished mountain nymph, sweet Liberty. Her woman's instinct warmed more and more, until, if she did not quite apprehend his condition, she at least understood that the pause was one preliminary to a man's feeling himself a fool.
“Dear Wilfrid,” she whispered, “you think you are doubted. I want to be certain that you think you have met the right woman to help you, in me.”
He passed through the loophole here indicated, and breathed.
“Yes, Charlotte, I am sure of that. If I could be only half as worthy! You are full of courage and unselfishness, and, I could swear, faithful as steel.”
“Thank you—not dogs,” she laughed. “I like steel. I hope to be a good sword in your hand, my knight—or shield, or whatever purpose you put me to.”
She went on smiling, and seeming to draw closer to him and throw down defences.
“After all, Wilfrid, the task of loving your good piece of steel won't be less thoroughly accomplished because you find it difficult. Sir, I do not admit any protestation. Handsome faces, musical voices, sly manners, and methods that I choose not to employ, make the business easy to men.”
“Who discover that the lady is not steel,” said Wilfrid. “Need she, in any case, wear so much there?”
He pointed, flittingly as it were, with his little finger to the slope of her neck.
She turned her wrist, touching the spot: “Here? You have seen, then, that it is something worn?”
There followed a delicious interplay of eyes. Who would have thought that hers could be sweet and mean so much?
“It is something worn, then? And thrown aside for me only, Charlotte?”
“For him who loves me,” she said.
“For me!”
“For him who loves me,” she repeated.
“Then it is for me!”
She had moved back, showing a harder figure, or the “I love you, love you!” would have sounded with force. It came, though not so vehemently as might have been, to the appeal of a soft fixed look.
“Yes, I love you, Charlotte; you know that I do.”
“You love me?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I love you! Dead, inanimate Charlotte, I love you!”
She threw out her hand as one would throw a bone to a dog.
“My living, breathing, noble Charlotte,” he cried, a little bewitched, “I love you with all my heart!”
It surprised him that her features should be gradually expressing less delight.
“With all your heart?”
“Could I give you a part?”
“It is done, sometimes,” she said, mock-sadly. Then, in her original voice: “Good. I never credited that story of you and the girl Emilia. I suppose what people say is a lie?”
Her eyes, in perfect accordance with the tone she had adopted, set a quiet watch on him.
“Who says it?” he thundered, just as she anticipated.
“It's not true?”
“Not true!—how can it be true?”
“You never loved Emilia Belloni?—don't love her now?—do not love her now? If you have ever said that you love Emilia Belloni, recant, and you are forgiven; and then go, for I think I hear Georgiana below. Quick! I am not acting. It's earnest. The word, if you please, as you are a gentleman. Tell me, because I have heard tales. I have been perplexed about you. I am sure you're a manly fellow, who would never have played tricks with a girl you were bound to protect; but you might have—pardon the slang—spooned,—who knows? You might have been in love with her downright. No harm, even if a trifle foolish; but in the present case, set my mind at rest. Quick! There are both my hands. Take them, press them, and speak.”
The two hands were taken, but his voice was not so much at command. No image of Emilia rose in his mind to reproach him with the casting over of his heart's dear mistress, but a blind struggle went on. It seemed that he could do what he dared not utter. The folly of lips more loyal than the spirit touched his lively perception; and as the hot inward struggle, masked behind his softly-playing eyes, had reduced his personal consciousness so that if he spoke from his feeling there was a chance of his figuring feebly, he put on his ever-ready other self:—
“Categorically I reply: Have I loved Miss Emilia Belloni?—No. Do I?—No. Do I love Charlotte Chillingworth?—Yes, ten thousand times! And now let Britomart disarm.”
He sought to get his reward by gentle muscular persuasion. Her arms alone yielded: and he judged from the angle of the neck, ultra-sharp though it was, that her averted face might be her form of exhibiting maidenly reluctance, feminine modesty. Suddenly the fingers in his grasp twisted, and not being at once released, she turned round to him.
“For God's sake, spare the girl!”
Emilia stood in the doorway.
A knock at Merthyr's chamber called him out while he sat writing to Marini on the national business. He heard Georgiana's voice begging him to come to her quickly. When he saw her face the stain of tears was there.
“Anything the matter with Charlotte?” was his first question.
“No. But, come: I will tell you on the way. Do not look at me.”
“No personal matter of any kind?”
“Oh, no! I can have none;” and she took his hand for a moment.
They passed into the dark windy street smelling of the sea.
“Emilia is here,” said Georgiana. “I want you to persuade her—you will have influence with her. Oh, Merthyr! my darling brother! I thank God I love my brother with all my love! What a dreadful thing it is for a woman to love a man:”
“I suppose it is, while she has nothing else to do,” said Merthyr. “How did she come?—why?”
“If you had seen Emilia to-night, you would have felt that the difference is absolute.” Georgiana dealt first with the general case, “she came, I think, by some appointment.”
“Also just as absolute between her and her sex,” he rejoined, controlling himself, not to be less cool. “What has happened?”
Georgiana pointed to the hotel whither their steps were bent. “That is where Charlotte sleeps. Her going there was not a freak; she had an object. She wished to cure Emilia of her love for Mr. Wilfrid Pole. Emilia had come down to see him. Charlotte put her in an adjoining room to hear him say—what I presume they do say when the fit is on them! Was it not singular folly?”
It was a folly that Merthyr could not understand in his friend Charlotte. He said so, and then he gave a kindly sad exclamation of Emilia's name.
“You do pity her still!” cried Georgiana, her heart leaping to hear it expressed so simply.
“Why, what other feeling can I have?” said he unsuspiciously.
“No, dear Merthyr,” she replied; and only by her tone he read the guilty little rejoicing in her heart, marvelling at jealousy that could twist so straight a stem as his sister's spirit. This had taught her, who knew nothing of love, that a man loving does not pity in such a case.
“I hope you will find her here:” Georgiana hurried her steps. “Say anything to comfort her. I will have her with me, and try and teach her what self-control means, and how it is to be won. If ever she can act on the stage as she spoke to-night, she will be a great dramatic genius. She was transformed. She uses strange forcible expressions that one does not hear in every-day life. She crushed Charlotte as if she had taken her up in one hand, and without any display at all: no gesture, or spasm. I noticed, as they stood together, that there is such a contrast between animal courage and imaginative fire.”
“Charlotte could meet a great occasion, I should think,” said Merthyr; and, taking his sister by the elbow: “You speak as if you had observed very coolly. Did Emilia leave you so cold? Did she seem to speak from head, not from heart?”
“No; she moved me—poor child! Only, how humiliating to hear her beg for love!—before us.”
Merthyr smiled: “I thought it must be the woman's feeling that would interfere to stop a natural emotion. Is it true—or did I not see that certain eyes were red just now?”
“That was for him,” said Georgiana, hastily. “I am sure that no man has stood in such a position as he did. To see a man made publicly ashamed, and bearing it. I have never had to endure so painful a sight.”
“To stand between two women, claimed by both, like Solomon's babe! A man might as well at once have Solomon's judgement put into execution upon him. You wept for him! Do you know, Georgey, that charity of your sex, which makes you cry at any 'affecting situation,' must have been designed to compensate to us for the severities of Providence.”
“No, Merthyr;” she arrested his raillery. “Do I ever cry? But I thought—if it had been my brother! and almost at the thought I felt the tears rush at my eyelids, as if the shame had been mine.”
“The probability of its not being your brother seemed distant at the moment,” said Merthyr, with his half-melancholy smile. “Tell me—I can conjure up the scene: but tell me whether you saw more passions than one in her face?”
“Emilia's? No. Her face reminded me of the sombre—that dull glow of a fire that you leave burning in the grate late on winter nights. Was that natural? It struck me that her dramatic instinct was as much alive as her passion.”
“Had she been clumsy, would you not have been less suspicious of her? And if she had only shown the accustomed northern retenue, and merely looked all that she had to say 'preserved her dignity'—our womanly critic would have been completely satisfied.”
“But, Merthyr, to parade her feelings, and then to go on appealing!”
“On the principle that she ought to be ashamed of them, she was wrong.”
“If you had heard her utter abandonment!”
“I can believe that she did not blush.”
“It seems to me to belong to those excesses that prompt—that are in themselves a species of suicide.”
“Love is said to be the death of self.”
“No; but I must use cant words, Merthyr; I do wish to see modesty. Yes, I know I must be right.”
“There is very little of it to be had in a tropical storm.”
“You admit, then, that this sort of love is a storm that passes?”
“It passes, I hope.”
“But where is your defence of her now?”
“Have I defended her? I need not try. A man has deceived her, and she doesn't think it possible; and has said so, I presume. When she sees it, she will be quieter than most. She will not reproach him subsequently. Here is the hotel, and that must be Charlotte's room, if I may judge by the lights. What pranks will she always be playing! We seem to have brought new elements into the little town. Do you remember Bergamo the rainy night the Austrian trooped out of Milan?—one light that was a thousand in the twinkling of an eye!”
Having arrived, he ran hastily up to the room, expecting to find the three; but Lady Charlotte was alone, sitting in her chair with knotted arms. “Ah, Merthyr!” she said, “I'm sorry you should have been disturbed. I perceive what Georgey's leaving the room meant. I suppose the hotel people are used to yachting-parties.” And then, not seeing any friendly demonstration on his part, she folded her arms in another knot. Georgiana asked where Emilia was. Lady Charlotte replied that Emilia had gone, and then Wilfrid had followed her, one minute later, to get her into shelter somewhere. Or put penknives out of her way. “I am rather fatigued with a scene, Merthyr. I never had an idea before of what your Southern women were. One plays decidedly second to them while the fit lasts. Of course, you have a notion that I planned the whole of the absurd business. This is the case:—I found the girl on the beach: she follows him everywhere, which is bad for her reputation, because in this climate people suspect, positive reasons for that kind of female devotedness. So, to put an end to it—really for her own sake, quite as much as anything else—am I a monster of insensibility, Merthyr?—I made her swear an oath: one must be a point above wild animals to feel that to be binding, however! I made her swear to listen and remain there silent till I opened the door to set her at liberty. She consented—gave her word solemnly. I calculated that she might faint, and fixed her in an arm-chair. Was that cruel? Merthyr, you have called me Austrian more than once; but, upon my honour, I wanted her to get over her delusion comfortably. I thought she would have kept the oath, I confess; she looked up like a child when she was making it. You have heard the rest from Georgey. I must say the situation was rather hard on Wilfrid. If he blames me it will be excuseable, though what I did plan was to save him from a situation somewhat worse. So now you know the whole, Merthyr. Commence your lecture. Make me a martyr to the sorrows of Italy once more.”
Merthyr took her wrist, feeling the quick pulse, and dropped it. She was effectually humbled by this direct method of dealing with her secret heart. After some commonplace remarks had passed, she herself urged him to send out men in search for Emilia. Before he went, she murmured a soft “Forgive me.” The pressure of her fingers was replied to, but the words were not spoken.
“There,” she cried to Georgiana, “I have offended the only man for whose esteem I care one particle! Devote yourself to your friends!”
“How? 'devote yourself!'” murmured Georgiana, astonished.
“Do you think I should have got into this hobble if I hadn't wished to serve some one else? You must have seen that Merthyr has a sentimental sort of fondness—call it passion—for this girl. She's his Italy in the flesh. Is there a more civilized man in the world than Merthyr? So he becomes fascinated by a savage. We all play the game of opposites—or like to, and no woman in his class will ever catch him. I couldn't have believed that he was touched by a girl, but for two or three recent indications. You must have noticed that he has given up reading others, and he objected the other day to a responsible office which would have thrown him into her neighbourhood alone. These are unmistakeable signs in Merthyr, though he has never been in love, and doesn't understand his case a bit. Tell me, do you think it impossible?”
Georgiana answered dryly, “You have fallen into a fresh mistake.”
Exactly. Then let me rescue you from a similar fatality, Georgey. If your eyes are bandaged now...”
“Are you going to be devoted to me also, Charlotte?”
“I believe I'm a miracle of devotion,” said the lady, retiring into indifferent topics upon that phrase. She had at any rate partially covered the figure of ridicule presented to her feminine imagination by the aspect of her fair self exposed in public contention with one of her sex—and for a man. It was enough to make her pulse and her brain lively. On second thoughts, too, it had struck her that she might be serving Merthyr in disengaging Emilia; and undoubtedly she served Georgiana by giving her a warning. Through this silliness went the current of a clear mind, nevertheless. The lady's heart was justified in crying out: “What would I not abandon for my friend in his need?” Meantime her battle in her own behalf looked less pleasing by the light of new advantages. The question recurred: “Shall I care to win at all?” She had to force the idea of a violent love to excuse her proceedings. To get up any flame whatsoever, an occasional blast of jealousy had to be called for. Jealousy was a quality she could not admit as possible to her. So she acted on herself by an agent she repudiated, and there was no help for it. Had Wilfrid loved her the woman's heart was ready. It was ready with a trembling tenderness, softer and deeper than a girl's. For Charlotte would have felt: “With this love that I have craved for, you give me life.” And she would have thanked him for both, exultingly, to feel: “I can repay you as no girl could do;” though she had none of the rage of love to give; as it was, she thought conscientiously that she could help him. She liked him: his peculiar suppleness of a growing mind, his shrouded sensibility, in conjunction with his reputation for an evidently quite reliable prompt courage, and the mask he wore, which was to her transparent, pleased her and touched her fancy.
Nor was he so vain of his person as to make him seem like a boy to her. He affected maturity. He could pass a mirror on his right or his left without an abstracted look over either shoulder;—a poor example, but worth something to a judge of young men. Indeed, had she chosen from a crowd, the choice would have been one of his age. She was too set for an older man; but a youth aspiring to be older than he was; whose faults she saw and forgave; whose merits supplied two or three of her own deficiencies; whom her station might help to elevate; to whom she might come as a benefactress; feeling so while she accomplished her own desire;—such a youth was everything to her, as she awoke to discover after having played with him a season. If she lost him, what became of her? Even if she had rejoiced in a mother to plot and play,—to bait and snare for her, her time was slipping, and the choosers among her class were wary. Her spirit, besides, was high and elective. It was gradually stooping to nature, but would never have bowed to a fool, or, save under protest, to one who gave all. On Wilfrid she had fixed her mind: so, therefore, she bore the remembrance of the recent scene without much fretting at her burdens;—the more, that Wilfrid had in no way shamed her; and the more, that the heat of Emilia's love played round him and illumined him. This borrowing of the passion of another is not uncommon.
At daybreak Mrs. Chump was abroad. She had sat up for Wilfrid almost through the night. “Oh! the arr'stocracy!” she breathed exclamations, as she swept along the esplanade. “I'll be killed and murdered if I tell a word.” Meeting Captain Gambier, she fell into a great agitation, and explained it as an anxiety she entertained for Wilfrid; when, becoming entangled in the mesh of questions, she told all she knew, and nearly as much as she suspected: which fatal step to retrieve, she entreated his secresy. Adela was now seen fluttering hastily up the walk, fresh as a creature of the sea-wave. Before Mrs. Chump could summon her old wrath of yesterday, she was kissed, and to the arch interrogation as to what she had done with this young lady's brother, replied by telling the tale of the night again. Mrs. Chump was ostentatiously caressed into a more comfortable opinion of the world's morality, for the nonce. Invited by them to breakfast at the hotel, she hurried back to her villa for a flounced dress and a lace cap of some pretensions, while they paced the shore.
“See what may be said!” Adela's countenance changed as she muttered it. “Thought, would be enough,” she added, shuddering.
“Yes; if one is off guard—careless,” the captain assented, flowingly.
“Can one in earnest be other than careless? I shall walk on that line up to the end. Who makes me deviate is my enemy!”
The playful little person balanced herself to make one foot follow the other along a piece of washed grey rope on the shingle. Soon she had to stretch out her hand for help, and the captain at full arm's length conducted her to the final knot.
“Arrived safe!” she said, smiling.
“But not disengaged,” he rejoined, in similar style.
“Please!” She doubled her elbow to give a little tug for her fingers.
“No.” He pressed them tighter.
“Pray?”
“No.”
“Must I speak to somebody else to get me released?”
“Would you?”
“Must I?”
“Thank heaven, he is not yet in existence!”
'Husband' being implied. Games of this sweet sort are warranted to carry little people as far as they may go swifter than any other invention of lively Satan.
The yachting party, including Mrs. Chump, were at the breakfast-table, and that dumb guest had done all the blushing for Lady Charlotte, when Wilfrid entered, neat, carefully brushed, and with ready answers, though his face could put on no fresh colours. To Mrs. Chump he bent, passing, and was pushed away and drawn back. “Your eyes!” she whispered.
“My—yeyes!” went Wilfrid, in schoolboy style; and she, who rarely laughed, was struck by his humorous skill, saying to Sir Twickenham, beside her: “He's as cunnin' as a lord!”
Sir Twickenham expressed his ignorance of lords having usurped priority in that department. Frightened by his portentous parliamentary phraseology, she remained tolerably demure till the sitting was over: now sidling in her heart to the sins of the great, whom anon she angrily reproached. Her principal idea was, that as the world was discovered to be so wicked, they were all in a boat going to perdition, and it would be as well to jump out immediately: but while so resolving, she hung upon Lady Charlotte's looks and little speeches, altogether seduced by so fresh and frank a sinner. If safe from temptation, here was the soul of a woman in great danger of corruption.
“Among the aristocracy,” thought Mrs. Chump, “it's just the male that hangs his head, and the female struts and is sprightly.” The contrast between Lady Charlotte and Wilfrid (who when he ceased to set outrageously, sat like a man stricken by a bolt), produced this reflection: and in spite of her disastrous vision of the fate of the boat they were in, Mrs. Chump owned to the intoxication of gliding smoothly—gliding on the rapids.
The breakfast was coming to an end, when Braintop's name was sent in to Mrs. Chump. She gave a cry of motherly compassion for Braintop, and began to relate the little deficiencies of his temper, while, as it were, simmering on her seat to go to him. Wilfrid sent out word for him to appear, which he did, unluckily for himself, even as Mrs. Chump wound up the public description of his character by remarking: “He's just the opposite of a lord, now, in everything.” Braintop stood bowing like the most faithful confirmation of an opinion ever seen. He looked the victim of fatigue, in the bargain. A light broke on Mrs. Chump.
“I'll never forgive myself, ye poor gentle heart, to throw pens and pen-wipers at ye, that did your best, poor boy! What have ye been doin'? and why didn't ye return, and not go hoppin' about about all night like a young kangaroo, as they say they do? Have ye read the 'Arcana of Nature and Science,' ma'am?”
The Hon. Mrs. Bayruffle, thus abruptly addressed, observed that she had not, and was it an amusing book?
“Becas it'll open your mind,” pursued Mrs. Chump; “and there, he's eatin'! and when a man takes to eatin', ye'll never have any fear about his abouts. And if ye read the 'Arcana of Nature and Science,' ma'am, ye'll first feel that ye've gone half mad. For it contains averything in the world; and ye'll read ut ten times all through, and not remember five lines runnin'! Oh, it's a dreadful book: and that's the book to read to your husband when he's got a fit o' the gout. He's got nothin' to do but swallow knolludge then. Now, Mr. Braintop, don't stop, but tell me as ye go on what ye did with yourself all night.”
A slight hesitation in Braintop caused her to cross-examine him rigidly, suggesting that he might not dare to tell, and he, exercising some self-command, adopted narrative as the less ignominious form of confession. No one save Mrs. Chump listened to him until he mentioned the name Miss Belloni; and then it was curious to see the steadiness with which certain eyes, feigning abstraction, fixed in his direction. He had met Emilia on the outskirts of the town, and unable to persuade her to take shelter anywhere, had walked on with her in dead silence through the night, to the third station of the railway for London.
“Is this a mad person?” asked the Hon. Mrs. Bayruffle.
Adela shrugged. “A genius.”
“Don't eat with the tips of your teeth, like a bird, Mr. Braintop, for no company minds your eatin',” cried Mrs. Chump, angrily and encouragingly; “and this little Belloni—my belief is that she came after you; and what have ye done with her?”
It was queerly worried out of Braintop, who was trying his best all the time to be obedient to Wilfrid's direct eye, that the two wanderers by night had lost themselves in lanes, refreshed themselves with purloined apples from the tree at dawn, obtained a draught of morning milk, with a handful of damsons apiece, and that nothing would persuade Emilia to turn back from the route to London. Braintop bit daintily at his toast, unwilling to proceed under the discouraging expression of Wilfrid's face, and the meditative silence of two or three others. The discovery was forcibly extracted that Emilia had no money;—that all she had in her possession was sevenpence and a thimble; and that he, Braintop, had but a few shillings, which she would not accept.
“And what has become of her?” was asked.
Braintop stated that she had returned to London, and, blushing, confessed that he had given her his return ticket.
Georgiana here interposed to save him from the awful encomiums of Mrs. Chump, by desiring to know whether Emilia seemed unhappy or distressed. Braintop's spirited reply, “Not at all,” was corrected to: “She did not cry;” and further modified: “That is, she called out sharply when I whistled an opera tune.”
Lady Charlotte put a stop to the subject by rising pointedly. Watch in hand, she questioned the ladies as to their occupations, and told them what time they had to dispose of. Then Baynes, captain of the yacht, heard to be outside, was summoned in. He pronounced doubtfully about the weather, but admitted that there was plenty of wind, and if the ladies did not mind it a little fresh, he was sure he did not. Wind was favourable for the island head-quarters of the yacht. “We'll see who gets there first,” she said to Wilfrid, and the company learnt that Wilfrid was going to other head-quarters on special business, whereupon there followed chatter and exclamations. Wilfrid quickly explained that his father's condition called him away imperiously. To Adela and Mrs. Chump, demanding peculiar personal explanations, he gave reassuring reasons separately, aside. Mrs. Chump understood that this was merely his excuse to get away, that he might see her safe to Brookfield. Adela only required a look and a gesture. Merthyr and Georgiana likewise spoke expected adieux, as did Sir Twickenham, who parted company in his own little yawl. Lady Charlotte, with her head over a map, and one hand arranging an eye-glass, hastily nodded them off, scarcely looking at them. She allowed herself to be diverted from this study for an instant by the unbefitting noise made by Adela for the loss of her brother; not that she objected to the noise particularly (it was modulated and delicate in tone), but that she could not understand it. Seeing Sir Twickenham, however, in a leave-taking attitude, she uttered an easy “Oh!” to herself, and diligently recommenced spying at ports and harbours, and following the walnut thumb of Baynes on the map. All seemed to be perfectly correct in the arrangements. To go to London was Wilfrid's thought; and the rest were almost as much occupied with their own ideas. Captain Gambier received their semi-ironical congratulations and condolences incident to the man who is left alone in the charge of sweet ladies; and the Hon. Mrs. Bayruffle remarked, that she supposed ten hours not a long period of time, though her responsibility was onerous.
“Lady Gosstre is at the island,” said Lady Charlotte, to show where it might end, if she pleased. Within an hour the yacht was flying for the island with a full Western breeze: and Mrs. Chump and Wilfrid were speeding to Brookfield, as the latter permitted her to imagine. Braintop realized the fruits of the sacrifice of his return ticket by facing Mrs. Chump in the train. Merthyr had telegraphed to Marini to meet Emilia at the station in London, and instructed Braintop to deliver a letter for her at Marini's house. To Marini he wrote: “Let Giulia guard her as no one but a woman can in such a case. By this time Giulia will know her value. There is dangerous stuff in her now, and my anxiety is very great. Have you seen what a nature it is? You have not alluded to her beyond answers to instructions, but her character cannot have escaped you. I am never mistaken in my estimates of Italian and Cymric blood. Singularly, too, she is part Welsh on the mother's side, to judge by the name. Leave her mind entirely free till it craves openly for some counteraction. Her Italy and her music will not do. Let them be. My fear is that you have seen too clearly what a daughter of Italy I have found for you. But whatever you put up now to distract her, you sacrifice. My good Marini! bear that in mind. It will be a disgust in her memory, and I wish her to love her country and her Art when she recovers. So we treat the disease, dear friend. Let your Italy have no sorrows for her ears till the storm within is tranquil. I am with you speedily.”
Marini's reply said: “Among all the things we have to thank our Merthyr for, this treasure, if it is not the greatest he has given to us, makes us grateful the most. We met her at the station. Ah! there was an elbow when she gave her hand. She thought to be alone, and started, and hated, till Giulia smothered her face. And there was dead fire in the eyes, which is powder when you spring it. We go with her to her new lodging, and the track is lost. This is your wish? It is pitching new camps to avoid the enemy. But so! a man takes this disease and his common work at once of a woman—she is all the disease, till it is extinct, or she! What is this disease but a silly, a senseless waste? Giulia—woman that she is!—will not call it so. See her eyes doze and her voice go a soft buzz when she speaks it! As a dove of the woods! That it almost makes it sweet to me! Yes, a daughter of Italy! So Giulia has been:—will be? I know not! So will this your Emilia be in the time that comes to the young people, she has this, as you say, malady very strong—ma, ogni male ha la sua ricetta; I can say it of persons. Of nations to think my heart is as an infidel—very heavy. Ah! till I turn to you—who revive to the thought, as you were an army of deliverance. For you are Hope. You know not Despair. You are Hope. And you love as myself a mother whose son you are not! 'Oh!' is Giulia's cry, 'will our Italy reward him with a daughter?'—the noblest that we have. Yes, for she would be Italian always through you. We pray that you may not get old too soon, before she grows for you and is found, only that you may know in her our love. See! I am brought to talk this language. The woman is in me.”
Merthyr said, as he read this, “I could wish no better.” His feeling for Emilia waxed toward a self-avowal as she advanced to womanhood; and the last stage of it had struck among trembling strings in the inmost chambers of his heart. That last stage of it—her passionate claiming of Wilfrid before two women, one her rival—slept like a covered furnace within him. “Can you remember none of her words?” he said more than once to Georgiana, who replied: “I would try to give you an idea of what she said, but I might as well try to paint lightning.”
“'My lover'?” suggested Merthyr.
“Oh, yes; that she said.”
“It sounded oddly to your ears?”
“Very, indeed.”
“What more?”
“—did she say, do you mean?”
“Is my poor sister ashamed to repeat it?”
“I would repeat anything that would give you pleasure to hear.”
“Sometimes pain, you know, is sweet.”
Little by little, and with a contest at each step, Georgiana coasted the conviction that her undivided reign was over. Then she judged Emilia by human nature's hardest standard: the measure of the qualities brought as usurper and successor. Unconsciously she placed herself in the seat of one who had fulfilled all the great things demanded of a woman for Merthyr, and it seemed to her that Emilia exercised some fatal fascination, girl though she was, to hurl her from that happy sovereignty.
But Emilia's worst crime before the arraigning lady was that Wilfrid had cast her off. Female justice, therefore, said: “You must be unworthy of my brother;” and female delicacy thought: “You have been soiled by a previous history.” She had pitied Wilfrid: now she held him partially blameless: and while love was throbbing in many pulses all round her. The man she had seen besieged by passionate love, touched her cold imagination with a hue of fire, as Winter dawn lies on a frosty field. She almost conceived what this other, not sisterly, love might be; though not as its victim, by any means. She became, as she had never before been, spiritually tormented and restless. The thought framed itself that Charlotte and Wilfrid were not, by any law of selection, to match. What mattered it? Simply that it in some way seemed to increase the merits of one of the two. The task, moreover, of avoiding to tease her brother was made easier to her by flying to this new refuge of mysterious reflection. At times she poured back the whole flood of her heart upon Merthyr, and then in alarm at the host of little passions that grew cravingly alive in her, she turned her thoughts to Wilfrid again; and so, till they turned wittingly to him. That this host of little passions will invariably surround a false great one, she learnt by degrees, by having to quell them and rise out of them. She knew that now she occasionally forced her passion for Merthyr; but what nothing could teach her was, that she did so to eject another's image. On the contrary, her confession would have been: “Voluntarily I dwell upon that other, that my love for Merthyr may avoid excess.” To such a state of clearness much self-questioning brought her: but her blood was as yet unwarmed; and that is a condition fostering self-deception as much as when it rages.
Madame Marini wrote to ask whether Emilia might receive the visits of a Sir Purcell Barrett, whom they had met, and whom Emilia called her friend; adding: “The other gentleman has called at our old lodgings three times. The last time our landlady says, he wept. Is it an Englishman, really?”
Merthyr laughed at this, remarking: “Charlotte is not so vigilant, after all.”
“He wept.” Georgiana thought and remembered the cold self-command that his face had shown when Emilia claimed him, and his sole reply was, “I am engaged to this lady,” designating Lady Charlotte. Now, too, some of Emilia's phrases took life in her memory. She studied them, thinking over them, as if a voice of nature had spoken. Less and less it seemed to her that a woman need feel shame to utter them. She interpreted this as her growth of charity for a girl so violently stricken with love. “In such a case, the more she says the more is she to be excused; for nothing but a frenzy of passion could move her to speak so,” thought Georgiana. Accepting the words, and sanctioning the passion, the person of him who had inspired it stood magnified in its light. She believed that if he had played with the girl, he repented, and the idea of a man shedding tears burnt to her heart.
Merthyr and Georgiana remained in Devonshire till a letter from Madame Marini one morning told them that Emilia had disappeared.
“You delayed too long to go to her, Merthyr,” said his sister, astonishing him. “I understand why; but you may trust to time and scorn chance too much. Let us go now and find her, if it is not too late.”