MISS TEMPLE had run up stairs to take off her bonnet; Ferdinand stood before the wood fire in the salon. Its clear, fragrant flame was agreeable after the cloudy sky of their somewhat chill drive. He was musing over the charms of his Henrietta, and longing for her reappearance, when she entered; but her entrance filled him with alarm. She was pale, her lips nearly as white as her forehead. An expression of dread was impressed on her agitated countenance. Ere he could speak she held forth her hand to his extended grasp. It was cold, it trembled.
‘Good God! you are ill!’ he exclaimed. ‘No!’ she faintly murmured, ‘not ill.’ And then she paused, as if stifled, leaning down her head with eyes fixed upon the ground.
The conscience of Ferdinand pricked him. Had she heard------
But he was reassured by her accents of kindness. ‘Pardon me, dearest,’ she said; ‘I am agitated; I shall soon be better.’
He held her hand with firmness while she leant upon his shoulder. After a few minutes of harrowing silence, she said in a smothered voice, ‘Papa returns to-morrow.’
Ferdinand turned as pale as she; the blood fled to his heart, his frame trembled, his knees tottered, his passive hand scarcely retained hers; he could not speak. All the possible results of this return flashed across his mind, and presented themselves in terrible array to his alarmed imagination. He could not meet Mr. Temple; that was out of the question. Some explanation must immediately and inevitably ensue, and that must precipitate the fatal discovery. The great object was to prevent any communication between Mr. Temple and Sir Ratcliffe before Ferdinand had broken his situation to his father. How he now wished he had not postponed his departure for Bath! Had he only quitted Armine when first convinced of the hard necessity, the harrowing future would now have been the past, the impending scenes, however dreadful, would have ensued; perhaps he might have been at Ducie at this moment, with a clear conscience and a frank purpose, and with no difficulties to overcome but those which must necessarily arise from Mr. Temple’s natural consideration for the welfare of his child. These, however difficult to combat, seemed light in comparison with the perplexities of his involved situation. Ferdinand bore Henrietta to a seat, and hung over her in agitated silence, which she ascribed only to his sympathy for her distress, but which, in truth, was rather to be attributed to his own uncertain purpose, and to the confusion of an invention which he now ransacked for desperate expedients.
While he was thus revolving in his mind the course which he must now pursue, he sat down on the ottoman on which her feet rested, and pressed her hand to his lips while he summoned to his aid all the resources of his imagination. It at length appeared to him that the only mode by which he could now gain time, and secure himself from dangerous explanations, was to involve Henrietta in a secret engagement. There was great difficulty, he was aware, in accomplishing this purpose. Miss Temple was devoted to her father; and though for a moment led away, by the omnipotent influence of an irresistible passion, to enter into a compact without the sanction of her parent, her present agitation too clearly indicated her keen sense that she had not conducted herself towards him in her accustomed spirit of unswerving and immaculate duty; that, if not absolutely indelicate, her behaviour must appear to him very inconsiderate, very rash, perhaps even unfeeling. Unfeeling! What, to that father, that fond and widowed father, of whom she was the only and cherished child! All his goodness, all his unceasing care, all his anxiety, his ready sympathy, his watchfulness for her amusement, her comfort, her happiness, his vigilance in her hours of sickness, his pride in her beauty, her accomplishments, her affection, the smiles and tears of long, long years, all passed before her, till at last she released herself with a quick movement from the hold of Ferdinand, and, clasping her hands together, burst into a sigh so bitter, so profound, so full of anguish, that Ferdinand started from his seat.
‘Henrietta!’ he exclaimed, ‘my beloved Henrietta!’
‘Leave me,’ she replied, in a tone almost of sternness.
He rose and walked up and down the room, overpowered by contending emotions. The severity of her voice, that voice that hitherto had fallen upon his ear like the warble of a summer bird, filled him with consternation. The idea of having offended her, of having seriously offended her, of being to her, to Henrietta, to Henrietta, that divinity to whom his idolatrous fancy clung with such rapturous devotion, in whose very smiles and accents it is no exaggeration to say he lived and had his being, the idea of being to her, even for a transient moment, an object of repugnance, seemed something too terrible for thought, too intolerable for existence. All his troubles, all his cares, all his impending sorrows, vanished into thin air, compared with this unforeseen and sudden visitation. Oh! what was future evil, what was tomorrow, pregnant as it might be with misery, compared with the quick agony of the instant? So long as she smiled, every difficulty appeared surmountable; so long as he could listen to her accents of tenderness, there was no dispensation with which he could not struggle. Come what may, throned in the palace of her heart, he was a sovereign who might defy the world in arms; but, thrust from that great seat, he was a fugitive without a hope, an aim, a desire; dull, timid, exhausted, broken-hearted!
And she had bid him leave her. Leave her! Henrietta Temple had bid him leave her! Did he live? Was this the same world in which a few hours back he breathed, and blessed his God for breathing? What had happened? What strange event, what miracle had occurred, to work this awful, this portentous change? Why, if she had known all, if she had suddenly shared that sharp and perpetual woe ever gnawing at his own secret heart, even amid his joys; if he had revealed to her, if anyone had betrayed to her his distressing secret, could she have said more? Why, it was to shun this, it was to spare himself this horrible catastrophe, that he had involved himself in his agonising, his inextricable difficulties. Inextricable they must be now; for where, now, was the inspiration that before was to animate him to such great exploits? How could he struggle any longer with his fate? How could he now carve out a destiny? All that remained for him now was to die; and, in the madness of his sensations, death seemed to him the most desirable consummation.
The temper of a lover is exquisitely sensitive. Mortified and miserable, at any other time Ferdinand, in a fit of harassed love, might have instantly quitted the presence of a mistress who had treated him with such unexpected and such undeserved harshness. But the thought of the morrow, the mournful conviction that this was the last opportunity for their undisturbed communion, the recollection that, at all events, their temporary separation was impending; all these considerations had checked his first impulse. Besides, it must not be concealed that more than once it occurred to him that it was utterly impossible to permit Henrietta to meet her father in her present mood. With her determined spirit and strong emotions, and her difficulty of concealing her feelings; smarting, too, under the consciousness of having parted with Ferdinand in anger, and of having treated him with injustice; and, therefore, doubly anxious to bring affairs to a crisis, a scene in all probability would instantly ensue; and Ferdinand recoiled at present from the consequences of any explanations.
Unhappy Ferdinand! It seemed to him that he had never known misery before. He wrung his hands in despair; his mind seemed to desert him. Suddenly he stopped; he looked at Henrietta; her face was still pale, her eyes fixed upon the decaying embers of the fire, her attitude unchanged. Either she was unconscious of his presence, or she did not choose to recognise it. What were her thoughts?
Still of her father? Perhaps she contrasted that fond and faithful friend of her existence, to whom she owed such an incalculable debt of gratitude, with the acquaintance of the hour, to whom, in a moment of insanity, she had pledged the love that could alone repay it. Perhaps, in the spirit of self-torment, she conjured up against this too successful stranger all the menacing spectres of suspicion, distrust, and deceit; recalled to her recollection the too just and too frequent tales of man’s impurity and ingratitude; and tortured herself by her own apparition, the merited victim of his harshness, his neglect, or his desertion. And when she had at the same time both shocked and alarmed her fancy by these distressful and degrading images, exhausted by these imaginary vexations, and eager for consolation in her dark despondency, she may have recurred to the yet innocent cause of her sorrow and apprehension, and perhaps accused herself of cruelty and injustice for visiting on his head the mere consequences of her own fitful and morbid temper. She may have recalled his unvarying tenderness, his unceasing admiration; she may have recollected those impassioned accents that thrilled her heart, those glances of rapturous affection that fixed her eye with fascination. She may have conjured up that form over which of late she had mused in a trance of love, that form bright with so much beauty, beaming with so many graces, adorned with so much intelligence, and hallowed by every romantic association that could melt the heart or mould the spirit of woman; she may have conjured up this form, that was the god of her idolatry, and rushed again to the altar in an ecstasy of devotion.
The shades of evening were fast descending, the curtains of the chamber were not closed, the blaze of the fire had died away. The flickering light fell upon the solemn countenance of Henrietta Temple, now buried in the shade, now transiently illumined by the fitful flame.
On a sudden he advanced, with a step too light even to be heard, knelt at her side, and, not venturing to touch her hand, pressed his lips to her arm, and with streaming eyes, and in a tone of plaintive tenderness, murmured, ‘What have I done?’
She turned, her eyes met his, a wild expression of fear, surprise, delight, played over hen countenance; then, bursting into tears, she threw her arms round his neck, and hid her face upon his breast.
He did not disturb this effusion of her suppressed emotions. His throbbing heart responded to her tumultuous soul. At length, when the strength of her passionate affections had somewhat decreased, when the convulsive sobs had subsided into gentle sighs, and ever and anon he felt the pressure of her sweet lips sealing her remorseful love and her charming repentance upon his bosom, he dared to say, ‘Oh! my Henrietta, you did not doubt your Ferdinand?’
‘Dearest Ferdinand, you are too good, too kind, too faultless, and I am very wicked.’
Taking her hand and covering it with kisses, he said in a distinct, but very low voice, ‘Now tell me, why were you unhappy?’
‘Papa,’ sighed Henrietta, ‘dearest papa, that the day should come when I should grieve to meet him!’
‘And why should my darling grieve?’ said Ferdinand.
‘I know not; I ask myself, what have I done? what have I to fear? It is no crime to love; it may be a misfortune; God knows that I have almost felt to-night that such it was. But no, I never will believe it can be either wrong or unhappy to love you.’
‘Bless you, for such sweet words,’ replied Ferdinand. ‘If my heart can make you happy, felicity shall be your lot.’
‘It is my lot. I am happy, quite happy, and grateful for my happiness.’
‘And your father-our father, let me call him [she pressed his hand when he said this]--he will be happy too?’
‘So I would hope.’
‘If the fulfilment of my duty can content him,’ continued Ferdinand, ‘Mr. Temple shall not repent his son-in-law.’
‘Oh! do not call him Mr. Temple; call him father. I love to hear you call him father.’
‘Then what alarms my child?’
‘I hardly know,’ said Henrietta in a hesitating tone. ‘I think--I think it is the suddenness of all this. He has gone, he comes again; he went, he returns; and all has happened. So short a time, too, Ferdinand. It is a life to us; to him, I fear,’ and she hid her face, ‘it is only------a fortnight.’
‘We have seen more of each other, and known more of each other, in this fortnight, than we might have in an acquaintance which had continued a life.’
‘That’s true, that’s very true. We feel this, Ferdinand, because we know it. But papa will not feel like us: we cannot expect him to feel like us. He does not know my Ferdinand as I know him. Papa, too, though the dearest, kindest, fondest father that ever lived, though he has no thought but for my happiness and lives only for his daughter, papa naturally is not so young as we are. He is, too, what is called a man of the world. He has seen a great deal; he has formed his opinions of men and life. We cannot expect that he will change them in your, I mean in our favour. Men of the world are of the world, worldly. I do not think they are always right; I do not myself believe in their infallibility. There is no person more clever and more judicious than papa. No person is more considerate. But there are characters so rare, that men of the world do not admit them into their general calculations, and such is yours, Ferdinand.’
Here Ferdinand seemed plunged in thought, but he pressed her hand, though he said nothing.
‘He will think we have known each other too short a time,’ continued Miss Temple. ‘He will be mortified, perhaps alarmed, when I inform him I am no longer his.’
‘Then do not inform him,’ said Ferdinand.
She started.
‘Let me inform him,’ continued Ferdinand, giving another turn to his meaning, and watching her countenance with an unfaltering eye.
‘Dearest Ferdinand, always prepared to bear every burthen!’ exclaimed Miss Temple. ‘How generous and good you are! No, it would be better for me to speak first to my father. My soul, I will never have a secret from you, and you, I am sure, will never have one from your Henrietta. This is the truth; I do not repent the past, I glory in it; I am yours, and I am proud to be yours. Were the past to be again acted, I would not falter. But I cannot conceal from myself that, so far as my father is concerned, I have not conducted myself towards him with frankness, with respect, or with kindness. There is no fault in loving you. Even were he to regret, he could not blame such an occurrence: but he will regret, he will blame, he has a right both to regret and blame, my doing more than love you--my engagement--without his advice, his sanction, his knowledge, or even his suspicion!’
‘You take too refined a view of our situation,’ replied Ferdinand. ‘Why should you not spare your father the pain of such a communication, if painful it would be? What has passed is between ourselves, and ought to be between ourselves. If I request his permission to offer you my hand, and he yields his consent, is not that ceremony enough?’
‘I have never concealed anything from papa,’ said Henrietta, ‘but I will be guided by you.’
‘Leave, then, all to me,’ said Ferdinand; ‘be guided but by the judgment of your own Ferdinand, my Henrietta, and believe me all will go right. I will break this intelligence to your father. So we will settle it?’ he continued enquiringly.
‘It shall be so.’
‘Then arises the question,’ said Ferdinand, ‘when it would be most advisable for me to make the communication. Now your father, Henrietta, who is a man of the world, will of course expect that, when I do make it, I shall be prepared to speak definitely to him upon all matters of business. He will think, otherwise, that I am trifling with him. To go and request of a man like your father, a shrewd, experienced man of the world like Mr. Temple, permission to marry his daughter, without showing to him that I am prepared with the means of maintaining a family, is little short of madness. He would be offended with me, he would be prejudiced against me. I must, therefore, settle something first with Sir Ratcliffe.
Much, you know, unfortunately, I cannot offer your father; but still, sweet love, there must at least be an appearance of providence and management. We must not disgust your father with our union.’
‘Oh! how can he be disgusted?’
‘Dear one! This, then, is what I propose; that, as to-morrow we must comparatively be separated, I should take advantage of the next few days, and get to Bath, and bring affairs to some arrangement. Until my return I would advise you to say nothing to your father.’
‘How can I live under the same roof with him, under such circumstances?’ exclaimed Miss Temple; ‘how can I meet his eye, how can I speak to him with the consciousness of a secret engagement, with the recollection that, all the time he is lavishing his affection upon me, my heart is yearning for another, and that, while he is laying plans of future companionship, I am meditating, perhaps, an eternal separation!’
‘Sweet Henrietta, listen to me one moment. Suppose I had quitted you last night for Bath, merely for this purpose, as indeed we had once thought of, and that your father had arrived at Ducie before I had returned to make my communication: would you style your silence, under such circumstances, a secret engagement? No, no, dear love; this is an abuse of terms. It would be a delicate consideration for a parent’s feelings.’
‘O Ferdinand! would we were united, and had no cares!’
‘You would not consider our projected union a secret engagement, if, after passing to-morrow with your father, you expected me on the next day to communicate to him our position. Is it any more a secret engagement because six or seven days are to elapse before this communication takes place, instead of one? My Henrietta is indeed fighting with shadows!’
‘Ferdinand, I cannot reason like you; but I feel unhappy when I think of this.’
‘Dearest Henrietta! feel only that you are loved. Think, darling, the day will come when we shall smile at all these cares. All will flow smoothly yet, and we shall all yet live at Armine, Mr. Temple and all.’
‘Papa likes you so much too, Ferdinand, I should be miserable if you offended him.’
‘Which I certainly should do if I were not to speak to Sir Ratcliffe first.’
‘Do you, indeed, think so?’
‘Indeed I am certain.’
‘But cannot you write to Sir Ratcliffe, Ferdinand? Must you really go? Must we, indeed, be separated? I cannot believe it; it is inconceivable; it is impossible; I cannot endure it.’
‘It is, indeed, terrible,’ said Ferdinand. ‘This consideration alone reconciles me to the necessity: I know my father well; his only answer to a communication of this kind would be an immediate summons to his side. Now, is it not better that this meeting should take place when we must necessarily be much less together than before, than at a later period, when we may, perhaps, be constant companions with the sanction of our parents?’
‘O Ferdinand! you reason, I only feel.’
Such an observation from one’s mistress is rather a reproach than a compliment. It was made, in the present instance, to a man whose principal characteristic was, perhaps, a too dangerous susceptibility; a man of profound and violent passions, yet of a most sweet and tender temper; capable of deep reflection, yet ever acting from the impulse of sentiment, and ready at all times to sacrifice every consideration to his heart. The prospect of separation from Henrietta, for however short a period, was absolute agony to him; he found difficulty in conceiving existence without the influence of her perpetual presence: their parting even for the night was felt by him as an onerous deprivation. The only process, indeed, that could at present prepare and console him for the impending sorrow would have been the frank indulgence of the feelings which it called forth. Yet behold him, behold this unhappy victim of circumstances, forced to deceive, even for her happiness, the being whom he idolised; compelled, at this hour of anguish, to bridle his heart, lest he should lose for a fatal instant his command over his head; and, while he was himself conscious that not in the wide world, perhaps, existed a man who was sacrificing more for his mistress, obliged to endure, even from her lips, a remark which seemed to impute to him a deficiency of feeling. And yet it was too much; he covered his eyes with his hand, and said, in a low and broken voice, ‘Alas! my Henrietta, if you knew all, you would not say this!’
‘My Ferdinand,’ she exclaimed, touched by that tender and melancholy tone, ‘why, what is this? you weep! What have I said, what done? Dearest Ferdinand, do not do this.’ And she threw herself on her knees before him, and looked up into his face with scrutinising affection.
He bent down his head, and pressed his lips to her forehead. ‘O Henrietta!’ he exclaimed, ‘we have been so happy!’
‘And shall be so, my own. Doubt not my word, all will go right. I am so sorry, I am so miserable, that I made you unhappy to-night. I shall think of it when you are gone. I shall remember how naughty I was. It was so wicked, so very, very wicked; and he was so good.’
‘Gone! what a dreadful word! And shall we not be together to-morrow, Henrietta? Oh! what a morrow! Think of me, dearest. Do not let me for a moment escape from your memory.’
‘Tell me exactly your road; let me know exactly where you will be at every hour; write to me on the road; if it be only a line, only a little word; only his dear name; only Ferdinand!’
‘And how shall I write to you? Shall I direct to you here?’
Henrietta looked perplexed. ‘Papa opens the bag every morning, and every morning you must write, or I shall die. Ferdinand, what is to be done’?’
‘I will direct to you at the post-office. You must send for your letters.’
‘I tremble. Believe me, it will be noticed. It will look so--so--so--clandestine.’
‘I will direct them to your maid. She must be our confidante.’
‘Ferdinand!’
‘’Tis only for a week.’
‘O Ferdinand! Love teaches us strange things.’
‘My darling, believe me, it is wise and well. Think how desolate we should be without constant correspondence. As for myself, I shall write to you every hour, and, unless I hear from you as often, I shall believe only in evil!’
‘Let it be as you wish. God knows my heart is pure. I pretend no longer to regulate my destiny. I am yours, Ferdinand. Be you responsible for all that affects my honour or my heart.’
‘A precious trust, my Henrietta, and dearer to me than all the glory of my ancestors.’
The clock sounded eleven. Miss Temple rose. ‘It is so late, and we in darkness here! What will they think? Ferdinand, sweetest, rouse the fire. I ring the bell. Lights will come, and then------’ Her voice faltered.
‘And then------’ echoed Ferdinand. He took up his guitar, but he could not command his voice.
‘’Tis your guitar,’ said Henrietta; ‘I am happy that it is left behind.’
The servant entered with lights, drew the curtains, renewed the fire, arranged the room, and withdrew.
‘Little knows he our misery,’ said Henrietta. ‘It seemed strange, when I felt my own mind, that there could be anything so calm and mechanical in the world.’
Ferdinand was silent. He felt that the hour of departure had indeed arrived, yet he had not courage to move. Henrietta, too, did not speak. She reclined on the sofa, as it were, exhausted, and placed her handkerchief over her face. Ferdinand leant over the fire. He was nearly tempted to give up his project, confess all to his father by letter, and await his decision. Then he conjured up the dreadful scenes at Bath, and then he remembered that, at all events, tomorrow he must not appear at Ducie. ‘Henrietta!’ he at length said.
‘A minute, Ferdinand, yet a minute,’ she exclaimed in an excited tone; ‘do not speak, I am preparing myself.’
He remained in his leaning posture; and in a few moments Miss Temple rose and said, ‘Now, Ferdinand, I am ready.’ He looked round. Her countenance was quite pale, but fixed and calm.
‘Let us embrace,’ she said, ‘but let us say nothing.’
He pressed her to his arms. She trembled. He imprinted a thousand kisses on her cold lips; she received them with no return. Then she said in a low voice, ‘Let me leave the room first;’ and, giving him one kiss upon his forehead, Henrietta Temple disappeared.
When Ferdinand with a sinking heart and a staggering step quitted Ducie, he found the night so dark that it was with extreme difficulty he traced, or rather groped, his way through the grove. The absolute necessity of watching every step he took in some degree diverted his mind from his painful meditations. The atmosphere of the wood was so close, that he congratulated himself when he had gained its skirts; but just as he was about to emerge upon the common, and was looking forward to the light of some cottage as his guide in this gloomy wilderness, a flash of lightning that seemed to cut the sky in twain, and to descend like a flight of fiery steps from the highest heavens to the lowest earth, revealed to him for a moment the whole broad bosom of the common, and showed to him that nature to-night was as disordered and perturbed as his own heart. A clap of thunder, that might have been the herald of Doomsday, woke the cattle from their slumbers. They began to moan and low to the rising wind, and cluster under the trees, that sent forth with their wailing branches sounds scarcely less dolorous and wild. Avoiding the woods, and striking into the most open part of the country, Ferdinand watched the progress of the tempest.
For the wind had now risen to such a height that the leaves and branches of the trees were carried about in vast whirls and eddies, while the waters of the lake, where in serener hours Ferdinand was accustomed to bathe, were lifted out of their bed, and inundated the neighbouring settlements. Lights were now seen moving in the cottages, and then the forked lightning, pouring down at the same time from opposite quarters of the sky, exposed with an awful distinctness, and a fearful splendour, the wide-spreading scene of danger and devastation.
Now descended the rain in such overwhelming torrents, that it was as if a waterspout had burst, and Ferdinand gasped for breath beneath its oppressive power; while the blaze of the variegated lightning, the crash of the thunder, and the roar of the wind, all simultaneously in movement, indicated the fulness of the storm. Succeeded then that strange lull that occurs in the heart of a tempest, when the unruly and disordered elements pause, as it were, for breath, and seem to concentrate their energies for an increased and final explosion. It came at last; and the very earth seemed to rock in the passage of the hurricane.
Exposed to all the awful chances of the storm, one solitary being alone beheld them without terror. The mind of Ferdinand Armine grew calm, as nature became more disturbed. He moralised amid the whirlwind. He contrasted the present tumult and distraction with the sweet and beautiful serenity which the same scene had presented when, a short time back, he first beheld it. His love, too, had commenced in stillness and in sunshine; was it, also, to end in storm and in destruction?
