by Ellen Wood
As she stood undecided what to do next, Robert Vavasour came forward; she had not noticed him in the dim uncertain twilight.
“Can I assist you, Miss Neville?” he asked. “What is it you look for?”
“I was looking for the ‘Bradshaw,’ which is usually kept on this table; but it is gone.”
“It is here,” he replied, taking it off a chair, where it had been hastily left by Mr. Linchmore in the morning. “Allow me to find out what you wish, this book is a puzzle to most people.”
Amy explained her wishes. “You are going away?” he asked.
“Yes; but only for a short time, a fortnight at the furthest.”
“It is a long time — to me,” he said, gently; then lit the taper, and busied himself with pen, ink, and paper, and the ‘Bradshaw;’ while Amy stood by, wishing she had not come down, but had sent Mary, or one of the children instead.
After dotting down the times of the trains as they arrived and left the different stations, he closed the book; still he did not look up, or give her the memorandum.
“Thank you,” said Amy, “that will do very nicely.”
“You cannot leave the Standale station before the 9.10 train,” he said presently, “that is express, and will take you with less delays on the road than any other, and will only detain you some twenty minutes or so, when you join the ordinary train. I will write this time table out better and more clearly for you, and let you have it before you start.”
“Do not take that trouble. What you have written will be quite guide enough for me. Good-bye, Mr. Vavasour,” and she held out her hand.
He hesitated a moment, then took it in both his, and held it fast.
“I cannot say good-bye, Miss Neville.” All the love he felt for her was welling up into his heart, and striving to be heard. He must speak. “I cannot let you go thus,” he said, “had you remained it would have been otherwise, and I would not have opened my heart to you yet; but, as it is, I cannot help myself. Miss Neville, I never loved any woman till I saw you — never thought I could do so. I had but a poor opinion of your sex. Had not my mother deserted me, and was not that enough to fill my heart with hatred and bitterness? There is a mystery shadowing my birth, which seems to me to be growing darker and darker every day. I have no claim even to the very name I bear, and cannot tell you who my parents are; perhaps this silence is better than the knowledge that they live, and are ashamed to own me. I thought I was too proud to ask any woman to overlook that, and vowed I never would; but then I trifled with them all, even with you. Do you remember the flower I sent by Fanny? how many a sleepless night has the remembrance of that folly cost me? But, knowing all I have now told you, all that at times drives me to the solitude of my lonely home, and distracting thoughts, will you come and comfort me, — pity me — love me? Amy, I love you with all my heart. Will you be my wife?”
He could not see her face, the light was too uncertain, and she stood in the shade; but he felt that she trembled as she withdrew her hand from his.
Yes, it was even so. Amy was quite prepared when he began, to say she did not love him; but he claimed her pity, and her woman’s heart felt for him at once.
“Will you let me love you, care for you, Amy, as never woman was loved or cared for before? Speak to me, Amy, say one word — one word of hope.”
But Amy could give none. “I am sorry,” she replied, falteringly, “believe me, deeply sorry; but hope? Alas, Mr. Vavasour, I can give you none.”
“You do not love me?” he asked, sorrowfully.
“I like you, have always liked you. You have been so kind to me, the only one almost who has; and I have felt grateful for that — it would be strange if I were not; but I do not love you,” she said softly, fearing the pain she was causing.
“I have been premature in asking your love, I know. I have had so little opportunity of winning it, how could I expect you would love me with scarcely any wooing at all. May I ask you one question, Miss Neville? I feel I have no right to ask it, and it may be a death-blow to my hopes?”
“Yes,” replied Amy. How could she refuse, and he so sad and heart-broken.
“Forgive me; but has another claimed your love?”
“No. No other has ever spoken to me of love, or loved me,” she said sadly.
“Thank you, Miss Neville. Then I will — must hope. Why should I not win your love, when I love you so very dearly; how dearly you know not? I will wait patiently; but strive to win you I must. In my dreary, sad life it is the one bright star to lead me on to better things. I have trifled away life — hated it at times; but now I will begin to live. You are going home, Miss Neville, let this tale of my love be as if it had never been. I will be content to take my chance with others; let us be friends again, as hitherto. I promise no word of love shall ever pass my lips. When you know me better, and, perhaps, judge me better than you do now, then once again I will ask you to be my wife; and then, if you reject me — well. Then we must never meet again; but while your heart is free I must hope. Shall it be so?” he asked.
Alas! what could she say? She could not tell him her love was another’s unasked and unsought for, when she was striving to shut it out of her heart for ever. She could only murmur that she did not love him, and could give no hope. While he, thinking her love yet unwon, believed it might be his in the end, and that he had told her of his love too soon.
“You will not refuse my request, Miss Neville, will you?” he asked, sorrowfully.
“I do not like to refuse,” she replied, “and yet I doubt if I ought to grant it. It will only make both you and me unhappy, because it can lead but to the same result as now.”
“I dare not think so,” he said. “Surely God will be more merciful than to leave my life an utter blank. No mother’s love have I ever known; mine has been, and is a dreary, unloved lot. Is it a wonder my heart clings to you, loves you so madly? and yet you will not even let me try and win you; but would shut out all hope. If you loved another; then — then indeed I would not plead; but, as it is — it is scarcely kind, Miss Neville; forgive me for saying so.”
“Believe me, I do not wish to be unkind,” faltered Amy. “I think my decision would have been the kindest in the end. But enough; it shall be as you wish, only you must not blame me hereafter.”
“Neither now nor ever!”
And so they parted, both sorrowful at heart, both feeling the future which seemed to loom so gloomily for each; neither daring to look beyond the shadow even now flitting across their path.
Little did Frances Strickland think while loitering in the school-room awaiting Amy, that the very meeting she had come to prevent had taken place.
Just as she was growing impatient, and wondering at the unwonted delay, Miss Neville entered.
“I have been waiting to make my adieux,” she said, “having heard you were going away, and I did not like you should go without a word of farewell.”
Amy was quite unprepared for this, and looked her surprise.
“Do we part friends, Miss Neville?”
“I can scarcely say yes,” replied Amy, “our acquaintance has been but short, and — and — you have never liked me, Miss Strickland; if you recollect you almost told me so once.”
“Ah, you have not forgotten that stormy interview. But I was angry and passionate. I have regretted what I said then ever since. Even you must know I never carried out my threats.”
“I cannot tell,” replied Amy. “I know I feared them, and the thought of what you had threatened — the shame — made me ill. No, Miss Strickland, we can never be friends.”
“And why not?”
There was a slight touch of hauteur in her tone, do what she would to hide it. Amy saw it, and felt more than ever convinced Miss Strickland did not like her; never would like her. Why should she so persistently wish to be friendly now, after all her anger and rudeness Amy could not divine, but she suspected Frances, and thought some motive lay hidden deep in her heart. She answered coldly,
“Our paths in life lie so very wide apart, that being friends is simply impossible.”
“Not so,” replied Frances. “Our lives may be nearer knit together than you think; you will not be always teaching.”
“As yet I see no reason to think otherwise, and as I think I told you once before, I am reconciled to it, or I trust nearly so.” And Amy felt she was growing more ungracious every moment.
Perhaps Frances saw it too, for she held out her hand as she said, “Do we, or rather are we to part friends, Miss Neville?”
“I do not wish we should part as enemies. Good-bye, Miss Strickland.” She wished she could thank her for coming, but she could not.
“Well, good-bye, I think you will be sorry some day for refusing my friendship. I suppose you will not come down this evening; so this is a final leave-taking.”
She turned as if to go, then stopped. Her anger at Amy’s refusal got the mastery over her wise resolutions, and her eyes flashed fire as she said,
“There can be no middle course, Miss Neville; if you will not have me as a friend, I can be a bitter enemy.”
“I know it,” replied Amy, “and cannot help it.”
“Very well, then, I bid you beware! We shall see which is defeated. You or I. I will be relentless.”
And she passed out.
“Why do you look so sad, Miss Neville?” said little Fanny, creeping up close to her, “I am glad you don’t like her, because I know she can’t bear you.”
“I don’t know, Fanny. She says she does, or rather did.”
“But that’s a story. Only see her eyes when she went away!”
“Yes, Fanny; but that was my fault. I fear I was not wise to brave her; but then it could scarcely have been otherwise. I could not like her.”
“I know I don’t!” replied the child, “and am glad no one does. She nearly pinched Edith’s arm a minute ago like she did mine, because she told her Uncle Charles put up those book shelves for you; and oh! she looked so angry. She’s just like the dog in the manger. Isn’t she?”
Ah! Had there been no such person as Uncle Charles in the world, these two young girls might have been friends. But as it was; that was the sore point which kept their hearts, the one so distant; the other so revengefully inclined. Frances, who nursed and encouraged her love, knew it was so: while Amy, who dared not think of or allow her love, tried to imagine a hundred other reasons as the true cause of her dislike.
The children were up betimes in the morning to take a tearful farewell of their governess; Fanny crying heartily and aloud, until severely rated by Anne Bennet, who, with her sister Julia, was also there bidding good-bye while Amy’s boxes were being stowed away in the carriage.
“I can’t help crying,” said Fanny, when rebuked, “indeed I can’t! so it’s of no use, Cousin Anne.”
“Then cry to yourself, child; or stay, here is my hankerchief to stuff into your mouth; your noise is enough to scare an inmate of Bedlam, and nearly drives us all crazy. Good-bye, Miss Neville; you will write to me, won’t you? A long letter, mind, when you are settled at home.”
“I have promised your sister a letter,” was the reply.
“Just like my luck. I ought to have asked you sooner. But I shall write to you all the same. I dare say I shall have lots of news that Julia will know nothing about.”
Then the carriage drove away, and Amy wondered why Mr. Vavasour had never given her the time-table as he had promised, and felt a little disappointed at his forgetfulness; either he did not care for her so much as she had imagined, or he felt her going away too deeply; at all events his now appearance made her feel sad. She had learned to like though not to love him.
But when she reached the Standale Station, and the carriage steps were being let down; the first person she saw was Mr. Vavasour, awaiting her at the door.
“Mr. Vavasour! you here?” she exclaimed, involuntarily, and perhaps with a slight welcome of gladness in the tone.
“Yes; why not? Did you suppose I would let you go alone, and uncared for? The train will be here in another moment; I almost feared you would be late.”
Then he went away for her ticket, and presently she was leaning on his arm as they walked along the platform. It seemed like a dream.
“Here is the time-table, Miss Neville,” he said, as soon as she was seated in the carriage, “I think you will be able to understand it, and you must allow me to lend you this railway rug, it will be of use to you, both going and returning, and I shall not require it,” and he drew it over her feet as she sat, “I wish you a safe journey, though I fear it will scarcely be a pleasant one; I trust you will find Mrs. Neville better. God bless you.”
There was a banging of doors, the whistle sounded, and she was carried away out of his sight, feeling she had been more cared for and thought of during those few minutes than she had ever been before in all her life; yet his last three words stirred her heart strangely, bringing as they did that last sad evening of Charles Linchmore’s stay at Brampton vividly before her, when he had held her hand, and softly said the same words.
VOLUME III.
CHAPTER I.
IS THERE A FATE IN IT?
“The grief of slighted love, suppress’d, Scarce dull’d her eye, scarce heav’d her breast; Or if a tear, she strove to check, A truant tear stole down her neck, It seem’d a drop that, from his bill, The linnet casts, beside a rill, Flirting his sweet and tiny shower Upon a milk-white April flower: — Or if a sigh, breathed soft and low, Escaped her fragrant lips; e’en so The zephyr will, in heat of day, Between two rose leaves fan its way.” Colman.
Amy had been some three weeks at home, and as yet there had been no improvement in Mrs. Neville’s health to justify her daughter’s return to Brampton. There was the same lassitude, the same weariness. She would lie on the sofa day after day, with no bodily ailment save that of weakness, and an utter inability to get better, and apparently with no wish to do so. She never complained, but was ever grateful and content. It was as if life were waning away imperceptibly, and her spirits, which had always bravely struggled through all her trials and sorrows, had at last sunk never to rise again.
Amy seldom left her, but generally sat by her side, on a low footstool, reading or working. Sometimes Mrs. Neville would lay her hand gently on the fair masses of hair, and Amy, whose heart was very sorrowful, would hold her head lower still so that her tears might fall unseen.
There was something peculiarly tender and very pitying in the way the hand was placed on her head; at least Amy thought so, and strove more than ever to be cheerful, lest her mother, who lay so silently watching her, should guess at the secret grief in her heart which she was striving so hard, and she trusted successfully, to overcome; while, as yet, no word of it had passed between them. If Mrs. Neville thought her daughter’s spirits less joyous, or her manner more quiet, while her eyes no longer flashed with their old bright expression, but at times drooped sadly under their long lashes, she said nothing; and Amy, while obliged sometimes to talk of her life at Brampton, never mentioned Charles’s name; yet in the solitude of her own room she sometimes thought of him, and how as she had sat at one of the cross-stations, on her road from Standale, awaiting the arrival of the train that was to take her on to Ashleigh, she had seen Charles amongst the crowd hurrying into the one bound for Brampton; while she, soon afterwards, was speeding along over a part of the very way he had so recently travelled. Both had been waiting some twenty minutes at the same station, and yet neither had been near enough to speak, but had been as effectually separated as though miles had divided them, instead of so many yards. Strange fatality! which might have altered the future lives of both.
Yes, he had gone to Brampton the very morning she had left it: one half hour later on her part, and they would have met. She was glad she had not missed the train, and that they had not met. Glad that she was absent from the park, and not obliged to see him day after day, or hear the children talk, as they sometimes did, of their uncle.
Julia often wrote to Amy all the chit-chat of the park. How Charles Linchmore had returned, and was often at Frances’ side; and how the latter’s airs had become more intolerable in consequence. How Anne snubbed Mr. Hall as much as ever; but was, in Julia’s opinion, more pleased with him, and more contented to put up with his grave reproofs than she used to be; and how Julia thought it would be a match in the end, and wondered what kind of a clergyman’s wife she would make. And lastly, that Mr. Vavasour had left the park.
Anne also wrote, but only once, and her letter was short; yet Amy read it over and over again, until she knew the last few lines by heart, and wondered what they meant; or whether they were hastily written, and had no point or hidden meaning, but were simply penned and then forgotten, as many things often were, that were said by Anne Bennet, in her quick impulsiveness. “Come back, Miss Neville,” she wrote, “we all want you sadly. As for Charles, he is not himself, and will be lost!”
These were the words that troubled Amy, were ever at her heart all day, and chased away sleep from her pillow, until her tired overwrought brain relieved itself in silent, secret tears — tears far more painful than passionate sobs. Those are at the surface, and soon over, they cure grief by their very bitterness, and by the self-abandonment of the sufferer; the others lie deeper and break the heart.
These words of Anne’s, whether incautiously written or not, determined Amy on not returning to Brampton, until Charles Linchmore’s leave had expired; and that, she knew, must be in another week or so. If Miss Bennet meant he was fast losing his heart to Frances, and that Amy must go back to wean him away, how little she knew of the pride of her woman’s nature. What! seek, or throw herself in the way of a man’s love? Scarcely wooed, be won? Amy shrank at the very idea. No, if her love was worth having it was worth winning; and that, — not with the sternness of man’s nature, not by the force of his strong will, not by exciting her jealousy with another, but by gentleness and kindness; and then her heart reverted to Robert Vavasour, and she wished she could love him, for had he not ever been kind to her? and gentle, very, even when she had pained him most.