by Ellen Wood
“It does not grieve me, Amy. Only,” sighed Mrs. Neville, “I wish he had been your first love.”
“Nay, that is foolish, Mamma. Now often have I heard you say that few girls marry their first love.”
Again Mrs. Neville was silent. “Have you told Mr. Vavasour of this old love, Amy?” asked she presently.
“Oh! no, no, Mamma. What good could it do? It would only grieve him; I, — I told him this much, that I — I hoped to love him better in time.”
“And he was satisfied?”
“Quite,” answered Amy, “and will you not say you are too, dearest Mamma?” and she laid her head lovingly on her mother’s shoulder, and looked entreatingly in her face.
“God bless and protect you, my child,” said Mrs. Neville fervently, drawing her closer still, and kissing her fondly. “May He guide and strengthen us both, for indeed I am very sorrowful, and scarcely know whether this marriage is for my child’s happiness or no; but I pray it may be with all my heart. You have your mother’s best, holiest wishes, Amy.”
So Amy Neville became, with her mother’s sanction, Robert Vavasour’s affianced wife.
Yet for days after that Mrs. Neville’s heart seemed troubled and ill at ease, and she lay on the sofa watching, noting Amy’s every look or action, until, by degrees, the troubled anxious look wore away; Amy seemed so contented and happy that her mother, who, in her secret heart, wished the marriage might be, gradually lost her fears, and each hour gained renewed confidence and hope. She grew better and stronger, and this alone in itself was sufficient to bring back the smiles into Amy’s face, while each day disclosed some fresh trait of Robert Vavasour’s goodness and kindness of heart. It was his voice read of an evening to her mother and never seemed to weary. It was his hand raised the invalid, or lifted her, as her strength increased, from the sofa to the easy chair.
Amy rejoiced in the change, and while she never allowed her thoughts to wander to the past, with all its cruel hopes and fears, so she never halted or looked onward to the future; her life was of to-day, neither more nor less. Her mother was better; it was her act, her will, that had done it all. She was contented that it should be so, and fancied herself happy; perhaps was at this time really so, and might have been for ever, had she never seen Charles Linchmore again, never known how he, not she, had been deceived, but that was to be the one thorn in her onward path.
In less than a month Amy was to be married. Mrs. Neville’s objections as to haste were overruled, even old Mrs. Elrington had sided with the rest; but then Mrs. Neville knew nothing of Dr. Ashley’s opinion, or that Amy had confided to her old friend the necessity there was for an immediate change.
They were to go to Italy. Amy, her husband, and mother, with little Sarah, and even old Hannah accompanying them. What a pleasant party it would be! Already Amy began to picture to herself the delight she would experience in watching her mother’s restoration to health and strength in that warm sunny clime, and how happy she would be by-and-by in bringing her back when quite well, to live in her own and Vavasour’s home, that home he had so often talked to her of, and where, in a few weeks, she would be roaming about at will as its mistress.
The days crept on steadily and surely slowly to all but Mrs. Neville, and with her the time seemed to fly; she was anxious and restless, while her doubts and fears only shaped themselves in words in old Hannah’s presence; to the rest, even to Amy, she was passive and quiet, apparently resigned, only at heart sad.
But old Hannah was a remorseless tyrant, who, feeling deeply and sorrowfully her darling’s departure from home, sighing and even dropping a tear or two in secret, yet she never allowed Mrs. Neville to bewail it, but, on the contrary, seemed to look upon her doing so as a weakness and sin, requiring a steady though somewhat underhand reproof. Perhaps the very strength of mind Hannah displayed encouraged and strengthened her mistress.
“We are to lose Miss Amy to-morrow, Hannah,” said Mrs. Neville, in a sad tone of voice. “I wish the wedding had not been so sudden.”
“There, Ma’am, I don’t call it sudden at all in the light wind,” then silently and steadily went upstairs to change her bridal attire for a travelling dress.
It would be quite half-an-hour before Vavasour could return; so she sat quietly awaiting him in the little sitting-room, perhaps for the first time that day feeling sad, just realising her position as a wife, and looking onwards into the future.
She sat lost in a dreamy reverie, and heard not the swift opening and shutting of the little garden gate, or the sound of the still swifter step across the gravel walk, until it sounded quick and strong in the passage; then she started and arose quickly. Her husband had returned! and sooner than she expected. With a smile she turned to greet him, but it was Charles Linchmore who stood in the doorway, flushed and heated with the haste and impatience of his hurried ride from the station, and still more hasty journey.
Amy’s heart stood still. Why had he come? Then, woman-like, almost guessed before he spoke what he had come to say. But ere she could recover from the sudden shock of his presence he, with all the old impetuosity of his nature, was at her feet, pouring forth his long pent-up love, with all its wild jealousy and anguish. How he had been deceived by Frances, and driven well-nigh distracted. How through Anne’s agency he had found out her deceit, and had started at once to explain all and be forgiven; how he believed now she had loved him, and still loved, or would love him again; all — all he told, while his words came fast and strong. Amy never attempted to stay them, neither could she, if she would. So he went on to the end; then looked up into her face, that white, wan, pale face, bending so sadly over him, with an agonised stony look spread over each feature, striking dismay into his heart and soul.
“Speak to me!” he cried passionately. “Only say you forgive me my hasty belief in your falseness, only say that you love me still, and that I am not too late to make amends. Amy! my own Amy, speak to me!” and again he looked up beseechingly, with all his deep, earnest love written on his face, and speaking in his eyes.
But she was silent and still, very still.
Then the hand he held so tightly drew away from his hot, burning ones, and turning slowly, showed the wife’s symbol, the plain gold band encircling the one small finger, while the pale, sad lips parted, and words came mournfully at last, but slowly and distinctly, settling like ice about his heart.
“It is too late — I am married.”
Again that hasty, hurried step sounded, ringing out fiercely in the passage and along the quiet gravel walk. Once again the gate swung harshly and roughly on its frail hinges; then the sudden rush of a horse’s quick hoofs rung out startlingly in the still, soft air, and in another moment died away in the far-off distance.
“Where is your mistress? is she ready?” asked Vavasour of Amy’s new maid, as ten minutes later he hastily entered the cottage.
“My mistress is not ready, Sir,” was the reply, with a pert toss of the head, while a peculiar expression played round the corners of her lips. “She is in the parlour, Sir. Mrs. Elrington thinks it’s the heat of the day and the worry that has caused her to faint away.”
Yes; Amy lay on the sofa, quiet and motionless with scarcely any sign of life on her pale, sad face, while onward, onward, faster and faster still, rode Charles Linchmore.
Would they ever meet again; and how?
CHAPTER V.
DEFEAT.
“Art thou then desolate Of friends, of hopes forsaken? Come to me! I am thine own. Have trusted hearts proved false?
Why didst thou ever leave me? Know’st thou all I would have borne, and called it joy to bear, For thy sake? Know’st thou that thy voice hath power To shake me with a thrill of happiness By one kind tone? — to fill mine eyes with tears Of yearning love? And thou — Oh! thou didst throw That crushed affection back upon my heart. Yet come to me!”
“’Tis he — what doth he here!” Lara.
The great bell rang out at the lodge gate, and Charles Linch
more dashed up to the Hall almost as hastily as he had left it, and with scarce a word of greeting to the old butler, whom he passed on his way to the drawing-room, and never staying to change his dress, he strode on, all flushed and heated as he was, with his hurried journey and desperate thoughts, until he stood face to face with Mrs. Linchmore.
“Why Charles!” exclaimed she, “what on earth has happened? What is the matter?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “Where’s Frances?”
“Nothing,” she rejoined, indignantly, “to come into the room in such a plight as this! Look at the splashed state of your boots; and then your face. No one can look at that and not suspect something dreadful having happened. I never saw anything so changed and altered as it is.”
“I dare say. I don’t much care.”
“Are you mad? Where have you been?”
“Nowhere. Where’s Frances?” he asked again.
“I do not know. But I advise you to make yourself a little more presentable before you seek her. These freaks — mad freaks of riding half over the country, no one knows where, are not agreeable to those you come in contact with afterwards,” and Mrs. Linchmore pushed her chair further away from him, and smoothed the rich folds of her dress, as though the act of doing that would soothe her ruffled temper.
“It was a mad freak,” replied he, and without waiting for another word, or tendering an apology for his disordered dress, he strode away again, with the full determination of finding Frances.
Every room below stairs he searched, but in vain; she was nowhere, and driven reckless by the agony of his thoughts he went straight up to her own room, and opened the door.
She was lying on the sofa, her eyes red and swollen with weeping, passionate, hopeless tears at the thought that long before now he and Amy had met, and he consequently lost to herself for ever.
“Charles!” she exclaimed, springing off the sofa, her cheeks flushing hotly with surprise and pleasure.
But another glance at his face, and her heart sank within her, for its expression almost terrified her.
He closed the door and came and stood opposite to where she was, looking as though he would have struck her.
She quailed visibly before his menacing glance. Then resolutely regained the mastery over herself, and drawing up her figure proudly, she said,
“Do you know this is my room? I wonder how you dare come here.”
“Your room? Well, what if it is, I care not,” he replied. “I am reckless of everything.”
“But I am not; and — and,” she hesitated, and tried again to steady her beating heart, “what — what has happened, Charles, that you look so strangely?”
“Happened? Can you ask me what has happened, you who have wrecked the hopes of my whole life.”
“I, Charles? You talk in riddles; I do not understand you.”
“You dare not say that!” exclaimed he, hoarsely. “You know well that I loved her with all my heart and soul, and you — you schemed to draw her from me. I would have laid down my life for her; and you guessed it, and told me she loved another, and, like a fool, I believed you. You have driven me to despair; her to a life-long living death; and this, all this, I have dared to come and tell you.”
“It was no lie. She never loved you!”
“She did!” he cried, hotly; “I swear she did. I saw it; knew it but a few hours since.”
“You have seen her?” asked Frances.
“Seen her! Yes; and I wish to God I had died before seeing her,” and he clasped his hands over his damp brow in an agony of grief.
“See,” he said, presently, “are you not satisfied with my sufferings? Look here;” and he drew his hand across his forehead and temples, and showed the large drops that fell from them. “I loved her as my life. My life, do I say? She was more than life to me, and I have lost her; and this — this is your devil’s work.”
“Lost her!” echoed Frances, inquiringly.
He heeded her not; but walked the room with rapid strides, then gradually calmed again, and then again burst forth with the hopeless agony of his thoughts, as he recalled Amy’s last words:
“It is too late, I am married.”
“Aye,” he said, despairingly, “too late to save us both; too late, indeed.”
Frances could not listen calmly, or see unmoved the strong man’s agony; but she never once repented the evil she had wrought, but rather gloried at heart in having so successfully separated him and Amy; and the more so now, because she saw how madly he loved her. She waited quietly, almost afraid to speak, until the paroxysm of grief had exhausted itself. Then she said, timidly,
“Too late, Charles. Did you say too late?”
But her words roused him to fury again.
“I did,” he cried; “I said too late; God knows I was too late. A day, only a day earlier, and I should have been in time to save her!”
“To save Miss Neville? And from what?”
“From what?” he cried; “you are not satisfied with my sufferings, then? but would drain the last bitter drop of agony in my cup — the telling; the naming — Oh, God! She is married!”
Married! Frances was not prepared for this. A mist swam before her eyes; a sudden faintness seized her, and she clung to the back of the sofa for support.
“Yes, married!” he cried, fiercely seizing her arm. “You would have me tell you, and you shall hear it too, and remember it to your dying day; and I — I saw her only an hour after she was lost to me for ever.”
But Frances’ tongue was stayed, and she never answered one word.
“You have driven me mad,” he continued savagely, “and it is a mercy you have not a murder on your soul, for, by Heaven, I was tempted more than once to take my life on my road down here? Do you hear?” he cried.
“Oh, Charles! don’t, don’t talk so wildly: you will kill me!”
“Kill you! No, I don’t wish to do that; I’ll only wish you half the misery you have caused me, and that shall be your punishment and my revenge.”
And then he turned to leave her; but Frances sprang forward and stopped him.
“Do not go away like that, Charles. Do not go, leaving almost a curse behind you. I have not been guilty of half the wickedness you accuse me of. I did say Miss Neville did not love you; but — but I believed it.”
“You did not,” he cried. “You hated and then you slandered her.”
“And if I did, it was your fault; yours, for you taught me to love you.”
“You love me! It is like the rest false, and a flimsy attempt to palliate your wickedness.”
“No, no; it is true. I have loved you for years past,” exclaimed Frances, sinking on her knees, and hiding her face, “and — and I thought you loved me, too, until she came and took your love away; and then I hated her — yes, words cannot tell how much I hated her. What had I in life worth living for when your love was gone? and I thought if I could only take her away from you, your heart would come back to me again. If you have suffered, what have not I? and she never could have loved you to have married another. Oh! forgive me, Charles, forgive me! and don’t — don’t hate me.”
“Forgive you!” he replied. “No; years hence, when we meet again, I may, but not now.”
“Years hence? Are you going away, then? Oh! you cannot be so cruel!”
“In another month I shall leave England, perhaps for ever, — a broken-hearted wretch, with an aimless, hopeless existence. All this you have driven me to, and yet you ask me to forgive you. For her sake — hers, of whom I dare not trust myself to speak — I will not, cannot forgive you!”
The bitterness of his grief was over; the first burst was past; and he spoke calmer now, although his every word, the tone even of his voice, sank like ice into Frances’ soul, convincing her how hopelessly she loved.
“Oh! say not so, Charles,” she cried, “or you will crush me utterly. See, — see how I must love you to kneel here, and to humble my pride so entirely as to tell you I — I love you.”
/>
“Love! Does love break the heart of the loved one as you have broken mine? Call you such a deadly feeling as this, love? Say, rather, that you hate me.”
“No, no; never! Whatever you do, whatever you say, I shall love you still, — love you for ever!”
“Give me your hate,” he replied, “I would rather have that.”
But Frances only answered by sobs and wringing her hands.
“If,” he continued, “you have wrecked my happiness and hers through love of me, I wish to God you had hated me!”
“I could not,” sobbed Frances, utterly overcome. “You — you won my love two years ago. Yes! you loved me then.”
“Never!” he cried vehemently, almost savagely. “Never! I swear it!”
“Cruel!” murmured Frances.
“Cruel? Yes; what else do you deserve? Had you never told me that falsehood — never deceived me I — I might; but it is too late — all too late. And yet how I love her, love her to madness, and she the — the wife of another!” and he groaned and clenched his hands together, until the nails seemed buried in the very flesh, in utter anguish at the thought.
“Don’t talk of her so, Charles, you will break my heart. Have some pity.”
“Pity! I have none. What had you for either her or me. I tell you I have no mercy, no pity, only scorn and — and—” he would have said hate, but somehow the word would not come to his lips, as he looked at the bent, bowed figure kneeling so humbly before him.
“Oh! don’t go! don’t go, Charles. Say one, only one kind word,” cried Frances, imploringly, as he turned again to leave her.
“Don’t ask me,” he replied, “for I have none to give. Don’t ask me, lest I say more than I have done. Pray God that he will change your revengeful, cruel heart. I pray that we may never meet again.”