A Woman's Love Part 9

When she had ended, he thanked her for her candour, but coldly reminded her that he had always said he would never take a refusal from any lips but mine--and he retained his resolution.

"And now," said he, "the opportunity is arrived. Helen! such as I am--not worthy of you, I own, except as far as tender and constant love can make me so--I offer myself to your acceptance. Speak--Yes or No--and speak as your heart dictates!"

I remained silent for a minute; then faltered out, sighing deeply as I spoke, "I have no will--can have no will--but my mother's."

"Enough!" replied he, in a tone and with a look which seemed to me to be the climax of despair. "Hark!" cried he, "the Oxford clocks are striking six--why do I linger here? for here I am sure I have no longer any business!"

He let down the gla.s.s, and desired the postilions to stop, while the footman rode up to the door. This little exertion seemed too much for him, and he sunk back quite exhausted, while my mother tried to take one of his hands.

"Pshaw!" cried he, throwing her hand from him--"give me love or give me hate; no half-measures for me; nor hope, when you and your daughter have given me my death-blow, that I will accept of _emollients_. I thank you, madam, as I would a _stranger_, for your _courtesy_ in admitting me here, and I wish you both good morning."

Again his strength failed him, and he was forced to wipe the dews of weakness from his forehead.

"Go, I must--even if I die in the effort!" he then exclaimed.

I could not bear this; and while my mother herself, greatly affected, held me back, I tried to catch him by the arm; and, in a voice which evinced the deep feeling of my soul, I exclaimed, "Stay, dear Seymour!

you are not fit to go--you are not, indeed!" But I spoke in vain: he mounted his horse, a.s.sisted by the servant, while I broke from my mother, and stretched out my clasped hands to him in fruitless supplication; then giving me a look of such mixed expression, that I could not exactly say whether it most pained or gratified me, he was out of sight in a moment, while I looked after him till I could see him no longer; and even then I still looked, in hopes of seeing him again. I did see him again, just as we had entered Oxford, and were pa.s.sing Magdalen; he _stood at the gate_; he had, therefore, _seen_ my long, earnest gaze, as if in search of him; and though I felt confused, I also felt comforted by it. In another moment we were near him, and his eyes met mine with an expression mournful, tender, and I thought, grateful, too, for the interest which I took in him. He kissed his hand to me, and then disappeared within the gates.

"Helen!" said my mother, "I meant to have stopped here, to refresh the horses and ourselves; but after what I have seen this morning, I shall proceed immediately."

She left the footman, however, behind, to bring us word the next day how Mr. Pendarves was. Oh! how I loved her for this kind attention! But then she was a rare instance of the union of strong feelings with unbending principle.

Methinks I hear you say, "I hope you were now convinced that Seymour's attachment as well as Ferdinand's, was founded on too good a basis to be shaken by your altered looks."

No, indeed, I was not; for so conscious was I that my looks were altered, I _never once_ lifted up my veil before Pendarves. I dare say, both he and my mother imputed this to the wish of hiding my emotion, whereas it was in fact only to hide my inflamed eyes, and my _ugliness_.

But what a degrading confession for a heroine to make! to plead guilty of having bad eyes and a plain face! It is as bad as Amelia's broken nose. But _n'importe_: my eyes, like her nose, will get well again; and, like her, I shall come out a complete beauty, when no one could expect it.

We awaited with great impatience the return of the servant, from whom we learnt that Mr. Pendarves had been seized with an alarming fit on leaving the chapel, and was p.r.o.nounced to be in an inflammatory fever.

"O my dear mother!" cried I, wildly, "he has no one to nurse him now that loves him!"

"But he _shall_ have," she replied; and in another hour we were on our road to Oxford. My mother insisted on being admitted to the bedside of the unconscious sufferer, who in his delirium was ever blaming the cruelty of _her_ who was now watching and weeping beside his pillow.

Long was his illness, and severe his suffering: but he struggled through; and the first object whom he beheld on recovering his recollection, was my mother leaning over him with the anxiety of a real parent. Never could poor Seymour recall this moment of his life without tears of grateful tenderness.

He was too much disappointed, however, to find that her resolution not to allow him to address me remained in full force; for the circ.u.mstances on which it was founded were added to, rather than diminished. Nor could his a.s.sertion, that his dissipation was owing to the despair into which she had plunged him, at all excuse him in her eyes, for she could not admit that any sorrow could be an excuse for error.

This, indeed, far from its being a motive to move her heart in his favour, closed it the more against him; as it proved she thought that from his weakness of character he never could deserve to be intrusted with the happiness of her child.

Bitter, therefore, was his mortification, when, on expressing the hopes to which her kindness had given birth, she a.s.sured him that her sentiments remained unaltered.

"Then, madam," cried he, "why were you so cruel as to save my life?"

"Young man," she gravely replied, "was it not my duty to try to save your life, that you might try to amend it? Were you prepared to meet that terrible tribunal from which even the most perfect shrink back appalled?"

On his complete recovery, my mother and I proceeded to the house of my uncle, now become our property; and thence we returned home. The following vacation Seymour finally left college, and again went abroad.

He wrote a farewell letter to my mother, as eloquent as grat.i.tude and even filial affection could make it: she wept over it and exclaimed,

"Oh, that the generous-hearted creature who wrote this should not be all I wish him! He is like a beautiful but unsupported edifice, fair to behold, but dangerous to lean against!"

There was one part of the letter, however, which my mother did not understand: I fancied that I did, though I did not own it. He a.s.sured her, that in spite of everything he carried more hope away in his heart than he had ever yet known: hope, and even a _precious conviction_ which he _had never known before_, and which he was sure his cousin Helen would wish him to possess, as it would be to him the _strongest shield_ against _temptation_.

"My dear," said my mother, after long consideration, "how stupid I have been not to understand this sooner! He certainly means that he is become very religious: and that this hope, this sweet conviction, are faith and another world. Dear Seymour, I am so glad! for though I do not choose you should marry a Methodist, and one extreme is to me as unpleasant as another, still I believe Methodists to be a very happy people; and I hope Seymour, for his own sake, will not change again."

I smiled, but said nothing; for I put a very different interpretation on his words. As it appeared to me, his _hope_ and _conviction_ were that he possessed _my love_, and that my compliance with my mother's will was wholly against my own; for I recollected the tone in which I had replied to his question concerning my engagement to De Walden, "Oh, no! no!" and also my scream of agony in spite of his alarming weakness when he persevered in leaving us, and the anxiety with which I looked at him at the gates of Magdalen. Yes, when we exchanged that look, I felt that our hearts understood each other, and I was sure that the shield to which Seymour alluded was his conviction of my love.

But alas! he was absent--De Walden was present. He came to us at the beginning of the long vacation, and was to remain with us till he returned to college.

My mother now urged me to admit the addresses of De Walden, showing me at the same time a letter from his uncle, in which he expressed his earnest desire that his nephew should be a successful suitor, and offering to make a splendid addition to his fortune whenever he should become my husband. In short, could the prospect of rank and fortune, could manly beauty, superior sense, unspotted virtues, and uncommon acquirements, have made me unfaithful to my first attachment, unfaithful I should soon have become; but though the attentions of De Walden could not annihilate, they certainly weakened it. No wonder that they should do so, when I was so little sure of the stability of Seymour's affection, that I was fearful it would be weakened by any change in my external appearance, and as I had often heard him say, he did not admire tall women, I own I was weak enough to be uneasy at the growth consequent upon my fever; and I was glad, when we met in the coach, not only that my veil concealed my altered looks, but that, as I was seated, he could not discover my almost may-pole height.

De Walden, on the contrary, admired tall women; and declared that I had now reached the exact height which gave majesty to the female figure without diminishing its grace; and as I really thought myself too tall, his praise (for flattery it was not) was particularly welcome to me.

Whatever was the cause, whether I liked De Walden so well, that I liked Seymour so much less as to cease to be fretted by his absence, I cannot tell; but certain it is that I recovered my bloom, and that from the increase of my _embonpoint_, my mother feared I should become too fat for a girl of seventeen: my spirits too recovered all their former gaiety, so that October, the time for the departure of De Walden, arrived before I was conscious that he had been with us half his accustomed time.

My mother now naturally enough augured well for the success of his suit; and I owned that I was no longer averse to listen to his love, but that I would on no account engage myself to him till I was _quite sure_ I had conquered my attachment to Pendarves.

This was certainly conceding a great deal, and De Walden left us full of hope for the first time; while I, who felt much of my affection for him vanish when I no longer listened to the deep persuasive tones of his voice, should have repented having gone so far, had I not seen happiness beaming in my beloved mother's face.

At Christmas De Walden came to us again, and I then found that in such cases it is impossible (to use an expressive phrase) "_to say A without saying B_;" I had gone so far that I was expected to go further; and but for the secret misgivings of my own heart, and the firm dictates of my own judgment, De Walden would have returned to college in January my betrothed husband. But, though we had not received any tidings from Pendarves, and my mother felt a.s.sured of his inconstancy, I persevered firmly in my resolution not to _engage_ myself till I _had seen him again_, and could be a.s.sured, by seeing him with indifference, that my heart had really changed its master.

You will wonder, perhaps, how a man of Ferdinand's delicacy could wish to accept a heart which had been so long wedded to another, and that other a living object. But my mother had convinced herself, and had no difficulty in convincing him, that I was deceived in the strength of my former attachment; that she had originally, though unconsciously, directed my thoughts to him; that, like a romantic girl, I had thought it pretty to be in love, and that my fancied pa.s.sion had been irritated by obstacles; but that, when once _his_ wife, I should find that _he alone_ had ever been the real possessor of my affections.

It is curious to observe how easily even the most sensible persons can forget, and believe, according to their wishes. My mother had absolutely forgotten the proofs of my strong attachment to Seymour, which she had once so much deplored. She forgot my illness, which if not caused was increased by his letter of reproach; she forgot the tell-tale misery which I had exhibited on the road to Oxford, and she did not read in the firmness with which I still persisted to see Seymour again, a secret suspicion of still lingering love.

But the crisis of our fates was fast approaching: I received an invitation to spend the months of May and June in London, with a friend who had once resided near us, and who had gone to reside in the metropolis.

I felt a great desire to accept this invitation; and my mother kindly permitted me to go, but declined going herself, saying that it was time _I_ should learn to live without _her_, and _she_ without _me_.

Accordingly, for the first time we were separated. But this separation was soon soothed to me by the charms of the life which I was leading. I was a new face: I was only seventeen, and I was _said_ to be the heiress of considerable property. This, you know, was an exaggeration; my fortune was handsome, but not very large: however, I was followed and courted, but none of my admirers were in my opinion at all equal to Seymour or De Walden: they gratified my vanity, but they failed to touch my heart.

One day at an exhibition, I met a newly-married lady, who when single had been staying in the neighbourhood of my mother's uncle during our last visit, and was much admired both by my mother and myself. This meeting gave us great pleasure, and she hoped I would come and see her at her lodgings. I promised that I would.

"But there is nothing like the time present: will you go home with me now, and spend a quiet day? You must come again when my husband is at home and I have a party; but he dines out to-day, and I shall be alone till evening."

"But I am not dressed."

"Oh! I can send for your things and your maid; and such an opportunity as this of telling you all about my love and my marriage may never occur again."

I was as eager to hear as she was to tell; my friend consented to part with me, and I accompanied her home.

In the afternoon while we were expecting two or three ladies of her acquaintance, and were preparing to walk with them in the park, my friend received a little note from her husband.

"That is so like Ridley," said she. "However, this is an improvement; for he often goes out and invites half-a-dozen people to dinner without giving me any notice: but now he has only invited one man to supper, and has sent to let me know they are coming. His name I see is the same as yours, Seymour Pendarves: is he a cousin of yours?"

"What!" cried I, almost gasping for breath, "Seymour Pendarves in England, and coming hither!"

"Yes; but what is the matter, or why are you so agitated?"

"If you please I will go home, I had rather go home."

Mrs. Ridley looked at me with wonder and concern, but she was too delicate to ask me for the confidence which she saw I was not disposed to give. She therefore mildly replied that if I must leave her, she would order her servant to attend me.