Anna St. Ives Part 67

Poor Frank! Where art thou? How are thy wretched thoughts employed? Or art thou still allowed to think? Art thou among the living? If thou art, what is thy state! Thine is now the misery of impotence, thou who hast proved thyself so mighty in act! Thou wouldst not strike, thou wouldst not injure; and yet thy foe would sink before thee, had he not allied himself to perfidy, and had he but left thee free. His most secret machinations could not have withstood thy searching spirit. Thou wouldst have been here! These bolts would have flown, these doors would have opened, and I should have seen my saviour!

He hears me not! Nor thou, Louisa! I am dest.i.tute of human aid!

Farewell, farewell! Ah! Farewell indeed; for I am talking to emptiness and air!

Do I seem to speak with bitterness of heart? Is there enmity in my words?--Surely I do not feel it! The spirit of benevolence and truth allows, nay commands me to hate the vice; but not its poor misgoverned agents. They are wandering in the maze of mistake. Ignorance and pa.s.sion are their guides, and doubt and desperation their tormentors.

Alas! Rancour and revenge are their inmates; be kindness and charity mine.

A. W. ST. IVES

LETTER CXVIII

_c.o.ke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_

_Brompton-House_

I am here--At the scene of action--she is in the room above me, and I am ridding myself of reluctance; stringing my nerves for a.s.sault. I know not why this should be necessary, but I feel that it is!

I am waiting to question Laura; but I ordered her to be in no haste to come down, when she heard me ring. I would not have my victim suspect me to be here. I would come upon her by surprise, and not when she was armed and prepared for repulse. I will order the old woman to go presently and open and shut the gate; as if she were letting the person out, who came in when I rung.

I expect, nay am certain, her resistance will be obstinate--But unavailing!--I say unavailing!--Neither house nor road are near, and yet I could wish the scene were removed to the dark gloom of a forest; embosomed where none but tigers or hyenas should listen to her shrieks--I know they will be piercing;--Heart-rending!--But--!

I tell you, Fairfax, I have banished all sense of human pity from my bosom: it is an enemy to my purpose, and that must be!--Though the heavens should shake and the earth open, it must!

Yet do not think, Fairfax, bent as I am on the full fruition of love and vengeance, I would use cruelty--Understand me: I mean wanton or unnecessary brutality. I will be as forbearing as she will permit. I fear she will not suffer me to caress her tenderly--But she shall never sleep in the arms of Henley!--She never shall!--I will make sure of that! My mind is reconciled to all chances, that excepted.

As I pa.s.sed, I called at the mad-house; where I found Mac Fane and the scowling keeper in high divan. They have been horribly alarmed. Henley has attempted an escape, which he was in danger of effecting; but he is brought back, after having led them a short chase.

The apprehensions of these scoundrels concerning future consequences are very great, and swell almost to terror. They talked strangely, asked which way we were to get rid of him at last, and conceive him to be a dangerous enemy. Their thoughts seem tinged with dark lurkings, which they dare not own; and certainly dare not act, without my leave.

These fellows are all villainy! A league with demons would be less abominable!--I must close the account, and shake off such pestilential scoundrels!--

Laura comes! I will question her a little, and then--!

_Dover-Street_

I am returned, and am still tormented by delay!--I cannot help it--I said I would not use wilful cruelty: that were to heap unnecessary d.a.m.nation!

Laura began by softening my heart with her narrative. Her angel mistress is all resignation, all kindness, all benevolence! She almost forgets herself, and laments only for me! This I could have withstood; but she has been brutally treated, by that intolerable ban dog, Mac Fane, and his blood hounds. Fairfax, how often have I gazed in rapture at the beauteous carnation of her complexion, the whiteness of her hands and arms, and the extreme delicacy of their texture! And now those tempting arms, Laura tells me, nay, her legs too, are in twenty places disfigured and black, with the gripes and bruises she received.

Gibbets and racks overtake the wolf-hearted villains! Her shoulder is considerably hurt! It is inflamed, and, as she acknowledges, very painful; yet she does not utter a complaint!

Why did this heroic woman ever injure me? By what fatal influence am I become her foe? Her gentle kindness, her calm, unruffled, yet dignified patience I have experienced--Madman!--Idiot!--Have I not experienced her hatred too, her abhorrence? Did not her own lips p.r.o.nounce the sentence? And do I not know her? Will she recede? And shall I?--Never!--Never!--No no--It must be.

But I did rightly. This was not the moment. There would have been something barbarously mean, in making her exert the little strength she has with such pain and peril.

I rode to Kensington and procured her a lenitive, with which I returned. The purpose of vengeance excepted, I would feel as generously as herself; and even vengeance, did I know how, I would dignify--But do not surmise that I would retract!--No, by heaven! A thought so weak has never once entered my heart!

I am restless, and must return--Till it be over, earth has no pleasure for me; and after I am sure it will have none. No--No--I have but this single gleam of satisfaction! The light is going out; give me but one full blaze, and I shall then welcome total darkness!

C. CLIFTON

LETTER CXIX

_c.o.ke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_

_London, Dover-Street_

For a few days after having secured my tormentors, I enjoyed something like comparative ease: but the ugly imps that haunted me, in fiercer crowds again are swarming round me. I am too miserable to exist in this state; it must be ended. It is a turmoil that surpa.s.ses mortal sufferance! If she will wrestle against fate, it is not my fault. I have no wish to practise more upon her than is necessary. But the thing must be.

Sleep I have none, rest I have none, peace I have none. I get up and sit down, walk out and come back, mutter imprecations unconsciously to myself, and turn the eyes of insolent curiosity and ridiculous apprehension upon me in the street. A fellow has just now watched me home; deeming me a lunatic I suppose; for he had seen my agitation, and heard the curses which I knew not were uttered aloud, till his impertinent observation of me brought it to my recollection.

But this shall not be! It shall end! Though I rend her heart-strings for it, I will have ease! The evening approaches; my horse is ordered and I will be gone. I will not, cannot endure this longer!

_Brompton-House_

I am here, and have talked with Laura. She owns she is suspected, and that her mistress takes the key out of the bed-chamber door, when they go to rest, and hides it: Laura by accident has discovered where. She puts it on the ledge behind the head of her bed, but within the reach of her arm.

This has suggested a thought: I will wait here till midnight and sleep have lulled her apprehensions. It will be better than facing her in the glare of day. Her eye, Fairfax, is terrible in her anger. It is too steady, too strong in conscious innocence to encounter. Darkness will give me courage, and her terror and despair. For it must come to that!

It cannot otherwise be; and be it must! In the blaze of noon, when fort.i.tude is awake and the heart beating high perhaps with resentment, nothing but the goadings of despair could make me face her. The words she would use would be terrible, but her looks would petrify!--By this stratagem I shall avoid them.

Nor do I blush to own my cowardice, in the presence of Anna St. Ives: she being armed with innocence and self-approbation; and I abashed by conscious guilt, violence, and intentional destruction.

Why aye!--Let the thick swarth of night cover us! I feel, with a kind of horrid satisfaction, the deep d.a.m.nation of the deed! It is the very colour and kind of sin that becomes me; sinning as I do against Anna St. Ives! With any other it would be boy's sport; a thing to make a jest of after dinner; but with her it is rape, in all its wildest contortions, shrieks, and expiring groans!

I lie stretched on burning embers, and I have hours yet to wait. Oh that I were an idiot!--The night is one dead, dun gloom! It looks as if murrain, mildew, and contagion were abroad, hovering over earth and brooding plagues. I will walk out awhile, among them--Will try to meet them--Would that my disturbed imagination could but conjure up goblins, sheeted ghosts, heads wanting bodies, and hands dropping blood, and realize the legends of ignorance and infancy, so that I could freeze memory and forget the horrors by which I am haunted!

It draws near midnight--I am now in her apartment, the room next to her bed-chamber.

My orders have been obeyed: the old woman, pretending to lock up her prisoner, shot back the bolts, put down the chain, and left the door ready for me to enter unheard.

Laura has her instructions. She is to pretend only, but not really, to undress herself; and I bade her not lie down, lest she should drop asleep. When she thinks it time, she is to glide round, steal the key, and open the door.

I am fully prepared; am undressed, and ready for the combat. I have made a mighty sacrifice! Youth, fortune, fame, all blasted; life renounced, and infamy ascertained! It is but just then that I should have full enjoyment of the fleeting bliss.

Surely this hussy sleeps? No!--I hear her stir!--She is at the door!

And now--!

Heaven and h.e.l.l are leagued against me, to frustrate my success! Yet succeed I will in their despite--'Tis now broad day, and here I am, in the same chamber, encountered, reproved, scorned, frantic, and defeated!

As soon as I heard Laura with the key in the door, I put out the candles. She turned the lock, the door opened, and I sprang forward.

Blundering idiot as I was! I had forgotten to remove a chair, and tumbled over it. The terrified Anna was up and out of bed in an instant. The door opens inward to the bed-chamber. Her fear gave her strength; she threw Laura away, and clapped to the door.