Barren Honour Part 14

The first, the very first imprecation that had ever crossed Wyverne's lips in connexion with womankind, pa.s.sed them audibly, when his eye lighted on the fatal envelope. He knew right well that it held the death-warrant of his love; but even now the curse was not levelled at the auth.o.r.ess of his trouble, but at his own evil fortune. As he took up the letters, he asked, half mechanically, where his aunt and cousin were. The answer was ominous:

"My lady was exceedingly unwell, and confined to her room. Miss Vavasour was somewhere in the Pleasance, but she wished to be sent for as soon as Sir Alan arrived." He had written the night before, to say he was coming.

Wyverne walked on into the library without another word. For the moment he felt stupid and helpless, like a man just waking after an overdose of narcotics. He sat down, and began turning the letter over and over as if he were trying to guess at its contents. From its thickness it was evidently a long one--two or three note-sheets at least. A very few minutes, however, brought back his self-composure entirely, and he knew what he had to do. It was clear the letter could not be burnt unopened, this time. He drew his breath hard once, and set his teeth savagely; then he tore the envelope and began to read deliberately.

Alan once said, when he happened to be discussing feminine ethics--"I can conceive women affecting one with any amount of pain or pleasure; but I don't think anything they could do would ever _surprise_ me." Rash words those--perhaps they deserved confutation; at any rate the speaker was thoroughly astounded now. He knew that no look or syllable had ever pa.s.sed between himself and Nina Lenox that could be tortured into serious love-making; yet this letter of hers was precisely such as might have been written by a pa.s.sionate, sinful woman, to the man for whom she had sacrificed enough to make her desertion almost a second crime. There was nothing of romance in it--nothing that the most indulgent judge could construe into Platonic affection--it was miserably _practical_ from end to end. No woman alive, reading such words addressed to her husband or her lover, could have doubted, for a second, what his relations with the writer had been, even if they were ended now.

Griselda herself would have risen in revolt. It is needless to give even the heads of that delectable epistle. Mrs. Lenox acknowledged that she wrote in despite of Alan's repeated prohibition; but--_c'etait plus fort qu'elle_, and all the rest of it. One point she especially insisted on.

However _he_ might scorn her, surely he would not give _others_ the right to do so? He would burn the letter, she knew he would, without speaking of it, far less showing it to any human being; she suffered enough, without having her miserable weakness betrayed for the amus.e.m.e.nt of Miss Vavasour.

Every line that Alan read increased his bewilderment. Was it possible that dissipation, and trouble, and intrigue had told at last on the busy brain, so that it had utterly given way? Such things had been; there was certainly something strange and unnatural in the character of the writing, sometimes hurried till the words ran into each other, sometimes laboured and constrained as if penned by a hand that hesitated and faltered. He knew that Nina was rash beyond rashness, and would indulge her sudden caprices at any cost, without reckoning the sin or even the shame, but he could not believe in such a wild _velleite_ as this.

"She must be mad."

Wyverne spoke those words aloud; they were answered by a sigh, or rather a quick catching of the breath, close to his shoulder; he started to his feet, and stood face to face with Helen Vavasour, who had entered un.o.bserved while he sat in his deep reverie.

Helen was still in her walking-dress; a fall of lace slightly shaded her brow and cheeks, but it could not dissemble the bright feverish flush that made the white pallor of all the lower part of the face more painfully apparent; the pupils of her great eyes were contracted, and they glittered with the strange _serpentine_ light which is one of the evidences of poison by belladonna; but neither cheeks nor eyes bore trace of a tear. She had schooled herself to speak quite deliberately and calmly; the effect was apparent, not only in the careful accentuation of each syllable, but in her voice--neither harsh nor hollow, yet utterly changed.

"Mad, Alan? Yes, we have all been mad. It is time that this should come to an end. You think, so, too, I am sure."

Wyverne had known, from the first moment that he saw the letter, how it would fare with him; but the bitter irritation which had hardened his heart on a former occasion was not there now; he could not even be angry with those who had brought him to this pa.s.s; all other feelings were swallowed up in an intense, half-unselfish sorrow.

"Dear child, it _is_ more than time that you should be set free from me and my miserable fortunes. We will drift away, alone, henceforth, as we ought always to have done. It was simply a sin, ever to have risked dragging you down with the wreck; it must founder soon. Ah, remember, I said so once, and you--never mind that--I'll make what amends I can; but I have done fearful harm already. Three months more of this, would wear you out in mind and body; even now they will tell in your life like years. We most part now. Darling, try to forget, and to forgive, too--for you have much to forgive."

He stopped for a moment, but went on quickly, answering the wild, haggard question of her startled eyes; she had understood those last words wrongly.

"No--not that;" he struck the letter he still held, impatiently, with a finger of the other hand. "I told you once, I would never ask you to believe me again as you did then. I don't ask you to act as if you believed, now. But, Helen, you will know one day before we die, whether I have been sinned against or sinning in this thing; I feel sure of it, or--I should doubt the justice of G.o.d."

The soft, sad voice quite broke down the calmness it had cost Helen so much to a.s.sume; she could not listen longer, and broke in with all her own impetuosity--

"Ah, Alan! don't ask it; it is not right of you. You know I _must_ believe whatever you tell me, and I dare not--do you hear--I dare not, now. It is too late. I have promised--" and she stopped, shivering.

Wyverne's look was keen and searching; but it was not at _her_ that his brows were bent. He took the little trembling hand in his own, and tried to quiet the leaping pulses, and his tones were more soothing than ever.

"I know it all, darling; I know how bravely you have tried to keep your faith with me; I shall thank you for it to my life's end, not the less because neither you nor I were strong enough to fight against fate, and--Aunt Mildred. I cannot blame her: if I could, _you_ should not hear me. She was right to make you promise before you came here. It was unconditionally, of course?"

The girl's cheek flushed painfully.

"There was a condition," she murmured under her breath; "but I hardly dare. Yes; I dare say anything--to you. Mamma sent for me when that letter came, or I should never have heard of it. She did not say how _she_ knew. You cannot think how determined she is. I _was_ angry at first; but when I saw how hard she was, I was frightened; and, Alan, indeed, indeed I did all I could to soften her. At last she said that she would not insist on my giving you up, if--if you would show me that letter. Ah, Alan--what have _I_ done?"

He had dropped her hand before she ended, and stood looking at her with an expression that she had never dreamt could dwell in his eyes--repellant to the last degree, too cold and contemptuous for anger.

It softened, though, in a second or two at the sight of Helen's distress.

"Did you doubt what my answer would be? I am very sure your mother never doubted: she knew me better."

No answer; but she bowed her beautiful head till it could rest on his arm; a stormy sob or two made her slender frame quiver down to the feet; and then, with a rush like that of Undine's unlocked well, the pent-up tears came. The pa.s.sion-gust soon pa.s.sed away; and her cousin kept silence till Helen was calm again; then he spoke very gently and gravely.

"Do forgive me; I did not mean to be harsh. You only gave your message, I know; but it was like a stab to hear your lips utter it. Child, look up at me, and listen. I need not tell you I am speaking G.o.d's truth--you feel it. You know what I have done to stop these accursed letters. I believe the writer to be mad; but that will not help us. I think I would stand by and see her burned at the stake, as better women have been before her, if by that sacrifice I could keep your love. But--if I knew, that by this one act I could make you my very own, so that nothing but the grave could part us--I would not show you a line of her letter. It may be, that there are higher duties which justify the betrayal of an unhappy woman, when her very confidence is a sin. I dare say I am wrong in my notions of honour, as well as in other things; but, such as they are, I'll stand by them to the death, and--to what I think must be harder to bear than death. I don't hesitate, because I have no choice. I know that I am casting, this moment, my life's happiness away: Helen--see--my hand does not tremble."

He tossed the letter as he spoke into the wood fire blazing beside them; it dropped between two red logs, and, just flashing up for a second, mingled with the heap of ashes.

Now, Wyverne's conduct will appear to many absurdly Quixotic, and some will think it deserves a harsher name than folly. I decline to argue either point. It seems to me--when one states fairly at the beginning of a story, "that it has no Hero"--the writer is by no means called upon to identify himself with the sentiments of his princ.i.p.al character, much less to defend them. I have not intended to hold up Alan Wyverne either as a model or a warning. He stands there for what he is worth--a man not particularly wise or virtuous or immaculate, but frank and affectionate by nature, with firmness enough to enable him to act consistently according to the light given him. Whether that light was a false one or no, is a question that each particular reader may settle _a son gre_.

Purely on the grounds of probability, I would suggest that others have sacrificed quite as much for scruples quite as visionary. Putting aside the legions of lives that have been thrown away on doubtful points of social professional honour, have not staid and grave men submitted to the extremes of penury, peril, and persecution, because they would not give up some favourite theory involving no question of moral right or wrong? The _Peine forte et dure_ could scarcely have been an agreeable process; yet a Jesuit chose to endure it, and died under the iron press, rather than plead before what he held to be an incompetent tribunal. You constantly say of such cases, "One can't help respecting the man, to a certain extent." Now, I don't ask you to respect Alan Wyverne: it is enough, if you admit that his folly was not without parallels.

Among those who could blame or despise him, Helen Vavasour was not numbered: she never felt more proud of her lover than at that moment when his own act had parted them irrevocably. She was not of the "weeping willow" order, you know; the tears still hanging on her eyelashes were the first she had shed since childhood in serious sorrow.

Quick and impetuous enough in temper, she was so unaccustomed to indulge any violent demonstration of feeling, that she felt somewhat ashamed of having yielded to it now. But the brief outbreak did her good; it lightened her brain and brought back elasticity to her nerves. There is nothing like a storm for clearing the atmosphere. Nevertheless, the haughty, bold spirit was for the moment thoroughly beaten down. There was something in her accent piteous beyond the power of words to describe, as she whispered half to herself,

"Yes, we must part; but it is too, too hard."

"Hardest of all," he said, "to part on a pretext like this. There is either madness or magic, or black treachery against me, I swear. Some day we shall know. But, darling, sooner or later it must have come. I have felt that for weeks past, though I tried hard to delude myself. I must say good-bye to Dene in an hour. When shall I see the dear old house again? I am so sorry for Uncle Hubert, too. If he had been here--no, perhaps it is best so--there would have been more wounded, and we could never have won the day."

"Don't go yet; ah, not yet"--the sweet voice pleaded--all its dangerous melody had stolen back to it now, and lithe fingers twined themselves round Alan's, as though they would never set him free.

But Wyverne was aware that the self-control which had carried him through so far, was nearly exhausted. He had to think for _both_, you see; and it was the more trying, because the part of Moderator was so utterly new to him; nevertheless, he played it honestly and bravely.

"I dare not stay. I _must_ see Uncle Hubert before I sleep; and it is only barely possible, if I leave Dene in half an hour. Listen, my Helen: I am not saying good-bye to _you_, though I say it to our past. I lose my wife; but I do not intend to lose my cousin. I will see you again as soon as I can do so safely. A great black wall is built up now, between the future, and all that we two have said and done: I will never try to pa.s.s it again by thought or word. You will forget all this. Hush, dear.

You think it impossible at this moment, but _I_ know better. You will play a grand part in the world one of these days, and perhaps you may want a friend--a real friend. Then you shall think of me. I will help you with heart and hand as long as life lasts; and I will do so in all truth and honour--as I hope to meet my dead mother, and Gracie, and you, in heaven."

She did not answer in words. The interview lasted about a hundred seconds longer, but I do not feel called upon to chronicle the last details. Writers, as well as narrators, have a right to certain reserves.

Alan Wyverne was away from Dene before the half hour was out; but he left a sealed note behind him for his aunt. "My lady" was waiting the issue somewhat anxiously; it is needless to say, her health was the merest pretext. She read the note through, calmly enough; but, when she opened her escritoire to lock it up safely, her hands shook like aspen-leaves, and she drank off eagerly the strongest dose of "red lavender" that had pa.s.sed her lips for many a day.

Does not that decisive interview seem absurdly abrupt and brief? It is true that I have purposely omitted many insignificant words and gestures; but if all these had been chronicled, it would still have been disappointingly matter-of-fact and meagre.

Nevertheless--believe it--to build up a life's happiness is a work of time and labour, aided by great good fortune: to ruin and shatter it utterly is a question of a short half hour, even where no ill luck intervenes. It took months of toil to build the good ship Hesperus, though her timbers were seasoned and ready to hand; it took hours of trouble to launch her when thoroughly equipped for sea; but it took only a few minutes of wave-and-wind-play, to shiver her into splinters, when her keel crushed down on the reef of Norman's Woe.

CHAPTER XVI.

MISANTHROPOS.

On the morning after the most disastrous of all his bad nights at hazard, Charles Fox was found by a friend who called, in fear and trembling, to offer a.s.sistance or condolence, lying on his sofa in lazy luxury, deep in an eclogue of Virgil. The magnificent indifference was probably not a.s.sumed, for there was little tinsel about that large honest nature, and he was not the man to indulge in private theatricals.

Since I read that anecdote, I have always wondered that the successes achieved by the great Opposition leader were not more lasting and complete. Among the triumphs of mind over matter, that power of thoroughly abstracting the thoughts from recent grief or trouble, seems to stand first and foremost. Such sublime stoicism implies a strength of character and of will, that separates its possessor at once from his fellows: sooner or later, He must rule, and they must obey.

Alan Wyverne was not so rarely gifted. The bustle of the heavy journey from Dene to the railroad, and the uncertainty about catching the train, helped him at first; but when all that was over, and he was fairly on his way to town, he was forced to _think_, whether he would or no.

Anything was better than brooding over the past; he tried desperately to force his thoughts into the immediate future--to imagine what he should say to his uncle, and how the Squire would take the heavy tidings. The effort was worse than vain. The strong stream laughed at the puny attempts to stem it, sweeping all such obstacles away, as it rushed down its appointed channel. All the plans he had talked over with Helen, even to the smallest details of their proposed domestic economy, came back one by one; he remembered every word of their last playful argument, when he tried to persuade her that certain luxuries for her boudoir at Wyverne Abbey were necessities not to be dispensed with; he remembered how they had speculated as to the disposal of the money, if his solitary bet on the next Derby, 1000 to 10 about a rising favourite--should by any chance come off right; how they had weighed gravely the advantages of three months of winter in Italy against the pleasures of an adventurous expedition whose turning-point should be the Lebanon. What did it matter now who won or lost? Was it only yesterday that he had an interest in all these things? Yesterday--between him and that word there seemed already a gulf of years. Yesterday, he had felt so proud in antic.i.p.ating the triumphs of his beautiful bride; now, he could only think of her certain success with a heavy sinking of the heart, or a hot fierce jealousy; for she was all his own treasure then; one night had made her the world's again. That miserable journey scarcely lasted four hours; but when it ended, Wyverne was as much morally changed as he might have been, physically, by a long wasting sickness.

Does it seem strange that a man, who up to this time had met all reverses with a careless gaiety that was almost provoking, should go down so helplessly now before a blow that would scarcely stagger many of our acquaintance? A great deal, in such cases, depends on the antecedents. Human nature, however elastic and enduring, will only stand a certain amount of "beating." When Captain Lyndon is in good luck and good funds, he accepts the loss of a hundred or two with dignified equanimity, if not with chirping cheerfulness; but supposing the bad night comes at the end of a long evil "vein"--when financial prospects are gloomier than the yellow fog outside--when the face of his banker is set against him, as it were a millstone--when that reckless soldier

Would liever mell with the fiends of h.e.l.l, Than with Craig's Court and its band.

O, my friend! I marvel not that a muttered imprecation shot out from under your moustache, last night, when the Queen of Hearts showed her comely face--your adversaries having the deal, at three.

Now Alan Wyverne had been playing for his last stake, so far as he knew: he had put it down with some diffidence and hesitation, and it had followed the rest into the gulf, leaving him without a chance of winning back his losses. Under the circ.u.mstances some depression, surely, was not wholly despicable. Remember, he was not so young as he had been: though still on the better side of middle age, he had in many ways antic.i.p.ated his prime, and had not much left to look forward to.

Qu'on est bien dans un grenier Quand on a vingt ans!