Dilemmas of Pride Volume III Part 6

CHAPTER XVI.

To account for the appearance of our heroine under such peculiar circ.u.mstances, we must look back to secondary events, which latterly we have not had leisure to notice.

Immediately after poor Willoughby's abrupt departure from Montague House, Lady Palliser and her daughter had set out on their continental tour, in which it was supposed by the friends on both sides, that he was shortly to join them. During their journey, they had either not chanced to meet with, or at least not happened to read with any degree of attention an English newspaper. One, however, was laid on their breakfast table the morning after their arrival at Geneva; it was that which contained a summary of Alfred's trial, conviction, and condemnation to an ignominious death, for the wilful murder of his brother. From the circ.u.mstances of Lady Palliser being out of England, on the constant move, and consequently not a.s.sociating with any one, her ladyship had not heard before even of such an accusation having been brought against our hero, yet she glanced over the account of the terrific affair with a countenance perfectly unmoved; and when she had finished the statements, merely handed the paper across the table to Caroline saying, in the most careless tone imaginable,

"It was very fortunate that you were not married to either of them."

Caroline, wondering what her mother could mean, took the paper in silence, and began to read the part indicated by the manner of folding.

Lady Palliser sipped her coffee without even a look of inquiry towards her daughter; but had there been any one present to have noted the emotions marked on the countenance of Caroline, they would have seen first, a faint glow as the names met her sight; then the gradual retiring of the same; then the unconscious parting of the lips and holding of the breath; next a quickened respiration, a flickering colour, and a countenance full of indignant expression.

Soon after this profound attention seemed to still every pulse, for the paper which before had visibly vibrated with each throb of the heart, no longer stirred, while every vestige of the lines of life retired even from the lips: the eyes alone moved, as eagerly they traced, from margin to margin, line after line. Suddenly a rush of crimson covered the face and neck, a piercing cry escaped the lips, and Caroline fell senseless to the floor, having become again pale as a corpse.

It was some hours before she showed any returning signs of life, and when she again opened her eyes it was evident, from their piteous expression, that consciousness, whether of woe or weal was gone.

Subsequently, however, though she still noticed no other object, she manifested such strong symptoms of terror at the approach of Lady Palliser, that the medical attendant thought fit to recommend her ladyship not to enter the apartment.

Lady Palliser, from whom patient attendance on sickness or suffering was not at any rate much to be expected, soon began to get exceedingly tired of the whole affair. She was also provoked that her daughter's name should, however blamelessly, be implicated with that of a family on whom such disgrace had fallen; for though Alfred's escape was by this time known, the stigma was still the same; he was still under sentence of death--he was still believed to be a murderer. Caroline's sudden illness too had made matters worse; for its supposed cause had got abroad, and having spread from the English to the natives, became the universal topic of conversation with high and low. That this would be still more the case in England her ladyship was well aware; she determined therefore not to return thither till the business should be in a great measure forgotten; in the mean time to proceed on her tour, leaving her daughter, who was unable to travel, at Geneva, with of course a suitable establishment of sick-nurses and servants, and attended, unluckily, by some medical personage who had acquired a questionable reputation n.o.body knew how, and whose opinion therefore Lady Palliser, with her usual whimsical irrationality, chose to consider the best _medical advice_ within reach; and to whose care, without weighing the subject further, she accordingly committed the reason and the life of her only child.

Whether her ladyship would have taken the unfeeling step of proceeding on her journey, had her presence afforded consolation to the suffering Caroline, it is impossible to say; but, as her sage adviser still recommended her to refrain from seeing his patient, she appeared to consider herself at liberty to follow her own devices.

CHAPTER XVII.

Having thus explained how it happened that our heroine was found at Geneva in the forlorn state described, we must now return to Alfred. He followed the apparition of Caroline, saw her couch lifted from the boat to a kind of carriage which was in waiting on the sh.o.r.e, landed himself immediately, and though incapable of plan or purpose, pursued the carriage. It stopped at a villa at a little distance. He saw Caroline lifted out, and carried into the house. Impelled by an uncontrollable impulse, and too much agitated to think of forms, he entered the hall with the servants, of whom he made some incoherent inquiries. They seemed scarcely to comprehend him. A person pa.s.sed hastily in almost at the moment and entered a sitting-room which opened into the hall, and into which the couch with the invalid had just been carried.

"It is the doctor, sir," said a servant, with a puzzled air, which seemed to infer, he can probably answer you better than I can.

Alfred followed eagerly to the door of the room, and stood there some seconds in breathless anxiety. It opened--the _soi-disant_ doctor was coming out, but drew back, as it were, to make way for our hero; who, from his evident and pitiable agitation, and his eager inquiries, he seemed to take for granted, was some one of the lady's near relations arrived at last, and of course ent.i.tled to enter the apartment of the invalid. Laying apparently asleep on a sofa visible from the door, Alfred could now discern Caroline: yet, though at the time in no state of mind for reflection, he so far felt himself unauthorized in his intrusion as to give an air of hesitation to his manner.

"You can come in, sir," said the doctor, "there is no danger, I am sorry to say," he added with pompous solemnity, "of waking the patient."

On hearing these alarming words, Alfred rushed to the side of the couch in so wild a manner, that the doctor, quite aghast, followed, and laying his hand on his arm, said, "You mistake me, sir: there is no reason to expect immediate dissolution; my meaning was, that you need not be apprehensive of interrupting the slumbers of the patient; her state being unhappily, not natural sleep, but a species of trance, becoming, I feel it, notwithstanding, my painful duty to say from its prolonged duration and the daily diminution of bodily strength, every hour more and more hopeless. From, in fact, the first moment of her sudden seizure up to the present time, she has not shed one tear, spoken one word; nor, as we have reason to believe, though in this constant state of apparent unconsciousness, ever actually slept; for, at any startling or unusual sound, her eyes have been observed to open, though but for a second."

While the doctor, who was fond of hearing himself talk, had been thus holding forth, Alfred had stood gazing on the pale unconscious sufferer, in an agony of grief and compa.s.sion.

Pity is itself a gentle, an endearing sentiment; but when claimed by a being we already love, who shall paint the going forth of the whole soul, in the blended sympathy! If there is an earthly feeling pure from self, worthy of heaven, it is this! Had Alfred encountered Caroline in health, amid scenes of pleasure and of gaiety, himself free from the disgrace and ruin which now attached to him; nay, with a knowledge that her seeming want of truth had been but obedience to the tyrannical commands of a parent; that her heart was still his; that, in short, every obstacle to their union was removed by the death of poor Willoughby;--how soon, in such a case, he might have been able to have separated thoughts of her and of happiness from the heart-rending remembrance of his brother; at what distant period of time he could, in short, have sought a paradise on the very sh.o.r.e where that brother had become a wreck, it is impossible to say. But when instead of all this, her idea was presented to his mind under circ.u.mstances so new, so terrible, so far removed from selfish joy, which, when mingled with thoughts of Willoughby, would have seemed almost a sacrilege; then it was that an overwhelming interest in her fate took possession of his whole soul unresisted, consisting of fears, not of hopes; and that soul full of misery, was almost paralysed by the memory and presence of sorrow. He continued to gaze, till a sense of the most appalling dread, despite the a.s.surance of the doctor that there was no immediate danger, crept over his heart, so much did the perfect stillness of the lovely features resemble that of death. His terror momentarily increased--he bent--he knelt--he listened in breathless anguish, till the throbbing of his own pulses might have been heard, but he could catch no sound of respiration. He looked up with a sort of despairing yet questioning expression in the doctor's face.

"I by no means," said the authority so appealed to, "apprehend, as I have already stated, any immediate danger. This species of trance has continued without intermission, ever since the first rash communication of the fatal intelligence." Then, fond of hearing himself talk, and possibly believing that he spoke to a near relative, acquainted of course with all the circ.u.mstances, he continued to exhibit his powers of oratory thus:

"The shock was, I fear, altogether too much for any sensitive mind; what with the abrupt mode of communication, and the manner of the gentleman's death, so terrible--murdered they say, by his own twin brother!"

"No, sir!" exclaimed Alfred, starting up with sudden fierceness, and grasping the doctor's arm, "he was not murdered by his brother; and that," he added, with an altered tone and manner, clasping his hands, and raising his eyes to heaven, "when her spirit awakes in the realms of the blessed it will know."

The conversation up to this point had been conducted in the mysterious whispers of a sick room, but Alfred's voice, from excess of excitement, in the last sentence unconsciously a.s.sumed its natural key. As he concluded his apostrophy to Heaven, his eyes, which had been uplifted in the fervour of devotional feeling fell again on Caroline. Her's were wide open, and fixed on him, with an almost wild expression of terror and bewilderment!

In a moment more, the crimson rash had, for a second, crossed her brow; the piercing cry escaped her lips, and she had fallen again into that totally inanimate state, which had characterised her first seizure, and distinguished it from the sleep-like trance in which she had subsequently lain.

All was instant confusion and dismay. Alfred, almost wild with terror, raised the drooping head which had slid from the pillow, supported the fair cheek against his bosom; and chafed, now the temples, now the hands, mechanically, endeavouring to obey the directions of the doctor, while his own hands trembled, till they could scarcely perform the task a.s.signed them.

The doctor himself, too, seemed much alarmed, and somewhat taken by surprize; he tried all the means of restoring animation he could think of, but in vain. At length he began to look very serious indeed. To Alfred's frantic adjurations, half question, half entreaty, as though the doctor's words could reverse the decree of fate, he replied repeatedly, and with decision, that all was over. "There is not now," he added, "the strength to rally there had been at the time of the first attack."

A mournful silence followed: all, as with one consent, discontinued their efforts. The doctor folded his arms. The very attendants stood for a considerable time quite motionless.

Alfred was kneeling beside the couch, in the att.i.tude he had taken, while striving to render a.s.sistance to her, who was now no more. At length the nurses, anxious in their officious zeal to perform the duties they considered their province, drew near, removed the head of Caroline from his supporting shoulder, and laid it on the centre of the pillow, then withdrew the hand he still grasped in his, and arranging the delicate fingers, placed it by her side; while the doctor approaching, raised our hero, and led him from the room, attempting, as he did so, the usual common-places of conversation: it was an event which had been expected for some time. There was so little hope of ultimate recovery, that it might be considered a happy release; for even had her life been preserved, her faculties could never have been restored.

As for our hero, he heard him not; all his thoughts, discoloured and distorted by late events, were desperate. "It was well," he inwardly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "yes, it was well--life was misery--death a refuge--why should any one desire to live?"

The doctor, the while, led Alfred through the hall, a.s.sisted him into his (the doctor's) carriage, which stood at the door, and begged to know whither he desired to be driven. The question had to be repeated more than once before a murmur, from which something like the address was at length collected, could be drawn from Alfred.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The movement of the carriage, and the necessity of descending from it, having aroused Alfred from the first paralysing effects of his grief, he now paced his apartment rapidly, and continued to do so almost the whole of the night; too much absorbed by his miserable reflections, to be conscious of the bodily fatigue he was thus incurring. Yet it was impossible to be still! Was she indeed dead?--was the question, he again and again, asked himself. Then, with indescribable agony, he recalled the bewildered terror of those dear eyes during the single moment they had met his. How short was the period which had since elapsed; she was then in life--was it possible! could she be already gone for ever? A lingering feeling, in some sort allied to hope, though altogether irrational, still struggled with his despair. It is after waiting in vain, as it were, for a reprieve from fate, that sorrow for the dead seems gradually to reach its climax. It is not in the first hour of bereavement that we can comprehend our wretchedness; so difficult is it to believe, that in a few short moments, the great, the awful change, has taken place and eternity for a fellow-mortal, who trod the path of earth with us but now, commenced. Then would he view, with stern despair, the mysterious union, by which his own fate, the fate of poor Willoughby, and that of Caroline, seemed linked together in misery.

"But she is now at rest," he would add, and after dwelling for a time on this idea, gentler emotions would arise; and he would strain his mental vision to behold the shadowy regions of that "bourn whence no traveller returns," as though tenderness thus sought for some locality in which to picture to itself the cherished image of the being beloved.

Night pa.s.sed away, and morning came, but its light brought with it the unsufferable thought, that even now the busy preparations of the living, to rid themselves of the dead, were in all probability being commenced!--Once more--yes, once more, he must behold her! And then he would think of his poor mother, and patiently await his own release. As he formed this resolve, he was crossing his apartment, to descend into the street and hasten back to the villa, when the door flew open and Lady Arden entered.

"Alfred! my son," she exclaimed, "you are justified!" unable to articulate further, she wept pa.s.sionately, but her tears flowed over a countenance radiant with joy.

As the words, "you are justified," sounded in the ear of Alfred, relief from ignominy swelled his heart with a proud and worthy satisfaction, which, under any other circ.u.mstances, would have taken the lead even of his affections. But now, instead of eagerly inquiring what had occurred, he said, with solemn tenderness, while affectionately returning the maternal embrace, "I am not ungrateful to Heaven, or to you."

Lady Arden gazed at the mournful expression of his countenance, and added anxiously, and somewhat doubtingly, "When time, my son, shall have pa.s.sed a healing hand over the sorrow you feel for your poor brother, I shall see you, I trust, yourself again; and for my sake--and for the sake of others who love you, quite--quite--happy--at last. For this misery," she added, speaking slowly, and still watching in vain for the dawning of pleasurable feeling on his still and saddened features; "this misery has been all occasioned by the tyranny of Lady Palliser;--she whom you both loved has ever been, and is still faithful to you.--She confided in poor Willoughby at the last, and entreated him to shelter her from the anger of her mother, by withdrawing his addresses. He obeyed her wish--but--his mind lost its balance in the effort. There is hope then--surely there is hope--that Heaven will deal mercifully with him who had not reason for his guide when he sinned."

Alfred looked in her face while she spoke. When she ceased, his lips attempted to move but no sound proceeded from them. Every power, mental and physical, had been strained beyond frail Nature's capability of endurance. His head rested, and he sunk on a sofa in nearly a swooning state.

At this moment the doctor most opportunely entered.

CHAPTER XIX.

While the Doctor is exerting his skill in the endeavour to revive our hero, we shall go back and give some account of the events which led to the fortunate result proclaimed by Lady Arden on her entrance.

We have already mentioned that at an early hour the morning after Alfred quitted his place of concealment in the ruins, the long-delayed funeral of Willoughby took place; immediately after which the family set out for London.

Geoffery, though he knew himself to be a suspected and unwelcome guest, yet had thought it necessary, for appearance sake, to attend. He had done so, and spent some hours subsequently at Fips's, awaiting the departure of Lady Arden and suite from the mansion, upon which it was his intention to take immediately formal possession of a place of which he had so long desired to be the master. The last of the carriages containing the family party had pa.s.sed about an hour, when Geoffery mounted his horse and was riding through the princ.i.p.al street of Arden on his way to the park, on the adjacent woods of which he was so much engaged looking with exulting _pride_, that he did not perceive a waggon laden with household furniture which happened to be pa.s.sing, till it came so near that to avoid it he was obliged to ride close to the foot-path.