Miles Tremenhere Volume Ii Part 17

She hesitated a moment. In christening him he had been named "William,"

as second name, after her father, and by this she generally now called him to strangers; his father's might lead somehow to detection, for frequently the _concierge_ took him in her arms for a walk, when she was too busy to leave home, and always returned with an account of the many persons who stopped to inquire the boy's name. As William, or Guillaume Deval, who might recognize the parents? Almost an impulse induced her to give him Miles's name when this other inquired; but, checking herself, she said "William."

"Has he no father?" asked the old man, caressing the boy, who now sat on his mother's knee; and he looked searchingly at her. But any thought of error fled when you gazed in Minnie's pure face: sin never could look thus.

"We are parted," she said sadly. "Some day, perhaps, monsieur, I may tell you all, and ask your advice; for indeed you seem as an old friend, and father to me. I hope we shall often meet."

And they did; and it seemed as if a blessing followed her good deed, for work came pouring in, and she found constant employment, as we have seen, even from the first dressmakers in Paris--thus she knew of Lady Lysson's party to the _bal de l'opera_; and her fingers made the domino in which Lady Dora leaned on Tremenhere and listened to his love--so strange a thing is fate! An impulse, impossible to resist, impelled her to visit that scene, whose gaiety harmonized so little with her feelings. She had the two dominoes to make; and in the black one we have seen how much she intrigued Tremenhere--the other she had left with the woman keeping the cloaks, and her foresight served her purpose well, of knowing all. Who may tell the agony of this woman, leaning once again on his arm, and listening to those accents which thrilled her inmost soul--words too of interest fell from his lips, and her bursting heart said, "Throw off your mask, and he will fly you in horror or hate;" but nothing could ever equal in agony that moment when, leaning against the pillar in her second dress, she heard the greater portion of his conversation with Lady Dora; and, worse than all, the promise of the morrow! How could she dive into his heart, and read its sorrow, remorse, and revenge, prompting it to the part he was playing with her cousin?

She only saw facts--heard words. She saw him friendly and kind with Lord Randolph; and in his face, whose every look she knew full well, she read confidence and friendship towards that man; then all the hate was her own--it was not mere jealousy, but personal dislike, or he could not so soon have forgotten her! No wonder then she fainted; and, when recovered from her swoon, she declined--nay, peremptorily refused all a.s.sistance to take her home--that toiling home, now made doubly painful; she returned to it nearly mad. The _concierge_, who had taken charge of her boy, was terrified at the paleness of that still face. Minnie said she had a motive for wishing much to go; and the good-natured woman, thinking it so natural, at once consented to keep the boy with her.

"_Pauvre pet.i.te_," said the woman to herself, as she gave the almost silent Minnie her key and lamp. "She has seen her monsieur, I dare say.

Ah! I always thought she was not married--but forsaken, and with her child, too! _pauvre pet.i.te!_ I will bring up Guillaume," she said aloud.

"_Tenez!_ you can scarcely support your own weight, much less his! I'll bring him up to you."

And Minnie thanked her in a whisper, and crept almost lifeless up the stairs.

As yet she had confided nothing of her history to her old neighbour, whom she only knew as a poor man named Georges, who had lost place and fortune. By persuading him that he was useful to her, she had succeeded in making him more frequently her guest, than his own solitary companion. She feared speaking of the past; yet, so much did she love the venerable old man, that she longed to dare confide all, and ask his advice. Now she felt her total inability to act for herself, and resolved to tell him not later than the following day. But there is a destiny ever above ruling, far superior to our puny wills. Next day she was too ill to speak, or see him; she was confined to her bed, where the intense anguish of her mind drove madness through her frame; and the following one she was delirious, and her shrieking voice could only utter one name--"Tremenhere!" It was no moment for false delicacy. The old man, whom she had befriended, stood by her in her need, and the trembling hands wiped the cold moisture from her brow, or held the cup of _tizane_ to her lips. Little Miles was nursed below; and though her eye wandered, seeking something in her madness, she uttered but the one name, sometimes in accents of prayer, sometimes in shrieking horror, for the promised morrow was with her, even in her delirium!

CHAPTER XVI.

On that morrow, which she so much dreaded, Tremenhere was away from Paris, and hurrying onward towards Ma.r.s.eilles. Once arrived there, his task was an easy one; there were tongues enough to speak to him of the toiling little _ouvriere_, so frail, so persevering, and of the child which came to solace her hours; even her beauty had not unstrung one malevolent tongue against her fame--all was toil, gentleness, and worth.

As he drank down each bitter draught, his soul grew sterner--there was not a tear in it to quench the fire of remorse. All, too, had one tale to tell: she always said, when she had saved enough to pay her journey, she should follow her husband, who was an artist at Florence. To fill up the measure of all, he waited upon the lady, whose daughter, Minnie had accompanied on board the fated "Hirondelle." He presented himself as a relative of her husband; he durst not trust his feelings to say, "I am the man," lest all should shrink from him in horror. He spoke of an unhappy quarrel, their separation, and consequent ignorance of where she was. Here he heard of her with tears from the childless mother, of the affection her daughter bore Minnie, whom she had employed as a workwoman at first, but won by her gentleness, piety, and goodness, had besought her to accompany her to Malta, as nurse to her child--of Minnie's love and devotion for her little "Miles," for thus she had called him there--her firm refusal to wean him, for any sum, from her breast, and her eventually consenting to go to Malta, on their promise to send her, in six months, to Florence--the one dream of her loving wife's heart! 'Tis wonderful Miles could command his feelings enough to listen calmly to all this; but there is a calm far beyond that of perfect peace--'tis that of despair. His face changed not--'twas as though it had been chiseled in marble, by some cunning artificer, to imitate life, for none was there--not a muscle moved--not a shade crossed it; it was the tombstone of hope, whose ashes lay beneath. One thing he did: he sought the room where she had resided in her sorrow--the room where her child's first accents struck upon her ear; it had not been let since, so he sat down alone there for hours, and his wandering eyes looked on every spot on that dingy wall; nothing he left unregarded where her eyes had dwelt, and he saw, as in a vision, all the many thoughts she had left behind her to people the place. He rejoiced no one had ever inhabited the same room since. Seeking the landlord, he rented it for a year, and, paying in advance, carefully locked, and put his seal on it, lest any one should desecrate it.

"No voice in joy shall ever fill that place where she has wept so many silent tears--there, where she loved me still, our spirits have met again. Minnie, forgive me!" And the man knelt in that desolate abode, and prayed fervently. "If," he said, "I should ever be tempted to forget her sorrow, I will return hither, and fill my heart with memory, and hatred of myself!"

And in this mood he returned to Paris: and a week had elapsed since the ball. It will not seem strange if, on his arrival, he shut himself up in his studio, away from the world, for days. How commune with that?--or those who had known her, and now smiled over her grave?

Every moment his feelings became more vindictive towards Lady Dora: it was the only pa.s.sion surviving in his heart--all the others were wrecked, and had gone down with the "Hirondelle."

Perhaps it was well that Marmaduke Burton had gone, no one knew whither, or a worse one than vindictiveness might have revived. a.s.suredly he might have been driven to murder, had he once given way to his prompting fiend.

It will seem almost strange to many, perhaps, that with this anguish raging in his heart, he never once thought even of suicide. Tremenhere was a brave man--an essentially courageous one; he feared nothing in this world. But he had a strong religious sense, implanted by his mother: he feared the suicide's unfailing h.e.l.l, when madness comes not to plead for the act before Heaven. He was preparing himself, in the solitude of his chamber, for a pilgrimage of suffering and repentance, before he should meet her spirit, doomed in its other state to throw off the garb of mercy and forgiveness _she_ would ever have worn, and before Heaven accuse, perhaps condemn, him. He was preparing to face the world, and veil his suffering--to toil on; and then he asked himself, "For what?" Here his mother arose before him.

"Yes," he said, "I have deserted, forgotten, reviled her; it shall be my task to place her high in brightness and purity. And if, in my pa.s.sage, one lip breathes Minnie's name in shadow before me, then will I bare all my own heavy sorrow, and, condemning myself, clear her! Now, it would but sully a fame like hers, to drag her forth uncalled for. I must watch my opportunity; and the day I debase _her_ enemies--her enemy, her heartless cousin--I will elevate her where none shall dare attaint her again!"

He heard Lord Randolph had called; and here it was that his heart turned towards that man. He remembered the kindly, though unadvisedly done, act at Uplands; this man's kindness of manner; his respectfulness towards her. Now the veil of darkness had fallen, he saw all aright; and a love--a love almost of womanly weakness--arose in his heart towards him.

He was the first person whom he received; and when the other started at his pale cheek, he simply answered, he had been ill; a sudden obligation to visit the country, where illness had seized upon him. He started, however, when Lord Randolph begged his congratulations on his approaching marriage with Lady Dora, who had accepted him the previous day. However, his start was not perceptible to his friend, and he spoke all the speeches of usage as warmly as such are generally spoken; and, taking his arm, they proceeded together to the Hotel Mirabeau.

Lady Dora and her mother sat alone when they entered. The former, despite her general self-possession, coloured painfully, and then became of marble whiteness, while the pale, curling lip alone spoke her internal battle to seem calm.

"I bring you an invalid friend," said Lord Randolph; "Tremenhere has been very ill."

She looked fixedly at him; his eyes were hollow, his cheeks white; but even these were not sufficient excuse, to that despotic heart. "He should have kept his appointment," she mentally said, "any way."

"Have you been at home?" asked Lady Ripley; "for Lord Randolph told us you were not there when he called."

A sudden thought seized Tremenhere; he would make this illness subservient to his plans. "I was forced to leave Paris--circ.u.mstances obliged me," he said, and for an instant his eye lighted on Lady Dora; "and something of a slow, nervous fever has overwhelmed me ever since."

"Egad, yes!" cried Lord Randolph; "I found him seated listlessly at his easel, attempting to paint; and when I entered _sans ceremonie_, the fellow mistook me for a rival artist, and hastily threw a covering over some _chef d'oeuvre_ he was completing."

A faint colour crossed Miles's pale cheek, and unthinkingly his eye fell on Lady Dora, and theirs met in an instant; he read her thoughts, and saw where it might be made available to his purpose.

"I was painting from memory," he said--so he had been, but _not_ Lady Dora, as she imagined. His look, his illness, all combined to make her believe herself the cause, or rather jealousy at Lord Randolph's return; and the exulting heart of the woman bounded with gratified pride; there was not one thought of sincere affection in it. Still she could not quite forgive his departure without seeking her. When a woman feels she has stepped rather too far, and in haste, and pa.s.ses a sleepless night, collecting herself to undo the evil by apparent indifference, it is most provoking to find all thrown away, and that uttered words which we fancied were sunk deep into another's soul, generating loving thoughts and hopes, had pa.s.sed over the surface like a meteor across the sky, leaving not the slightest trace of its pa.s.sage.

"May I be permitted," he said, after a pause, in rather a low tone, for Lord Randolph was warmly discussing some political point with his mother-in-law elect, "to offer my congratulations on your approaching happiness? May you be so--I sincerely desire it."

"Thank you," she answered trembling, and biting her lip at his coolness.

"You appear to have held the happiness of more than his in your keeping--your own I mean, in suspense; and now, the battle over, the sun of joy bursts over all. Lord Randolph is perfectly happy, and I never saw your ladyship looking so well!"

"Then, taking you at your own judgment," she answered hastily, without thinking, and acrimoniously, "you are an exception to the general happiness, for you certainly do not look well; you should have placed----" She paused suddenly, and coloured, remembering what her words implied.

"You are right, Lady Dora. I ought to have placed my happiness in your keeping; would you have well guarded it?"

"I do not understand you, Mr. Tremenhere; and I fear you mistake my meaning," was the haughty reply.

"I fear I have mistaken much; forgive me, the error will have no mate--like myself, it will be lone--forgive me."

There was so much sadness in his voice, that her hand trembled with the emotion her pride even could not quell; she had accepted Lord Randolph in pique at Tremenhere's supposed trifling with her, and now those chains were already galling her; yet, how throw them off? how find courage to cast herself away on him--the man she had once so much despised? It was a fearful war within her. At this juncture Lord Randolph came to their aid in words, but every one was significant to their thoughts.

"Tremenhere!" he cried, "I appeal to you," and he turned to where the two sat, a little apart; she was knitting a purse. "Do you think a _bal masque_, as we went the other night, a place where no man should take his wife?"

"That depends much on the lady," was the reply.

"I said," answered Lady Ripley, "that in my opinion, from the description given me by Lady Lysson (for I thank goodness I was not there,) that scenes so totally at variance with decorum as men in female attire, and _vice versa_, and the heterogeneous ma.s.s of persons collected there--their freedom of speech, want of all ceremony and obedience to the commonest rules of society, must leave an unfavourable trace on the mind--I declare, even Dora savours of it; for ever since she went there has been a restlessness of spirit, an unquietness of manner, I never noticed before. I should scarcely have wondered at any absurdity she might have committed."

"Oh, mamma!" exclaimed that lady, in painful confusion.

"On my life," laughed Lord Randolph, "Lady Ripley, you are epigrammatic in your speech. Has Lady Dora been guilty of any absurdity since?"

"You mistake me," hastily answered she, remembering the engagement contracted within a few days; "of any serious fault I trust _my_ daughter will never be guilty; but I mean, were she not perfect, as I may, I believe, call her, in strict propriety of thought and action, I should indeed dread what such influence might effect."

"Lady Dora could never forget what is due to her rank and station," said Tremenhere. "There may be a certain excitement in the scene, especially to a person visiting it for the first time; but we will leave all casualties of this kind to your unsophisticated girl, believing in such an absurdity as love different to what the world has viewed it, and thrown with one she fancied destined to call into being that feeling, there is really no saying whether such a one might not be led away by the atmosphere around her to give love for love, and speak her heart freely where the generous mask concealed her blushes from the eye envious to behold that record of her sincerity; but you will all perceive, I am depicting an imaginary scene, and persons. We are all too sage and old in fashion's ways to commit the like follies."

"Oh, of course!" answered the unseeing mother; but every word had echoed in Lady Dora's heart, or its facsimile; for the thing itself she did not possess--it had long been choked by pride.

"I believe," continued Lord Randolph, "that the masques in olden times--at court and elsewhere--were made the medium of intrigues, state and others; but surely nothing could be more innocent than the one the other night!" Lord Randolph was rather primitive in his ideas as regards a _bal masque a l'opera_, even in our days--Lady Dora did not internally agree with him, but she said nothing.

"Have you secured one box for the _Francais_ this evening?" asked Lady Ripley, changing the subject. "I quite forgot it," answered Lord Randolph; "come along, Tremenhere, we will go and look for it, and you shall bring it back to the ladies, for I am unavoidably engaged till dinner; of course, you will be of the party?"

"I fear not," he answered; "I have much occupation on hand."

"Nonsense, man! you shut yourself up with your mysterious portrait, till you become perfectly gloomy; it must have a deep interest for you."

"You mistake; 'tis an altar-piece which I am completing to order--a Madonna and child."