Richard Vandermarck Part 16

For you? No, not for you, but for the shadow of you, for the thought of you, for these short weeks of you. And then, an eternity of absence, and of remorse, and of oblivion--ah, if it might be oblivion for you! If I could blot out of your life this short, blighting summer; if I could put you back to where you were that fresh, sweet morning that I walked with you beside the river! I loved you from that day, Pauline, and I drugged my conscience, and refused to heed that I was doing you a wrong in teaching you to love me. Pauline, I have to tell you a sad story: you will have to go back with me very far; you will have to hear of sins of which you never dreamed in your dear innocence. I would spare you if I could, but you must know, for you must forgive me. And when you have heard, you may cease to love, but I think you will forgive. Listen."

Why should I repeat that terrible disclosure? why harrow my soul with going back over that dark path? Let me try to forget that such sins, such wrongs, such revenges, ever stained a human life. I was so young, so innocent, so ignorant. It was a strange misfortune that I should have had to know that which aged and changed me so. But he was right in saying that I had to know it. My life was bound involuntarily to his by my love, and what concerned him was my fate. Alas! He was in no other way bound to me than by my love: nor ever could be.

I don't know whether I was prepared for it or not: I knew that something terrible and final was to come, and I felt the awe that attends the thoughts that words are final and time limited. But when I heard the fatal truth--that another woman lived to whom he was irrevocably bound--I heard it as in a dream, and did not move or speak. I think I felt for a moment as if I were dead, as if I had pa.s.sed out of the ranks of the living into the abodes of the silent, and benumbed, and pulseless. There was such a horrible awe, and chill, and check through all my young and rapid blood. It was like death by freezing. It is not so pleasant as they say, believe me. But no pain: that came afterward, when I came to life, when I felt the touch of his hand on mine, and ceased to hear his cruel words.

I had shrunk back from him in my chair, and sat, I suppose, like a person in a trance, with my hands in my lap, and my eyes fixed on him with bewilderment. But when he ceased to speak--and, leaning forward on one knee, clasped my hands in his, and drew me toward him, then indeed I knew I was not dead. Oh, the agony of those few moments--I tried to rise, to go away from him. But he held me with such strength--all his weakness was gone now. He folded his arms around my waist and held me as in a vise. Then suddenly leaning his head down upon my arms, he kissed my hands, my arms, my dress, with a moan of bitter anguish.

"Not mine," he murmured. "Never mine but in my dreams. O wretched dreams, that drive me mad. Pauline, they will tell us that we must not dream--we must not weep, we must be stocks and stones. We must wear this weight of living death till that good Lord that makes such laws shall send us death in mercy. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years of suffering: that might almost satisfy Him, one would think. Pauline! you and I are to say good-bye to-night. Good-bye! People talk of it as a cruel word.

Think of it: if it were but for a year, a year with hope at the end of it to keep our hearts alive, it would be terrible, and we should need be brave. The tears that lovers shed over a year apart; the days that have got to come and go, how weary. The nights--the nights that sleep flies off from, and that memory reigns over. Count them--over three hundred come in every year. One, you think while it is pa.s.sing, is enough to kill you: one such night of restless torture, and how many shall we multiply our three hundred by? We are young, Pauline. You are a child, a very child. I am in the very flush and strength of manhood. There is half a century of suffering in me yet: this frame, this brain, will stand the wear of the hard years to come but too, too well. There is no hope of death. There is no hope in life. That star has set. Good G.o.d!

And that makes h.e.l.l--why should I wait for it--it cannot be worse there than here. Don't listen to me--it will not be as hard for you--you are so young--you have no sins to torture you--only a little love to conquer and forget. You will marry a man who lives for you, and who is patient and will wait till this is over. Ah, no: by Heaven! I can't quite stand it yet. Pauline, you never loved him, did you--never blushed for him--never listened for his coming with your lips apart and your heart fluttering, as I have seen you listen when you thought that I was coming? No, I know you never loved him: I know you have loved me alone--me--who ought to have forbidden you. Forgive--forgive--forgive me."

A pa.s.sion of tears had come to my relief, and I shook from head to foot with sobs. I cannot feel ashamed when I remember that he held me for one moment in his arms. He had been to me till that shock, strength, truth, justice: _the man I loved_. How could I in one instant know him by his sin alone, and undo all my trust? I knew only this, that it was for the last time, and that my heart was broken.

I forgave him--that was an idle form; in my great love I never felt that there was anything to be forgiven, except the wrong that fate had done me, in making my love so hopeless. He told me to forget him; that seemed to me as idle; but all his words were precious, and all my soul was in his hand. When, at that moment, the sound of wheels upon the gravel came, and the sound of laughter and of voices, I sprang up; he caught me in his arms and held me closely. Another moment, the parting was over, and I was kneeling by my bed up-stairs, weeping, sobbing, hopeless.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WORLD GOES ON THE SAME.

Into my chamber brightly Came the early sun's good-morrow; On my restless bed, unsightly, I sat up in my sorrow.

_Faust._

It is an amazing thing, the strength and power of pride. Pride, and the law of self-respect and self-preservation in our being, is the force that holds us in our course. When we reflect upon it, how few of all the myriads fly out from it and are lost. That I ate my meals; that I dressed myself with care; that I took walks and drives: that I did not avoid my companions, and listened patiently to what they chose to say: these were the evidences of that centripetal law within that was keeping me from destruction. It would be difficult to imagine a person more unhappy. Undisciplined and unfortified by the knowledge that disappointment is an integral part of all lives, there had suddenly come upon me a disappointment the most total. It covered everything; there was not a flicker of hope or palliation. And I had no idea where to go to make myself another hope, or in what course lay palliation. As we have prepared ourselves or have been prepared, so is the issue of our temptations. My great temptation came upon me, foolish, ignorant, unprepared: the wonder would have been if I had resisted it to my own credit.

The days went on as usual at R----, and I must hold my place among the careless daughters and not let them see my trouble. Careless daughters, indeed they were, and I shuddered at the thought of their cold eyes: no doubt their eyes, bright as well as cold, saw that something was amiss with me; with all my bravery, I could not keep the signs of wretchedness out of my pale face. But they never knew the story, and they could only guess at what made me wretched. It is amazing (again) what power there is in silence, and how much you can keep in your hands if you do not open them. People may surmise--may invent, but they cannot know your secret unless you tell it to them, and their imaginings take so many forms, the mult.i.tude of things that they create blot out all definite design. Thus every one at R---- had a different theory about my loss of spirits and the relapse of Mr. Langenau, but no one ever knew what pa.s.sed that night.

Richard came. He was closeted with Sophie until after midnight, but I do not think he told her anything that she desired to know. I think he only tried to find out from her what had pa.s.sed (and she did not know that I had been in the library since she spoke to me). If Mr. Langenau had been well, I have no doubt that it was his design to have dismissed him on the following day, no matter at what hazard. How much he knew I cannot tell, but enough to have warranted him in doing that, perhaps. He probably would have put it in Mr. Langenau's power to have gone without any coloring put upon his going that would have affected his standing in the household. This was his design, no doubt; otherwise he would have told his sister all. His delicate consideration for me made him guard as sacred the fact that I had wasted my hope and love so cruelly.

He was not going away again, I soon found; _qui va a la cha.s.se perd sa place_. He had lost his place, but he would stay and guard me all the same; and the chase for gold seemed given up for good and all.

Kilian was in constant surprise, and made out many catechisms, but he got little satisfaction.

Richard was going to have a few weeks' "rest," unless something should occur to call him back to town.

He sought no interview with me, was kind and silent, but his eye was never off me. I think he watched his opportunity for saying what he had to say to Mr. Langenau, but such an opportunity seemed destined not to come.

Mr. Langenau was ill the day after Richard came home--quite ill enough to cause alarm. He had a high fever, and the Doctor even seemed uneasy, and prescribed the profoundest quiet. After a day or two, however, he improved, and all danger seemed averted.

As soon as he was strong enough, he was to be removed to his own room above, for the sake of quiet, and to release the household from its enforced tranquillity.

All these particulars I heard at table, or from morning groups on the piazza: with stony cheeks, and eyes that looked unflinchingly into all curious faces: so works the law of self-defence.

All but Richard, I am sure, were staggered, but he read with his heart.

I never blushed now, I never faltered, I never said a word I did not mean to say. It was a struggle for life: though I did not value the life, and should have found it hard to say why I did not give up and let them see that I was killed.

But I kept wondering how I should sustain myself if I should be called upon to meet him once again.

CHAPTER XIV.

GUARDED.

Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely, I shall unto the end have made life's journey, only Daring to ask for naught, and having naught received.

_Felix Arvers_.

Duty to G.o.d is duty to her; I think G.o.d, who created her, will save her too Some new way, by one miracle the more Without me. Then, prayer may avail, perhaps.

_R. Browning_.

"Mr. Langenau is coming down to-day," said Charlotte Benson in a stage-whisper, as we took our places at the table, a week after this. "I met him in the hall about an hour ago, looking like a ghost, and he told me he was coming down to dinner."

"_Vraiment_," said Sophie, looking a little disconcerted. "Well, he shall have Charley's place. Charley isn't coming."

"I hope he's in a better temper than that last day we saw him," said Henrietta.

"Poor fellow!" said Charlotte, "that was the day before the fever began.

It was coming on: that was the reason of it all, no doubt. He looks ghastly enough now. You'll forgive all, the moment that you see him."

Charlotte had forgiven him herself, though she had never resumed the role of Florence Nightingale. Since he had given up the library and removed to his own room, he had been quite lost to all, and n.o.body seemed to have gone near him, not even Sophie, who would have been glad to forget that he existed, without doubt.

Richard's eyes were on me as Charlotte said "Hush!" and a step crossed the hall in the pause that ensued. Kilian, sitting next me, began to talk to me at that moment, the moment that Mr. Langenau entered the room. And I think I answered quite coherently: though two sets of words were going through my brain, the answer to his commonplace question, and the words that Mr. Langenau had said that night, "Pauline, I shall never look into your eyes again, I shall never touch your hand."

It seemed to me an even chance which sentence saw the day; but as the walls did not fall down about me and no face looked amazement, I found I must have answered Kilian's question with propriety.

There were many voices speaking at once; but there was such a ringing in my ears, I could not distinguish who spoke, or what was said: for a moment I was lost, if any one had taken advantage of it. But gradually I regained my senses: one after another they each took up their guard again: and I looked up. And met his eyes? No; but let mine rest upon his face. And then I found I had not measured my temptation, and that there was something to do besides defending myself from others' eyes. For there was to defend myself from my own heart. The pa.s.sion of pity and tenderness that rushed over me as my eyes fell on his haggard face, so strong and yet so wan, swept away for the moment the defences against the public gaze. I could have fallen down at his feet before them all and told him that I loved him.

A few moments more of the sound of commonplace words, and the repulsion of every-day faces and expressions, swept me back into the circle of conventionalities, and brought me under the force of that current that keeps us from high tragedy.

All during the meal Mr. Langenau was grave and silent, speaking little and then with effort. He had overrated his strength, perhaps, for he went away before the end of the dinner, asking to be excused, in a tone almost inaudible. After he had gone, a good many commentaries were offered. Kilian seemed to express the sense of the a.s.sembly when he said: "The man looks shockingly, and he's not out of the woods yet."

Sophie looked troubled: she had some compunctions for the neglect of the last few days, perhaps.

"What does the Doctor say?" pursued her brother.

"Nothing, I suppose--for he hasn't been here for a week, almost."

"Well, then, you'd better send for him, if you don't want the fellow to die on your hands. He's not fit to be out of bed, and you'll have trouble if you don't look out."

"As if I hadn't had trouble," returned his sister, almost peevishly.

"Well, I beg your pardon, Sophie. But I fancied you and Miss Charlotte were in charge; and I thought about ten days ago, your patient was in a fair way to be killed with kindness, and it's a little of a surprise to me to find he's being let alone so very systematically."