CHAPTER XI. HER STORY.
Here, between the locked leaves of my journal, I keep the first letter I ever had from Max.
It came early in the morning, the morning after that evening which will always seem to us two, I think, something like what we read of, that “the evening and the morning were the first day.” It was indeed like the first day of a new world.
When the letter arrived, I was still fast asleep, for I had not gone and lain awake all night, which, under the circumstances, (as I told Max) it was a young lady's duty to have done: I only laid my head down with a feeling of ineffable rest—rest in heaven's kindness, which had brought all things to this end—and rest in his love, from which nothing could ever thrust me, and in the thought of which I went to sleep, as safe as a tired child; knowing I should be safe for all my life long, with him—my Max—my husband.
“Lover” was a word that did not seem to suit him—grave as he was, and so much older than I: I never expected from him anything like the behaviour of a lover—indeed, should hardly like to see him in that character; it would not look natural. But from the hour he said, “Is this my wife?” I have ever and only thought of him as “my husband.”
My dear Max! Here is his letter—which lay before my eyes in the dim dawn; it did not come by post—he must have left it himself: and the maid brought it in; no doubt thinking it a professional epistle. And I take great credit to myself for the composed matter-of-fact way in which I said “it was all right, and there was no answer,” put down my letter, and made believe to go to sleep again.
Let me laugh—it is not wrong; and I laugh still as much as ever I can; it is good for me and good for Max. He says scarcely anything in the world does him so much good as to see me merry.
It felt very strange at first to open his letter and see my name written in his hand.
Saturday night.
My dear Theodora,
I do not say “dearest,” because there is no one to put in comparison with you: you are to me the one woman in the world.
My dear Theodora;—let me write it over again to assure myself that it may be written at all, which perhaps it ought not to be till you have read this letter.
Last night I left you so soon, or it seemed soon, and we said so little, that I never told you some things which you ought to have been made aware of at once; even before you were allowed to answer that question of mine. Forgive me. In my own defence let me say, that when I visited you yesterday, I meant only to have the sight of you—the comfort of your society—all I hoped or intended to win for years to come. But I was shaken out of all self-control—first by the terror of losing you, and then by a look in your sweet eyes. You know! It was to be, and it was. Theodora—gift of God!—may He bless you for shewing, just for that one moment, what there was in your heart towards me.
My feelings towards you, you can guess—a little: the rest you must believe in. I cannot write about them..
The object of this letter is to tell you something which you ought to be told before I see you again.
You may remember my once saying it was not likely I should ever marry. Such, indeed, was long my determination, and the reason was this. When I was a mere boy—just before Dallas died—there happened to me an event so awful, both in itself and its results, that it changed my whole character, darkened my life, turned me from a lively, careless, high-spirited lad, into a morbid and miserable man, whose very existence was a burthen to him for years. And though gradually, thank God! I recovered from this state, so as not to have an altogether useless life; still I never was myself again—never knew happiness, till I knew you. You came to me as unforeseen a blessing as if you had fallen from the clouds: first you interested, then you cheered me, then, in various ways, you brought light into my darkness, hope to my despair. And then I loved you.
The same cause, which I cannot now fully explain, because I must first take a journey, but you shall know everything within a week or ten days—the same cause which has oppressed my whole life prevented my daring to win you. I always believed that a man circumstanced as I was, had no right ever to think of marriage. Some words of yours led me of late to change this opinion. I resolved, at some future time, to lay my whole history before you—as to a mere friend—to ask you the question whether or not, under the circumstances, I was justified in seeking any woman for my wife, and on your answer to decide either to try and make you love me, or only to love you, as I should have loved and shall for ever.
What I then meant to tell you is still to be told. I do not dread the revelation as I once did: all things seem different to me.
I am hardly the same man that I was twelve hours ago. Twelve hours ago I had never told you what you are to me—never had you in my arms—never read the love in your dear eyes—oh, child, do not ever be afraid or ashamed of letting me see you love me, unworthy as I am. If you had not loved me, I should have drifted away into perdition—I mean, I might have lost myself altogether, so far as regards this world.
That is not likely now. You will save me, and I shall be so happy that I shall be able to make you happy. We will never be two again—only one. Already you feel like a part of me: and it seems as natural to write to you thus as if you had been mine for years. Mine. Some day you will find out all that is sealed up in the heart of a man of my age and of my disposition—when the seal is once broken.
Since, until I have taken my journey I cannot speak to your father, it seems right that my next visit to you should be only that of a friend. Whether after having read this letter, which at once confesses so much and so little, you think me worthy even of that title, your first look will decide. I shall find out, without need of your saying one word.
I shall probably come on Monday, and then not again; to meet you only as a friend, used to be sufficiently hard; to meet you with this uncertainty overhanging me, would be all but impossible. Besides, honour to your father compels this absence and silence, until my explanations are made.
Will you forgive me? Will you trust me? I think you will.
I hope you have minded my “orders,” rested all evening and retired early? I hope on Monday I may see a rose on your cheeks—a tiny, delicate, winter-rose? That poor little thin cheek, it grieves my heart. You must get strong.
If by your manner you show that this letter has changed your opinion of me, that you desire yesterday to be altogether forgotten, I shall understand it, and obey.
Remember, whatever happens, whether you are ever my own or not, that you are the only woman I ever wished for my wife; the only one I shall ever marry.
Yours,
Max. Urquhart.
I read his letter many times over.
Then I rose and dressed myself, carefully, as if it had been my marriage morning. He loved me; I was the only woman he had ever wished for his wife. It was in truth my marriage morning.
Coming downstairs, Mrs. Granton met me, all delight at my having risen so soon.
“Such an advance! we must be sure and tell Dr. Urquhart. By the bye, did he not leave a note or message early this morning?”
“Yes; he will probably call on Monday.”
She looked surprised that I did not produce the note, but made no remark. And I, two days before, I should have been scarlet and tongue-tied; but now things were quite altered. I was his chosen, his wife; there was neither hypocrisy nor deceit in keeping a secret between him and me. We belonged to one another, and the rest of the world had nothing to do with us.
Nevertheless, my heart felt running over with tenderness towards the dear old lady;—as it did towards my father and my sisters, and everything belonging to me in this wide world. When Mrs. Granton went to church, I sat for a long time in the west parlour, reading the Bible, all alone; at least as much alone as I ever can be in this world again, after knowing that Max loves me.
It being such an exceedingly mild and warm day—wonderful for the first day of February, an idea came into my head, which was indeed strictly according to “orders;” only I never yet had had the courage to obey. Now, I thought I would. It would please him so, and Mrs. Granton too.
So I put on my out-door gear, and actually walked, all by myself, to the hill-top, a hundred yards or more. There I sat down on the familiar bench, and looked round on the well-known view. Ah me! for how many years and under how many various circumstances, have I come and sat on that bench and looked at that view!
It was very beautiful to-day, though almost death-like in its supernatural sunshiny calm: such as one only sees in these accidental fine days which come in early winter, or sometimes as a kind of spectral anti-type of spring. Such utter stillness, everywhere. The sole thing that seemed alive or moving in the whole landscape was a wreath of grey smoke, springing from some invisible cottage behind the fir-wood, and curling away upwards till if lost itself in the opal air. Hill, moorland, wood and sky, lay still as a picture, and fair as the Land of Beulah, the Celestial Country. It would hardly have been strange to see spirits walking there, or to have turned and found sitting on the bench beside me, my mother and my halfbrother Harry, who died so long ago, and whose faces in the Celestial country I shall first recognise.
My mother.—Never till now did I feel the want of her. It seems only her—only a mother—to whom I could tell, “Max loves me—I am going to be Max's wife.”
And Harry—poor Harry, whom also I never knew—whose life was so wretched, and whose death so awful; he might have been a better man, if he had only known my Max. I am forgetting, though, how old he would have been now; and how Max must have been a mere boy when my brother died.
I do not often think of Harry. It would be hardly natural that I should; all happened so long ago that his memory has never been more than a passing shadow across the family lives. But to-day, when everyone of my own flesh and blood seemed to grow nearer to me, I thought of him more than once; tried to recall the circumstances of his dreadful end; and then to think of him only as a glorified, purified spirit, walking upon those hills of Beulah. Perhaps now looking down upon me, “baby” that was, whom he was once reported, in one of his desperate visits home, to have snatched out of the cradle and kissed; knowing all that had lately happened to me, and wishing me a happy life with my dear Max.
I took out Max's letter, and read it over again, in the sunshine and open air.
O the happiness of knowing that one can make another happy—entirely happy! O how good I ought to grow!
For the events which have caused him so much pain, and which he has yet to tell papa and me—they did not weigh much on my mind. Probably there is no family in which there is not some such painful revelation to be made; we also have to tell him about poor Harry. But these things are purely accidental and external. His fear that I should “change my opinion of him” made me smile. “Max,” I said, out loud, addressing myself to the neighbouring heather-bush, which might be considered a delicate compliment to the land where he was born, “Oh, Max, what nonsense you do talk!' While you are you, and I am myself, you and I are one.”
Descending the hill-top, I pressed all these my happy thoughts deep down into my heart, covered them up, and went back in the world again.
Mrs. Granton and I spent a quiet day; the quieter, that I afterwards paid for my feats on the hill-top by hours of extreme exhaustion. It was my own folly, I told her, and tried to laugh at it, saying, I should be better to-morrow.
But many a time the thought came, what if I should not be better to-morrow, nor any to-morrow? What if, after all, I should have to go away and leave him with no one to make him happy? And then I learned how precious life had grown, and tasted, in degree, what is meant by “the bitterness of death.”
But it did not last. And by this I know that our love is holy: that I can now think of either his departure or my own, without either terror or despair. I know that even death itself can never part Max and me.
Monday came. I was really better, and went about the house with Mrs. Granton all the forenoon. She asked me what time Doctor Urquhart had said he should be here; with various other questions about him. All of which I answered without confusion or hesitation; it seemed as if I had now belonged to him for a long time. But when, at last, his ring came to the hall-door, all the blood rushed to my heart, and back again into my face—and Mrs. Granton saw it.
What was I to do? to try and “throw dust” into those keen, kind eyes, to tell or act a falsehood, as if I were ashamed of myself or him? I could not. So I simply sat silent, and let her think what she chose.
Whatever she thought, the good old lady said nothing. She sighed—ah, it went to my conscience that sigh—and yet I had done no wrong either to her or Colin; then, making some excuse, she slipped out of the room, and the four walls only beheld Max and me when we met.
After we had shaken hands, we sat down in silence. Then I asked him what he had been doing with himself all yesterday, and he told me he had spent it with the poor Ansdells.
“They wished this, and I thought it was best to go.”
“Yes; I am very glad you went.”
Doctor Urquhart (of course I shall go on calling him “Doctor Urquhart,” to people in general; nobody but me has any business with his Christian name), Doctor Urquhart looked at me and smiled; then he began telling me about these friends of his; and how brokenhearted the old mother was, having lost both daughters in a few months—did I remember the night of the camp concert, and young Ansdell who sung there?
I remembered some young man being called for, as Doctor Urquhart wanted him.
“Yes—I had to summon him home; his eldest sister had suddenly died. Only a cold and fever—such as you yourself might have caught that night—you thoughtless girl. You little knew how angry you made me.”
“Did I? Something was amiss with you—I did not know what—but I saw it in your looks.”
“Could you read my looks even then, little lady?”
It was idle to deny it—and why should I, when it made him happy? Radiantly happy his face was now—the sharp lines softened, the wrinkles smoothed out. He looked ten years younger; ah! I am glad I am only a girl still; in time I shall actually make him young.
Here, the hall-bell sounded—and though visitors are never admitted to this special little parlour, still Max turned restless, and said he must go.
“Why?”
He hesitated—then said hastily:—
“I will tell you the truth; I am happier out of your sight than in it, just at present.”
I made no answer.
“To-night, I mean to start—on that journey I told you of.” Which was to him a very painful one, I perceived.
“Go then, and get it over. You will come back to me soon.”
“God grant it.” He was very much agitated.
The only woman he had ever wished for his wife. This, I was. And I felt like a wife. Talk of Penelope's long courtship—Lisabel's marriage—it was I that was, in heart and soul, the real wife; ay, though Max and I were never more to one another than now; though I lived as Theodora Johnston to the end of my days.
So I took courage—and since it was not allowed me to comfort him in any other way, I just stole my hand inside his, which clasped instantly and tightly round it. That was all, and that was enough. Thus we sat side by side, when the door opened—and in walked papa.
How strangely the comic and the serious are mixed up together in life, and even in one's own nature. While writing this, I have gone off into a hearty fit of laughter, at the recollection of papa's face when he saw us sitting there.
Though at the time it was no laughing matter. For a moment he was dumb with astonishment—then he said severely:—
“Doctor Urquhart, I suppose I must conclude—indeed, I can only conclude one thing. But you might have spoken to me, before addressing yourself to my daughter.”
Max did not answer immediately—when he did, his voice absolutely made me start.
“Sir, I have been very wrong—but I will make amends—you shall know all. Only first—as my excuse,” here he spoke out passionately, and told papa all that I was to him, all that we were to one another.
Poor papa! it must have reminded him of his own young days—I have heard he was very fond of his first wife, Harry's mother—for when I hung about his neck, mine were not the only tears. He held out his hand to Max.
“Doctor, I forgive you; and there is not a man alive on whom I would so gladly bestow this little girl, as you.”
And here Max tried me—as I suppose people not yet quite familiar will be sure to try one another at first. Without saying a word, or even accepting papa's hand, he walked straight out of the room.
It was not right—even if he were ever so much unnerved; why should he be too proud to show it? and it might have seriously offended papa. I softened matters as well as I could, by explaining that he had not wished to ask me of papa till a week hence, when he should be able fully to enter into his circumstances.
“My dear,” papa interrupted, “go and tell him he may communicate them at whatever time he chooses. When such a man as Doctor Urquhart honestly comes and asks me for my daughter, you may be sure the very last question I should ask him, would be about his circumstances.”
With my heart brimful at papa's kindness, I went to explain this to Max. I found him alone in the library, standing motionless at the window. I touched him on the arm, with some silly coquettish speech about how he could think of letting me run after him in this fashion. He turned round.
“Oh, Max, what is the matter? Oh, Max!—” I could say no more.
“My child!”—He soothed me by calling me that and several other fond names, but all these things are between him and me alone.—“Now, good-bye. I must bid you good-bye at once.”
I tried to make him understand there was no necessity—that papa desired to hear nothing, only wished him to stay with us till evening. That indeed, looking as wretched as he did, I could not and would not let him go. But in vain.
“I cannot stay. I cannot be a hypocrite. Do not ask it. Let me go—oh! my child, let me go.”
And he might have gone—being very obstinate, and not in the least able to see what is good for him or for me either—had it not fortunately happened that, overpowered with the excitement of the last ten minutes, my small strength gave way. I felt myself falling—tried to save 'myself by catching hold of Max's arm, and fell. When I awoke, I was lying on the sofa, with papa and Mrs. Gran-ton beside me..
Also Max—though I did not at first see him. He had taken his rights, or they had been tacitly yielded to him; I do not know how it was, but my head was on my betrothed husband's breast.
So he stayed. Nobody asked any questions, and he himself explained nothing. He only sat by me, all afternoon, taking care of me, watching me with his eyes of love—the love that is to last me my whole life. I know it will.
Therefore, in the evening, it was I who was the first to say, “Now, Max, you must go.
“You are quite better?”
“Yes, and it is almost dark—it will be very dark across the moors. You must go.”
He rose, and shook hands mechanically with papa and Mrs. Granton. He was going to do the same by me, but I loosed my hands and clasped them round his neck. I did not care for what anybody might say or think; he was mine and I was his—they were all welcome to know it. And I wished him to know and feel that, through everything, and in spite of everything, I—his own—loved him and would love him to the last.
So he went away.
That is more than a week ago, and I have had no letter; but he did not say he would write. He would rather come, I think. Thus, any moment I may hear his ring at the door.
They—papa and Penelope—think I take things quietly. Penelope, indeed, hardly believes I care for him at all! But they do not know; oh, Max, they do not know! You know, or you will know, some day.