AMY’S LOVER.
It was five o’clock—five o’clock on a dull November afternoon—as I, Elizabeth Lacy, the wretched companion of Lady Cunningham, of Northampton Lodge, in the town of Rockledge, stood gazing from the dining-room windows at the grey curtain of fog which was slowly but surely rising between my vision and all outward things, and thinking how like it was in colour and feeling and appearance to my own sad life. I have said that I was the ‘wretched’ companion of Lady Cunningham: is it very ungrateful of me to have written down that word? I think not; for if a wearisome seclusion and continual servitude have power to make a young life miserable, mine had fairly earned its title to be called so. I had withered in the cold and dispiriting atmosphere of Northampton Lodge for four years past, and had only been prevented rupturing my chains by the knowledge that I had no alternative but to rush from one state of bondage to another. To attend upon old ladies like an upper servant—to write their letters, carry their shawls, and wait upon them as they moved from room to room—this was to be my lot through life; and if I ever dreamed that a brighter one might intervene, the vision was too faint and idealistic to gild the stern realities which were no dreams.
I daresay there are plenty of people in this world more miserable than I: indeed, I knew it for a fact even at the time of which I speak; and the few friends I possessed were never tired of telling me that I was better off than many, and that I should strive to look on the bright side of things, and to thank heaven who had provided me with a safe and respectable home, when I might have been upon the parish. Did not Job have friends to console him in his trouble? Do not we all find in the day of our distress that, whatever else fails, good advice is always forthcoming? Well! perhaps I was ungrateful: at all events, I was young and headstrong, and good advice irritated and worried, instead of making me any better. I knew that I was warmly clothed, whilst beggars stood shivering at the corner of the streets, and that beneath the care of Lady Cunningham no harm could happen to me, whilst women younger than myself broke God’s holy laws to put bread in their mouths. And yet, and yet, so perverse is human nature, and so perverse was mine above all others, that, engaged on my monotonous round of duty, I often envied the beggars their liberty and their rags; and even sometimes wished that I had not been reared so honestly, and had the courage to be less respectable and more free. Perhaps one reason why my life chafed me so fearfully, was because I had not been brought up to it. Five years before, I had been the child of parents in good circumstances, and loved and made much of, as only daughters generally are. My father, who held the comfortable living of Fairmead in Dorsetshire, had always managed to keep up the household of a gentleman, and my poor delicate mother and myself had enjoyed every luxury consistent with our station in life. She had had her flower-garden and her poultry and her pony-chair, and I my pets and my piano and—my lover. Ah! as I stood at the wire-blinded windows of Lady Cunningham’s dining-room that sad November afternoon, and recalled these things, I knew by the pang which assailed me at the thought of Bruce Armytage, which loss of them all had affected me most. My father and mother, who from my youth up had so tenderly loved and guarded me, were in their graves, and with them had vanished all the luxuries and possessions of my early days. But though I stood there a penniless orphan, with no joy in my present and very little hope in my future, the tears had not rushed to my eyes until my memory had rested on Bruce Armytage; and then they fell so thickly that they nearly blinded me; for mingled with his memory came shame as well as regret, and to a woman perhaps shame is the harder feeling of the two. His conduct had been so very strange, so marvellously strange and unaccountable to me, that to that day I had found no clue to it. When he first came down and took lodgings in Fairmead—for the purpose of studying to pass his examination for the law, he said—he had seemed so very, very fond of me that our engagement followed on the avowal of his love as a matter of course. But then his family interfered; they thought, perhaps, that he ought to marry some one higher than myself, though my father was a gentleman, and no man can be more; at any rate, his father wrote to say that Bruce was far too young (his age was then just twenty) to fix upon his choice for life, and that no regular engagement must be made between us until he returned from the two years’ foreign tour he was about to make. My father and mother said that old Mr Armytage was right, and that in two years’ time both I and my lover would be better able to form an opinion on so serious a matter. Bruce and I declared it was all nonsense, that fifty years of separation could make no difference to us, and that what we felt then, we should feel to our lives’ end. And they smiled, the old people, whilst our young hearts were being tortured, and talked about the evanescence of youthful feelings, whilst we drank our first draught of this world’s bitterness. How seldom can old people sympathise with the young! How soon they become accustomed to the cold neutral tints of middle age, and forget even the appearance of the warm fires of youth at which they lighted those passions which time has reduced to ashes! It was so with my parents: they were not unkind, but they were unsympathetic; they rather hoped, upon the whole, that I should forget Bruce Armytage; and, in order to accomplish their end, they pretended to believe it. But he went, with the most passionate protestations upon his lips, that as soon as he returned to England, no earthly power should keep us separate; and he never came back to me again! My father and mother had died rather suddenly, and within a few months of each other; our home had been broken up, and at the age of nineteen I had been sent forth upon the world to earn my own living; and, at the age of three-and-twenty, I was at the same trade, neither richer nor poorer than at first, but with all my faith in the constancy and honour of mankind broken and destroyed; for Bruce Armytage had never found me out, or, as far as I knew, inquired after me. His family had permitted me to leave Fairmead and enter on my solitary career without a word of remonstrance or regret; since which time I had had no communication with them, though at that period my pride would not have forbidden my sending an account of my trouble to Bruce, believing that he cared for me. Correspondence between us during his foreign tour had been strictly prohibited, and I had no means of ascertaining his address. For a while I had expected he would write or come to me; but that hope had long died out, and the only feeling I had left for him was contempt—contempt for his fickleness and vacillation, or the pusillanimity which could permit him to give up the woman he had sworn to marry because his father ordered him to do so. No! filial obedience carries very little weight with the heart that is pitted against it; and as I thought of it and him, I bit my lip, dashed my hand across my eyes, and hoped the day might yet come when I should be able to show Bruce Armytage how greatly I despised him.
At this juncture the housemaid came bustling into the room with a little note for me—a dear little cocked-hat note—which seemed to speak of something pleasant, and at the writer of which I had no need to guess, for I had but one friend in Rockledge who ever sent such notes to me.
‘Waiting for an answer,’ said the bearer curtly; and I tore it open and devoured its contents.
‘Dear Lizzie,—I think you will be very much surprised to hear that your little friend Amy is engaged to be married! However, it is quite true, although the business was only settled this morning; and the young gentleman has promised to spend the evening with us, and to bring a cousin whom he is anxious to introduce. Will you come and take tea with us also? The doctor has only just told me that Lady Cunningham dines out to-night, or I should have sent before. Do come, Lizzie. Amy is crazy to see you and tell you all her secrets, and you know that you are always sure of a welcome from your affectionate friend,
‘Mary Rodwell.’
The perusal of this little epistle threw me into a perfect whirl of excitement and delight, which would have appeared extraordinary to any one who had not been acquainted with the maddening monotony of my daily existence. These Rodwells, the family of the good old doctor who attended Lady Cunningham, were my only friends in Rockledge, the only people with whom I ever caught a glimpse of a happy domestic life, such as had been once my own. To spend the evening at their large, old-fashioned house, which rang from basement to attic with the sound of happy voices, was the only dissipation by which my days were ever varied, and a relaxation all the more precious because, on account of Lady Cunningham’s requirements, it came so rarely to me. And on the afternoon in question, when I had allowed myself to become absorbed by fanciful thought, the cordial and unexpected invitation warmed my chilled spirits like a draught of generous wine. All things seemed changed for me: I no longer saw the grey fog nor remembered my mournful past, but in their stead pictured to myself the brightly-lighted, crimson-curtained room at Dr Rodwell’s house, and heard the ringing laughter and merry jests of his many boys and girls. In a moment I had shaken off my despondency—my eyes sparkled, my heart beat: I was in a flutter of anticipation at the pleasure in store for me.
‘Is there any answer, miss?’ demanded the housemaid, who had been waiting whilst I read my note.
‘Yes, yes; I will go, of course. Say I will be there in half-an-hour,’ I replied, for my evening, in consequence of Lady Cunningham’s absence, was at my own disposal. ‘And, Mary, please bring me up a jug of hot water; I am going to take tea with Mrs Rodwell.’
‘Well, I’m very glad of it, miss; it’s a shame you shouldn’t have a holiday oftener than you do,’ returned my sympathising hearer as she departed with my answer.
I must say that, during my years of servitude, I had nothing to complain of respecting the treatment I received from the hands of servants. I have read of needy companions and governesses being cruelly insulted and trampled on by their inferiors; I never was. From the first they saw I was a gentlewoman, and to the last they treated me as such.
With a hasty vote of thanks to Mary for her kind speech, I ran upstairs to my own bedroom to make the few preparations needful for my visit. I knew that Mrs Rodwell would not desire me to dress; but to arrange my hair anew with a blue ribbon woven in it, and to change my dark merino body for a clear muslin Garibaldi, made me look fresh and smart, without taking up too much of the precious time I had to spend at her house. Besides, were there not to be some gentlemen present? At that thought my mind reverted to the wonderful news of Amy’s engagement, and I could scarcely proceed with my toilet for thinking of it. Little Amy! younger by five years than myself, who had always appeared so shy and modest and retiring—was it possible she could have had a lover without my knowing it? And now to be actually engaged! going to be married at her age! It almost seemed incredible, until I remembered with a sudden sigh that I had been no older myself when Bruce Armytage proposed to me, and had been able to keep my secret very well until the necessity for doing so was over.
But I would not let such thoughts engross me now, for I had no wish to carry a long face to Mrs Rodwell’s house; and so I hurried on the remainder of my things, and wrapping myself up warmly in a dark cloak, hurried bravely out into the evening air. It was then six o’clock, and the fog was denser than before; but what cared I for outer dulness any longer? My imagination ran on before me, vividly picturing the cheerful scene in which I should so soon mingle, and my feet tripped after it joyous as my heart. I had not far to go, and my eagerness shortened the way; so that in a few minutes I was rapping at Dr Rodwell’s hall door and scraping my feet upon his scraper. How quickly it was opened by little Amy herself! And what a mixture of bashfulness, pleasure, and self-importance was in her blushing face as I threw my arms around her neck and warmly congratulated her.
‘Come upstairs, Lizzie,’ she entreated in a whisper; ‘come up and take off your things, and I’ll tell you all about it.’
We were soon in her own room—that cosy room in which she and her younger sister Mattie slept, and which bore so many evidences of their mother’s tender care and thought for them.
‘And so you are really engaged to be married, Amy?’ I exclaimed as the door closed behind us. ‘That was a very astounding piece of intelligence to me, who had never heard the faintest whisper of such a thing before.’
‘You forget you have not been near us for a month,’ she answered, laughing; ‘but the truth is, Lizzie, it was all so uncertain till this morning that mamma said it would be very unwise to mention it to anybody; so that you were the first recipient of the news, after all.’
‘Well, I suppose I must be satisfied with that; and when did you meet him, Amy?’
‘Last month, up in London, while I was staying with my Aunt Charlesworth.’
‘And is it a settled thing, then?’
‘Oh yes! His parents have consented, and are coming to Rockledge on purpose to call on us. And—and—he came down this morning to tell papa; and I believe we are to be married in the spring.’
‘So soon?’ I ejaculated, thinking how easily some people’s courtships ran.
‘Yes,’ replied Amy, blushing; ‘and he is here this evening, you know, with his cousin, who is staying at Rockledge with him. He talked so much about this cousin, but oh! he is not half so nice-looking as himself; and—and—I hope you will like him, Lizzie dear,’ kissing me affectionately as she spoke, ‘for I have told him so much about you.’
‘I am sure I shall, Amy,’ I replied as I returned her caress; we were on the staircase at the time, descending to the dining-room. ‘I assure you I am quite impatient to see your hero. By-the-bye, dear, what is his name?’
‘Armytage.’ And then, seeing my blank look of amazement, she repeated it—‘Armytage. Have you never heard the name before? I think it’s such a pretty one. Amy Armytage,’ she whispered finally in my ear, as, laughing merrily, she pushed me before her into the dining-room.
It was all done so suddenly that I had no time to think about it, for before the echo of her words had died away, I was in the midst of the family group, being warmly kissed by Mrs Rodwell, and Mattie, and Nelly, and Lotty, and shaken hands with by the dear, kind old doctor, and his rough school-boys.
‘Well, Lizzie dear,’ exclaimed my motherly hostess, as she claimed me for a second embrace, ‘this is quite an unexpected treat, to have you here to-night; I thought we were never going to see you again. But you look pale, my child; I am afraid you are kept too much in the house. Doctor, what have you been about, not to take better care of Lizzie? You should give her a tonic, or speak to Lady Cunningham on the subject.’
But the good old doctor stuck both his fingers into his ears.
‘Now, I’m not going to have any talk about pale looks or physic bottles to-night,’ he said; ‘the time for doctoring to-day is over. Miss Lizzie, you just come and sit between Tom and me, and we’ll give you something that will beat all the tonics that were ever invented. Here, Mattie, pass the scones and oatcakes down this way, will you? If you children think you are going to keep all the good things up at your end of the table, you are very much mistaken,’ and with no gentle touch my hospitable friend nearly pulled me down into his own lap.
‘Now, doctor!’ exclaimed Mrs Rodwell, with an affectation of annoyance, ‘I will not have you treat my guests in this way. Lizzie has come to see me, not you, and she sits by no side but mine. Besides, you have not even given me time to introduce the gentlemen to her. Lizzie, my dear, we must all be friends here this evening. Mr Bruce Armytage, Mr Frederick Armytage—Miss Lacy. And now, doctor, we’ll go to tea as soon as you please.’
I had known from the moment of my entering the room that there were strangers in it, but I had not dared to glance their way. Amy’s announcement of her lover’s name had come too unexpectedly to permit me to form any fixed idea upon the subject, excepting that it was the same as mine had borne, and yet, when Mrs Rodwell repeated it with the familiar prefix, strange to say, I seemed to hear it with no second shock, but to have known the bitter truth all along.
Not so, however, Bruce Armytage; for Mrs Rodwell’s introduction was scarcely concluded before I heard his voice (unforgotten through the lapse of years) exclaim, ‘Miss Lacy!’ in a tone of surprise, which could not but be patent to all.
Cold and pulseless as I had felt before, the mere tones of his voice sent the blood rushing from my heart to my head, till the room and the tea-table and the group of living figures swam before my dazzled eyes. I felt my weakness, but I determined all the more that no one else should guess at it, and mentally stamped upon my heart to make it steady against the moment when its energies should be required.
‘You have met Mr Armytage before, Lizzie?’ said Mrs Rodwell, with a pleasant astonishment.
Then I lifted my eyes and looked at him. Good God! What is the vital force of this feeling, called love, which Thou hast given to us, far oftener to prove a curse than a blessing, that after years of separation, coldness, and neglect, it has the strength to spring up again, warm and passionate as ever, at the sight of a face, the tone of a voice, or the touch of a hand? Has nothing the power to trample life out of it? Will it always revive when we think it most dead, and turn its pale mutilated features up to the glare of day? Shall our mortal dust, even when coffined in the mould, stir and groan and vainly strive to make itself heard, as the step of one whom we have loved passes sorrowfully over the fresh grass beneath which we lie?
I lifted up my eyes, and looked upon Bruce Armytage, to be able to say truly if I had met him before. Yes, it was he, but little altered during our five years of separation, excepting that he had passed from a boy to a man. He coloured vividly beneath my steady gaze; for a moment I thought he was about to seize my hand, but my eyes forbade him, and he shrank backward.
‘Mr Armytage and I have met before,’ I said, with a marvellous quietness, in answer to Mrs Rodwell’s previous question—‘when I was living in my old home at Fairmead; but that is so many years ago that we are nothing but strangers to each other now.’
At these words any purpose which he might have entertained of claiming me as an old acquaintance evidently died out of Bruce Armytage’s mind; for, retreating a few paces, he bowed coldly to me, and took a seat, where his proper place now was, by Amy’s side.
‘Oh, not strangers, my dear—oh no!’ exclaimed Mrs Rodwell, who had taken my answer in its literal sense. ‘You must all be friends together here, you know, if it is only for Amy’s sake. Mr Frederick Armytage, will you be so kind as to pass the muffins up this way? Thank you! Now, Lizzie, my dear, you must make a good tea.’
I sat down between my host and hostess, triumphant on the subject of the manner in which I had acquitted myself, and feeling strong enough for any future trial; but before many minutes had elapsed I was overtaken by a sickly and oppressive sensation for which I was quite unable to account. The hot flush which had risen to my face whilst speaking to Bruce Armytage died away, leaving a cold, leaden weight upon my breast instead; my pulses ceased their quick leap and took to trembling; the rich dainties which the doctor and his wife heaped upon my plate nauseated me even to contemplate; and a whirring confusion commenced in my head, which obliged me to rally all my forces before I could answer a simple question. The noise and laughter of the tea-table seemed to increase every minute; and if one might judge from the incessant giggling of Amy, Mattie, Nelly, and Lotty, the two gentlemen at the other end were making themselves very agreeable. I tried to eat; I tried to force the buttered toast and plum cake and rich preserves down my throat, but there was something there which utterly prevented my swallowing them.
‘Lizzie, my dear, are you not well?’ inquired Mrs Rodwell, presently. The friendly interrogation saved me. I had just been relapsing into a state of weakness which might have resulted in hysteria: her words recalled me to myself. Should all the table know that I was grieving? Or rather should he—he who had deserted me, and had forsworn himself, who now sat by the side of his newly betrothed—guess that his presence had the slightest power to affect me? Good heavens! where was my pride? where the contempt which I had hoped to have an opportunity of showing for him? I almost sprang from my chair at the thought.
‘Not well, dear Mrs Rodwell!’ I exclaimed, speaking as fast and as shrilly as people generally do under the circumstances; ‘why, what can make you think so? I never felt better in my life. But, really, you do so oppress me with good things that it is quite impossible I can do justice to them all, and talk at the same time. No, doctor, not another piece of cake. I couldn’t, really; thank you all the same. You know there is a limit to all things, though you never seem to think so where I am concerned.’
Whilst my voice thus rang out, harshly and unnaturally, across the table, I felt the dark eyes of Bruce Armytage were regarding me from the other end, and I wished I had the courage to stare him down, but I had not. By-and-by, however, when he was again engaged in conversation, I tried to let my eyes rove in his direction, as though I were an uninterested hearer, but the moment that they reached him, he raised his own as if by intuition, and my lids dropped again. I hated myself for this indecision, though I felt it was but nervousness, and that were we alone together but for five minutes I should have strength of mind to look him in the face, and tell him what I thought of his behaviour. As it was, however, it was a great relief to me when the doctor gave the order to march, and the whole party adjourned to the drawing-room. As soon as we had entered it, Amy left her lover’s side and flew to mine.
‘Oh, Lizzie,’ she whispered as we sat in a corner together, ‘do tell me what you think of him! I am dying to hear. Is he not very handsome?’
‘Very handsome,’ I answered with closed lips.
‘Much better looking than his cousin?’
‘Yes, certainly; there is no comparison between them,’ which was true, inasmuch as Frederick Armytage, with his fair hair and blue eyes, was a washed-out, sickly-looking creature by the side of his dark, stalwart cousin Bruce.
‘I knew you would say so, Lizzie; I was sure you would agree with me. But just fancy your having met Bruce before! Where was it, and when? I couldn’t ask you a lot of questions at tea-time, but you made me so curious.’
‘Amy,’ I said suddenly, for I felt this was a subject on which she must not be inquisitive, ‘when I knew Mr Bruce Armytage, I was living at home with my dear father and mother at Fairmead, and you must be aware that an allusion to those days cannot be a pleasant allusion to me. So, please, like a dear girl, don’t ask me any more questions about it, or let me remember that I ever saw your friend before I met him here to-night.’
‘I won’t,’ said Amy, submissively. ‘Poor, dear Lizzie!’ and she stroked my hand with her soft little palm.
‘And do not mention me to him, either. Our acquaintance was but a brief one: he can have no interest left in the matter.’
‘Oh, but he has though, Lizzie,’ with a shy upward glance. ‘He was talking about you all tea-time; his cousin and I thought he would never stop. He asked where you were, and what you were doing, and seemed so sorry when I told him of Lady Cunningham, and what a cross old thing she is, and said several times that he could not get over the surprise of having met you here to-night.’
‘Indeed! He has a more retentive memory than I have; you can tell him so next time he speaks of me.’ I answered so haughtily that little Amy looked timidly up in my face, and I remembered suddenly that I was speaking of her lover. ‘There is your mamma beckoning to you, Amy; and Mattie and Tom are clearing away the chairs and tables. I suppose they want a dance. Tell them I shall be charmed to play for them;’ and then, seeing that Bruce Armytage was crossing the room with a view to seeking Amy, I quickly left my seat, and taking possession of the music-stool, commenced to rattle off a polka. Soon they were all busily engaged in dancing, and the noise occasioned by their feet and voices almost prevented my hearing the conversation which Mrs Rodwell, who had taken up a station with her knitting close to the piano, addressed to me.
‘You were very much surprised to hear our news, Lizzie, I’m sure,’ she began, as she bent toward my ear.
‘Very much surprised, Mrs Rodwell—never more so.’
‘Ah!’ with a sigh, ‘dear Amy is full young—only eighteen last October, you know, Lizzie; but I think she’ll be happy. I’m sure I trust so. He is a very steady young man, and they are to live in Rockledge, which is a great comfort to me.’
‘In Rockledge!’ Was I to undergo the pain of continual intercourse with him, or the alternative of quitting my present situation? ‘Did I hear you rightly, Mrs Rodwell?’
‘Yes, my dear. His papa, who appears to be a very pleasant old gentleman, has decided to set him up in an office here, that Amy may not be separated from her family. So thoughtful of him, Lizzie, is it not?’
‘Very!’ I remembered the pleasant old gentleman’s conduct on a similar occasion more immediately concerning myself, and could scarcely trust my voice to answer her.
‘You have heard that Mr Armytage is in the law, have you not?’ I nodded my head: I had heard it. ‘A nice profession—so gentlemanly; and he is a fine-looking young man too; don’t you think so? I have heard that some people prefer his cousin’s looks to his; but beauty is such a matter of taste, and Amy is quite satisfied on the subject. You may stop playing now, my dear, for they have all done dancing. Nelly, child, how hot you are! Come away at once from the draught of the door.’
‘A waltz, a waltz, Lizzie!’ they all shouted as they surrounded the piano.
‘Perhaps Miss Lacy is tired,’ suggested the deep voice of Bruce Armytage. I had been going to plead for a brief respite, but at that sound the desire for repose fled, and without a look in his direction I returned to the instrument and began to play the dance they had asked for. But I had not been so occupied long before I became aware that some one amongst them continued to hover about the piano, and felt by intuition that it was Bruce Armytage. At that discovery my fingers flew faster and more gaily, and I regarded the notes before me with a fixed smile, whilst, in order to keep up my courage, I kept repeating to myself: ‘He deserted me: he left me for no fault of mine. My father and mother died, and he never came near me in my sorrow. He is fickle, base, dishonourable—unworthy of regard.’ I tried to set the notes of the waltz that I was playing to the words, ‘Fickle, base, dishonourable!’ but they refused to be so matched, and only seemed to repeat instead, ‘I loved him, I loved him, I loved him!’ and then a blurred mist came before my eyes, and I had to play from memory; for Bruce Armytage had taken up his station at the back of the piano and was looking me full in the face.
‘It is a long time since we met, Miss Lacy,’ he remarked presently, but in so low a voice that had my hearing not been sharpened by anger at his daring to address me, I do not think I should have caught the words.
‘Do you think so?’ I answered carelessly, for I felt that I must say something.
‘How can you ask? Have the last five years passed so pleasantly as to leave no evidence of the flight of time?’
‘Considering,’ I replied, panting with indignation at what appeared to me such thorough indifference to my feelings, ‘considering, Mr Armytage, that during the years you speak of I have lost both my dear parents, I should think you might have spared me the allusion.’
‘Forgive me. I did not mean to wound you. But if the loss of your parents is the only loss you have to regret during those five years, you are happier than some, Miss Lacy. Death is natural, but there are griefs (the loss of love and hope, for instance) almost too unnatural to be borne.’
How dared he, how dared he—he who had treated me in so cruel and unnatural a manner himself, who had but just plighted his faith afresh to my friend—quietly stand there, looking me in the face with his dark, searching eyes, and taunt me with the barrenness of the life which he had made sterile? Much as I had loved him—much as I feared I loved him still—I could have stood up at that moment and denounced him to them all as a traitor and a coward. But I thought of Amy, dear little innocent, confiding Amy, and I was silent.
‘I have not lost them,’ I answered him, quietly. ‘Therefore I cannot sympathise with your allusion. The death of my dear parents was more than sufficient trouble for me; all else of solace that this world can give me is mine.’
‘Do you mean to tell me—’ he commenced quickly.
‘I mean to tell nothing,’ I replied in the same cold tones. ‘I am not in the habit of discussing my private affairs with strangers. Had you not better go to Amy? I see that she is sitting out this dance.’
Upon which he gravely inclined his head in acquiescence, and left me to myself.
‘Lizzie, Lizzie, how fast you have been playing! We are all out of breath,’ exclaimed Mattie, as she and Tom danced up to my side. ‘Get up, there’s a good girl, and let me take your place; we are going to have a game of “Magical Music.” Tom, will you go out first? That’s right; now, girls, what shall we hide? Oh, papa’s keys; they will do, and then, if he wants them, he will take quite an interest in coming and joining in the game himself.’
I resigned my seat, and stole a hasty glance at the other end of the room. Mrs Rodwell was busily engaged upon her knitting, and Bruce was sitting on an ottoman close by Amy’s side; so, gasping for fresh air and one moment’s solitude, and unperceived by the laughing group of children, I left the apartment and ran hastily up to the bedroom which I had first entered. The gas was lighted there, and the fire burned warmly on the hearth, but in my present state of feeling neither warmth nor light was what I most desired. I felt as though I were choking—as though, if no relief were at hand, I must scream aloud, or dash my head against the wall, for my nerves were overstrung, and the demon of hysteria was gaining strength with every minute, and I almost feared would win the victory. But pride came to my assistance—that mighty supporter of human weakness—and flying to the window, I raised the sash and leaned my head out of it, drinking in deep draughts of the foggy night air. And as I did so, watching the bustle in the street below, and the calm stars in the sky above, I felt strength return to me,—strength, not to avoid suffering, but to suffer in patience. The tears rose to my eyes and fell quietly over my cheeks, and as they fell they seemed to dissolve the hard, dry lump which had settled in my throat and threatened to deprive me of breath. I thought of Bruce Armytage as I had known him in the past, and my tears fell fast for the loss I had sustained in him; but I thought of him also as I saw him in the present, and pride and jealousy made me dash them from my eyes, and resolve that if I died—yes, if I died of grief and love and longing combined—he should never have the gratification of knowing that I had retained one particle of my old affection for him. With which intent I hurried on my walking things, determined not to expose myself any longer to the danger of betrayal; but before I had finished doing so, Mrs Rodwell was in the room, all anxiety to know what had occasioned my sudden absence.
‘What is the matter, Lizzie? Did you feel the heat of the room? Why, my dear child, you are never going! It is only just nine o’clock.’
‘Yes, dear Mrs Rodwell, I think I had better do so. Lady Cunningham will not be late to-night, and you know how particular she is about my being home before her. Please let me go.’
‘Well, dear, it must not be so long again before we see you. We must try and get up a few parties this winter, as it will be Amy’s last in the home circle. And mind, Lizzie, you are to be one of her bridesmaids; she insists upon it.’
‘Ah! She is very kind, as you all are, but we will talk of that when the time comes. Good-night, dear Mrs Rodwell. Kiss the girls for me. I won’t go into the drawing-room, such a figure as I am.’
But Mrs Rodwell accompanied me down the stairs, conversing as she went.
‘I am sorry the doctor is from home, my dear; he would have seen you round to Northampton Lodge; but he is never to be depended on from one hour to another, you know.’
‘Oh, it is of no consequence, Mrs Rodwell; I am used to going alone.’
‘But I don’t half like your doing it, Lizzie: the night is so very dark, and—’
‘Allow me to have the pleasure of accompanying Miss Lacy, Mrs Rodwell,’ said the voice of Bruce Armytage. We had reached the drawing-room floor by that time, and he stood on the threshold of the open door.
‘No, no!’ I exclaimed, as I shrank backward; ‘I do not desire it—I would rather go alone;’ and with a hasty kiss on Mrs Rodwell’s cheek, I ran down the remaining stairs and out at the hall door. The wind was blowing fresh and cold as I turned into the open air, and the night was very dark, but I thought of nothing but his offer to accompany me, and I hurried onward. Did he wish to add insult to injury?
But I had not gone far when I heard the sound of footsteps running after me; and I had hardly realised it was indeed himself before he was by my side, apologising for his presence by the excuse that Mrs Rodwell had desired him to overtake me and see me home. Would I forgive what might otherwise seem an intrusion to me? I was too indignant to vouchsafe him any answer.
We walked on in silence side by side for several minutes, I with my head bent down and holding my thick cloak around me, and he vainly endeavouring to look me in the face. At last, as though making a great effort, he cleared his throat, and said,—
‘I suppose, after the manner in which you spoke to me at the piano this evening, my pride ought to forbid my attempting any further explanation with you, but in this case I have one feeling more powerful than pride, Miss Lacy, and I must ask you what you meant by saying that all that this world could give of solace was yours?’
‘I meant what I said,’ I answered abruptly, ‘or rather, that I require no pity from you or any other stranger. Our paths in life are widely enough divided now: let each walk in his own track, without interfering with the other.’
‘That is easier said than done, perhaps,’ he replied; ‘it is difficult in this world for people to forget what they have been.’
‘It does not appear so to me.’
‘Ah, perhaps you are differently, more happily, constituted than most. They told me so long ago, though I did not believe them. Will you consider an old friend impertinent for asking if that from which you derive your solace now is the same from which you derived it then? and if so, why I still find you unsettled in life?’
‘You are speaking in riddles,’ I replied. ‘I do not understand you.’
‘Your present engagement—is it the same which separated us? Do not be afraid to tell me the truth, Lizzie. I have borne a good deal in my lifetime, and am proof against suffering.’
His voice was so tender and kind, so much like the voice which I remembered in the old days of our love, that it won me to listen to him quietly.
‘My engagement!’ I echoed in surprise. ‘What are you talking of? I have never been engaged—never since’—and then I halted, fearing what my revelation might suggest to him.
‘What do you tell me?’ he exclaimed. ‘What object have you in deceiving me? Were you not engaged, even before your parents’ death, to young Hassell, of Fairmead, and was it not by his father’s means that your present situation was procured for you? I little thought to meet you here,’ he added bitterly. ‘I imagined you were married long ago, or I should have been more careful of my own feelings. And now you are engaged for the third time! How easily life runs for some people!’
‘Who could have told you such a falsehood?’ I said, turning to him. ‘It is true that old Mr Hassell stood my friend when I had not one in the world, and that he found my present situation for me; but as to being engaged to his son, why, he is a married man—he married my own cousin.’
‘Could the mistake have arisen so?’ said Bruce Armytage, as he seized my hand. ‘Oh, Lizzie, do not be angry; think what I have gone through! When I returned home from that wretched foreign tour, during which I was not allowed to correspond with you, the first news which I heard from my own family was, that your father and mother had died some eighteen months before, and that you were engaged to Robert Hassell, and living with some old lady (no one could tell me where) until the time for your marriage arrived. I would not believe them; I rushed down to Fairmead myself to make inquiries, and reached there on the very day of young Hassell’s wedding with Miss Lacy. Do you think I was a coward not to stop and see the bride, believing her to be yourself? Perhaps I was; but I flew from the spot as though I had been haunted; and I suffered—ah, Lizzie, I cannot tell how much! It is so fearful, so awful a thing to teach one’s self to believe the heart in which we have trusted to be faithless and unworthy.’
‘I know it,’ I said in a low voice, which was nearly choked by my tears.
‘How I have lived since that time I can hardly tell you,’ he continued as he pressed my hand. (I knew it ought not to remain in his, but it was so sweet to feel it there.) ‘I have had very little hope, or peace, or happiness, though I have struggled on through it all, and made myself a name in my profession. And then to meet you again to-night so unexpectedly, still free, but promised to another, myself and my love so evidently forgotten, and to feel that it has been but a chance that separated us! Oh! Lizzie, it is almost harder than it was at first!’
‘I am not engaged,’ I answered, sobbing; ‘you choose to take my words at the piano as meaning so, but it was your mistake, not mine. I have lived much in the manner you describe yourself to have done—not very happily, perhaps, and finding my best relief in work. But I am glad to have met you, Bruce—glad to have heard from your own lips what parted us; and I thank you for this explanation, though it comes too late.’
‘But why too late, my dearest?’ he exclaimed joyfully. ‘Why, if you are free to accept my hand, and can forgive all that has made us so unhappy in the past, should we not bury our mutual trouble in mutual love? Oh, Lizzie, say that you’ll be mine—say that you’ll be my own wife, and help me to wipe out the remembrance of this miserable mistake!’
I thought of Amy. I looked at him with astonishment; I recoiled from him almost with disgust. Was I to accept happiness at the expense of that of my dear friends, of the only creatures who had shown me any affection during my long years of exile from him? Oh no. I would rather perish in my solitude. The very fact that he could propose it to me made him sink lower in my estimation.
‘Bruce,’ I exclaimed, ‘you must be mad, or I am mad so to tempt you from your duty. Think of all your offer involves—of the distress, the disappointment, the shame it would entail on those who have been more than friends to me; and consider if it is likely I could be so dishonourable to them as to take advantage of it.’
‘I don’t understand you, my darling,’ he said, with a puzzled look.
‘Not understand?’ I reiterated, in surprise, ‘when your engagement to Amy Rodwell was only settled this morning, and the preliminaries for your marriage are already being talked of! Would you break her heart in the attempt to heal mine? Bruce, we must never see each other again after this evening.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie!’ he said, shaking his head, ‘we are playing at dreadful cross-purposes. Did it never enter into your wise little pate to inquire which Mr Armytage was going to marry Amy Rodwell? I can assure you I have no desire or intention to risk getting a pistol-shot through my heart for stepping into my cousin Frederick’s shoes.’
‘And is it really—is it really, then, Frederick whom she is going to marry?’ I exclaimed, breathless with the shock of this new intelligence. ‘Oh, how can she?’
‘It is indeed,’ he answered, laughing. ‘Lizzie, did you seriously think that it was I? Why, what a taste you must give me credit for, to choose that pretty little piece of white-and-pink china, after having had the chance of such a woman as yourself! And now, what is my answer?’
What it was I leave for my readers to guess. Let those who have thirsted until life’s blood lay as dry dust in their veins, thrust the chalice of sparkling wine from their parched lips if they will: I am not made of such stern stuff as that.
THE END.
