CHAPTER LXII.—MRS. COVERDALE THINKS BETTER OF IT.
Harry listened with all the patience he could muster while Alice was thus comfortably arranging her own decease and his second marriage, then speaking gravely, though still in the most affectionate manner, he replied—
“I cannot even feel annoyed with you now you are so ill and weak, my poor child, but the matter to which you allude is most repugnant and distasteful to me; it is a subject, in fact, on which I would not allow any human being but yourself to address me. I will not pretend to misunderstand your allusion; but I do most solemnly assure you that you are mistaken, and that were it, indeed, God’s will that you should be taken from me, no new ties should come between my soul and the memory of the only woman, except my poor mother, whom I have ever really loved. I see that you do not believe me! it is unjust, almost unkind of you!”
Harry spoke with deep feeling; and Alice, with tears in her eyes, placed her poor, thin hand within that of her husband as she replied—
“I do most fully believe that you love me as you say, and that at this moment you do not imagine you could be happy with anybody else, but it is a comfort to me to think that when I am parted from you there will still be some one to care for you. I assure you I feel quite differently towards Miss Crofton now; I was jealous of her, dreadfully jealous—I confess it! but I now am grateful to her for loving you, and sorry I ever entertained such uncharitable feelings towards her. I mean to leave her all my jewels, except one or two little things I should like to give poor Emily.”
Alice paused, partly through weakness, partly because she wanted her husband to signify his approval of her sentiments, which she considered was the least he could do, in return for what was, in fact, to her, an act of almost superhuman charity and self-denial. But Coverdale was in no humour to comply with her desire; on the contrary, so distasteful was the whole matter, and poor Alice’s idea of the situation so far from the truth, that he was driven to his wits’ end with perplexity and annoyance, which nothing but a sense of his wife’s unfitness to sustain so energetic a mode of address prevented from breaking forth in a burst of his “quiet manner.” As he continued silent, Alice resumed:—
“You must not be angry with me for knowing about it, Harry dear, for the knowledge was forced upon me, nor was I aware what Lord Alfred Courtland was about to tell until I had heard so much that my womanly dignity would not allow me to stop him; I did not choose to let him think I could believe it possible you had done anything I should be afraid to hear, and so he told me all.”
“And pray what might all be?” inquired Harry, as calmly as he was able.
“Oh! about her being in love with you, and your running away together, and old Mr. Somebody (I can’t remember names) taking her away again, and preventing you from marrying her; yes, he told me all about it.”
“He told you a pack of lies, so mixed up with a little truth, that unless I were able to give you a detailed account of the affair I could not separate them, and I am under a solemn promise not to say anything about it; but I know what I will do. In the meantime believe this—I love you with my whole heart and soul, and you only, and if you have any regard for me you will strive to banish all these silly fancies, which only delay your recovery, and get well as fast as you can for my sake. And now you have talked more than is good for you, so I shall send Emily to you to read you to sleep.”
As soon as he had put this resolution into practice he betook himself to the library, and wrote as follows:—
“Dear Arabella,—The promise I made you at the inn, at Fiumalba, I have up to this time kept faithfully; I now ask you to release me from it. My wife’s happiness (in which my own is bound up), perhaps her life even, depends upon your doing so; she has just passed the crisis of a brain fever, her bodily weakness is lamentable to witness, and the mental depression naturally arising from it leads her to take a morbid and desponding view of her own chances of recovery: in such a position, anything that will conduce to raise her spirits and tranquillise her mind will effect more than twenty doctors. Some mischief-maker has caused her to obtain a garbled account of a certain occurrence, to which I will not farther refer; nothing but the whole truth will suffice to set her mind at rest. Arabella! I deeply regret this necessity, but it cannot be avoided, and I trust to you to act towards me as I would act by you if the situation were reversed.
“I remain always,
“Your true and sincere friend,
“Harry Coverdale.”
For two or three days after that on which the foregoing conversation between Coverdale and his wife took place, Alice continued much in the same condition, the idea that she should die, and that after her death Harry would espouse Arabella Crofton, and be much happier than she had been able to make him, appeared never absent from her mind; her appetite decreased, her sleep became broken and fitful, and Mr. Gouger’s face grew longer, and his head shook more and more like that of Lord Burleigh in the Critic, every time he visited her.
One morning, on Coverdale’s return from the neighbouring town, whither he had ridden to procure some delicacy wherewith to try and tempt Alice’s capricious appetite; he was equally surprised and pleased on entering her room to perceive a brightness in her eye and a colour in her cheek, such as he had feared never to see there again.
“Why, Alice darling, this fine morning has inspired you—you are looking more like yourself than I have seen you this many a long day!” he exclaimed, as he seated himself by the easy-chair which Alice had gained sufficient strength to use as a substitute for her couch.
Regarding him with a smile and blush, which tinged her late, cheeks with the most delicate rose-colour, she replied—
“You have grown very clever in reading people’s faces of late, Harry dear; but you are quite right in fancying something has inspired me—at least, if feeling very happy is what you mean by inspiration. But oh! how foolish I have been! how wrong, how unjust I was ever to doubt you! Harry dearest, can you forgive me for not feeling certain that you had always acted as nobly and generously before I knew you as you have done since? If you could tell how I hate and despise myself for my silly, illiberal suspicions! But you must wonder all this time what has set me raving in this strange way. What do you think of my having had a letter from—yes! actually from Miss Crofton, telling me—here, read it yourself, I am certain every word of it is true; and oh! how I pity her for being obliged to write it, and, indeed, for the whole affair, poor thing!”
As Alice spoke she drew a letter from the pocket of her dress, and gave it to her husband; it ran as follows:—
“I have received a note from Mr. Coverdale, urging me to release him from a promise he most kindly made me, at a time when, bowed down by shame and contrition, his doing so saved me, as I verily believe, from madness or suicide. He tells me your health and his happiness depend upon my complying with his request; it becomes then a duty in me to do so; and, however painful it may be, I will not flinch from it. It appears to me that the most effectual way to remove any misapprehension from your mind, in regard to the nature and extent of my acquaintance with Mr. Coverdale before his marriage, will be to give you a concise account of the occurrences which took place during the summer I spent in Italy, whither I had accompanied a family of the name of Muir, in the capacity of governess. The Muirs were well-meaning, commonplace people, not possessing the slightest tact or refinement of feeling. I was at that time young, and morbidly sensitive; and the slights they put upon me, without, as I can now perceive, intending any unkindness, or, indeed, being aware of the effect their thoughtlessness was producing upon me, were a daily martyrdom to my proud spirit. We spent three months at Florence; and shortly after we had settled there, John Muir, the eldest son, who had been making a tour among the Swiss mountains, rejoined his family, accompanied by Mr. Coverdale, who had known him at the university. Slightly attracted, I fancy, by the good looks of my eldest pupil, who was an unusually pretty nonentity, Mr. Coverdale, always talking of the necessity of continuing his journey to the East, still lingered at Florence. The great kindness of heart and delicacy of feeling which lie hid under a roughness of manner that can only mislead a very superficial observer, soon led him to perceive and pity my isolated position; and from the moment in which he became aware how keenly the sense of dependence preyed upon me, he treated me with a degree of deference and attention which could not but contrast most favourably with the neglect I experienced from others. Under the cold manner which circumstances have forced me to assume, I have concealed a naturally ardent and impetuous disposition, and as deeply as I had been affected by the ungenerous conduct of the Muirs did I now appreciate Mr. Coverdale’s sympathy and kindness—in a word, for I have resolved to conceal nothing from you, I loved him with all the force of my passionate nature. But the very strength of my feelings led me studiously to conceal them; nor, until the elopement of my eldest pupil with a scheming Italian adventurer broke up the party, did I give Mr. Coverdale the slightest opportunity of suspecting the warm interest he had excited in me; but when about to bid him farewell as I imagined for ever, my self-control gave way, and I burst into a passionate flood of tears. Equally grieved and surprised, he soothed me with his accustomed kind and considerate delicacy, begged me always to look upon him as a friend, and apply to him in any emergency, as to a brother; and as soon as I became somewhat more composed, left me. The next tidings I heard of him were that he had quitted Florence. Scarcely had I retired to my room, to endeavour to calm my excitement, and to struggle to subdue my hopeless attachment in tears and solitude, when Mrs. Muir sent for me, and reproached me with equal virulence and unkindness for her daughter’s elopement, which she declared to have been the consequence of my neglect. ‘Had you,’ she continued, ‘been less engrossed by seeking to ensnare the affections of Mr. Coverdale, you would have been better able to perform the duties of your situation, and this misfortune might never have come upon us.’ Stung by the mixture of truth and falsehood in this cruel reproach, I replied—I know not what—proudly, and I can now well believe impertinently; and the next thing that I became aware of was, that a sum of money sufficient to defray my expenses to England was placed before me, and that I was dismissed. Thrown thus on my own resources in a foreign land, without a single friend near to help or advise me, what wonder that I instinctively turned to the only quarter from which I had for years (for mine had been a desolate youth) met with kindness, consideration, and sympathy; and that from the chaos of conflicting emotions one idea alone stood out clear and defined—to seek Harry Coverdale, throw myself on his generosity, tell my tale of sorrow and of love, and leave the result to him and destiny. That such a course was unwomanly, almost unpardonable in me, none can be more bitterly aware than I am; but I pray God that those of my own sex who are inclined to condemn me may never be tempted as I was tempted—may never fall as, but for the superhuman goodness of heart, and the tender, simple, yet chivalrous nature of your husband, I should have fallen. With me, to resolve and to act were simultaneous. I lost not a moment in ascertaining the route Mr. Coverdale had taken, and ere the Muir family were aware of my departure I had followed him to Fiumalba, a small town within a few hours’ journey of Florence. Without allowing myself an instant’s time for reflection, I sought the hotel at which Mr. Coverdale was stopping, and in my distraction flung myself at his feet, and told him everything—how I loved him better than any other created being—better even than my own womanly pride and good name—how I felt convinced that such love as mine must in time win return—how that if he would make me his wife, I would devote every thought; every action of my future existence, to secure his happiness—how, if he refused me, I would lie down at his feet and die, but never leave him. Then did he indeed redeem his promise of acting by me as a brother—then did he save me from my worst enemy—myself. Having soothed and quieted my agony of spirit, by his calm good sense and judicious kindness, he appealed to my reason—set before me how, by yielding to my request, and making me the partner of his future life, while unable to feel for me that degree of affection without which such a tie must become unbearable, he would be doing me an injury rather than conferring a benefit; nor did he leave me until he had obtained my consent to allow him to return to Florence, explain the whole matter to Mr. Muir, expostulate with him as to the cruelty and injustice of thus dismissing me with an undeserved slur on my character as a governess, and endeavour to arrange that I should remain with his wife and daughter, and accompany them on their return to England. In this negotiation he was successful. Mr. Muir,—an easy, self-indulgent character, yet one who could, on occasions such as that to which I refer, act kindly and honourably,—accompanied Mr. Coverdale back to Fiumalba, where he informed me that he had prevailed on Mrs. Muir to agree to the above proposal, adding that he and Mr. Coverdale were the only persons aware of the imprudent step I had taken, and that they were both willing to make me a solemn promise never (unless by my desire) to reveal the transaction to any one. Utterly broken-spirited and miserable, I consented, and, taking leave of my preserver, returned with Mr. Muir to Florence. From that day, until our accidental meeting in Park Lane, I saw Mr. Coverdale no more. What it has cost me to write this I will not attempt to describe, but that every word of it is the simple truth, I call Heaven to witness; that the knowledge of it may for ever reconcile all differences between you and your noble, generous hearted husband, and that you may be restored to make him as happy as I am certain it is in your power to do is the wish and prayer of one who, if she has erred deeply, has suffered equally, as she hopes not without some good result.
“Arabella Crofton.”
When Harry had finished reading the letter, he returned it to his wife, observing, “That is, as she says, a faithful account of all that ever occurred between us. You now see why I was unable to explain to you the apparent mystery. I hold a promise to be so sacred a thing, that nothing—not even the loss of your affection—could induce me to break one. And now, my poor child, I hope you are satisfied that I indeed love you with my whole heart, and that the affection of a thousand Arabella Croftons would never compensate me for the loss of one bright smile or fond look from my own darling wife.”
Alice attempted to reply, but her heart was too full for words: bursting into a flood of tears of mingled joy and contrition, she flung her arms around her husband’s neck, and in that prolonged embrace ended once and for ever all Harry Coverdale’s matrimonial disputes and discomforts.