CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.
TWO LETTERS.
When I awoke, my poor mother was sitting beside me, looking very ill and sorrowful. She had slipped a pillow under my head, and thrown a shawl across me. I got up with a bewildered brain, and a general sense of calamity, which I could not clearly define.
"Martin," she said, "your father has gone by this morning's boat to Jersey. He says you know why; but he has left this note for you. Why have you not been in bed last night?"
"Never mind, mother," I answered, as I tore open the note, which was carefully sealed with my father's private seal. He had written it immediately after I left him.
"11.30 P.M.
"MY SON: To-morrow morning, I shall run over to Jersey for a few days until this sad business of yours is settled. I cannot bear to meet your changed face. You make no allowances for your father. Half my expenses have been incurred in educating you; you ought to consider this, and that you owe more to me, as your father, than to any one else. But in these days parents receive little honor from their children. When all is settled, write to me at Prince's Hotel. It rests upon you whether I ever see Guernsey again. Your wretched father,
"RICHARD DOBRÉE."
"Can I see it?" asked my mother, holding out her hand.
"No, never mind seeing it," I answered, "it is about Julia, you know. It would only trouble you."
"Captain Carey's man brought a letter from Julia just now," she said, taking it from her pocket; "he said there was no answer."
Her eyelids were still red from weeping, and her voice faltered as if she might break out into sobs any moment. I took the letter from her, but I did not open it.
"You want to be alone to read it?" she said. "O Martin! if you can change your mind, and save us all from this trouble, do it, for my sake?"
"If I can I will," I answered; "but every thing is very hard upon me, mother."
She could not guess how hard, and, if I could help it, she should never know. Now I was fully awake, the enormity of my father's dishonesty and his extreme egotism weighed heavily upon me. I could not view his conduct in a fairer light than I had done in my amazement the night before. It grew blacker as I dwelt upon it. And now he was off to Jersey, shirking the disagreeable consequences of his own delinquency. I knew how he would spend his time there. Jersey is no retreat for the penitent.
As soon as my mother was gone I opened Julia's letter. It began:
"MY DEAR MARTIN: I know all now. Johanna has told me. When you spoke to me so hurriedly and unexpectedly, this afternoon, I could not bear to hear another word. But now I am calm, and I can think it all over quite quietly.
"It is an infatuation, Martin. Johanna says so as well as I, and she is never wrong. It is a sheer impossibility that you, in your sober senses, should love a strange person, whose very name you do not know, better than you do me, your cousin, your sister, your fiancée, whom you have known all your life, and loved. I am quite sure of that, with a very true affection.
"It vexes me to write about that person in any connection with yourself. Emma spoke of her in her last letter from Sark; not at all in reference to you, however. She is so completely of a lower class, that it would never enter Emma's head that you could see any thing in her. She said there was a rumor afloat that Tardif was about to marry the girl you had been attending, and that everybody in the island regretted it. She said it would be a mésalliance for him, Tardif! What then would it be for you, a Dobrée? No; it is a delusion, an infatuation, which will quickly pass away. I cannot believe you are so weak as to be taken in by mere prettiness without character; and this person—I do not say so harshly, Martin—has no character, no name. Were you free you could not marry her. There is a mystery about her, and mystery usually means shame. A Dobrée could not make an adventuress his wife. Then you have seen so little of her. Three times, since the week you were there in March! What is that compared to the years we have spent together? It is impossible that in your heart of hearts you should love her more than me.
"I have been trying to think what you would do if all is broken off between us. We could not keep this a secret in Guernsey, and everybody would blame you. I will not ask you to think of my mortification at being jilted, for people would call it that. I could outlive that. But what are you to do? We cannot go on again as we used to do. I must speak plainly about it. Your practice is not sufficient to maintain the family in a proper position for the Dobrées; and if I go to live alone at the new house, as I must do, what is to become of my uncle and aunt? I have often considered this, and have been glad the difficulty was settled by our marriage. Now every thing will be unsettled again.
"I did not intend to say any thing about myself; but, O Martin! you do not know the blank that it will be to me. I have been so happy since you asked me to be your wife. It was so pleasant to think that I should live all my life in Guernsey, and yet not be doomed to the empty, vacant lot of an unmarried woman. You think that perhaps Johanna is happy single? She is content—good women ought to be content; but, I tell you, I would gladly exchange her contentment for Aunt Dobrée's troubles, with her pride and happiness in you. I have seen her troubles clearly; and I say, Martin, I would give all Johanna's calm, colorless peace for her delight in her son.
"Then I cannot give up the thought of our home, just finished and so pretty. It was so pleasant this afternoon before you came in with your dreadful thunder-bolt. I was thinking what a good wife I would be to you; and how, in my own house, I should never be tempted into those tiresome tempers you have seen in me sometimes. It was your father often who made me angry, and I visited it upon you, because you are so good-tempered. That was foolish of me. You could not know how much I love you, how my life is bound up in you, or you would have been proof against that person in Sark.
"I think it right to tell you all this now, though it is not in my nature to make professions and demonstrations of my love. Think of me, of yourself, of your poor mother. You were never selfish, and you can do noble things. I do not say it would be noble to marry me; but it would be a noble thing to conquer an ignoble passion. How could Martin Dobrée fall in love with an unknown adventuress?
"I shall remain in the house all day to-morrow, and if you can come to see me, feeling that this has been a dream of folly from which you have awakened, I will not ask you to own it. That you come at all will be a sign to me that you wish it forgotten and blotted out between us, as if it had never been.
"With true, deep love for you, Martin, believe me still
"Your affectionate JULIA."
I pondered over Julia's letter as I dressed. There was not a word of resentment in it. It was full of affectionate thought for us all. But what reasoning! I had not known Olivia so long as I had known her, therefore I could not love her as truly!
A strange therefore!
I had scarcely had leisure to think of Olivia in the hurry and anxiety of the last twenty-four hours. But now "that person in Sark," the "unknown adventuress," presented itself very vividly to my mind. Know her! I felt as if I knew every tone of her voice and every expression of her face; yet I longed to know them more intimately. The note she had written to me a few weeks ago I could repeat word for word, and the handwriting seemed far more familiar to me even than Julia's. There was no doubt my love for her was very different from my affection for Julia; and if it was an infatuation, it was the sweetest, most exquisite infatuation that could ever possess me.
Yet there was no longer any hesitation in my mind as to what I must do. Julia knew all now. I had told her distinctly of my love for Olivia, and she would not believe it. She appeared wishful to hold me to my engagement in spite of it; at any rate, so I interpreted her letter. I did not suppose that I should not live it down, this infatuation, as they chose to call it. I might hunger and thirst, and be on the point of perishing; then my nature would turn to other nutriment, and assimilate it to its contracted and stultified capacities.
After all there was some reason in the objections urged against Olivia. The dislike of all insulated people against foreigners is natural enough; and in her case there was a mystery which I must solve before I could think of asking her to become my wife. Ask her to become my wife! That was impossible now. I had chosen my wife months before I saw her.
I went mechanically through the routine of my morning's work, and it was late in the afternoon before I could get away to ride to the Vale. My mother knew where I was going, and gazed wistfully into my face, but without otherwise asking me any questions. At the last moment, as I touched Madam's bridle, I looked down at her standing on the door-step. "Cheer up, mother!" I said, almost gayly, "it will all come right."