“Fred Marsden.”
CHAPTER XLIX.—ALICE PERCEIVES THE ERROR OF HER WAYS.
“M y dear Alice, what has changed you so completely? You have lost your spirits, and appear to take a dark, morbid view of life. You find a thousand faults with things and people you used to be perfectly satisfied with; and you look thin and ill. Are you unwell?” inquired Mrs. Hazlehurst of her daughter, after Alice had been staying some days at the Grange. They were sitting together in Mrs. Hazlehurst’s morning room, which commanded an extensive view across the park. Alice’s eyes had been for some minutes fixed upon one particular spot, and as she gazed they filled with tears—it was the stile leading to the shady walk wherein Harry had first told his love, and the sight of it called up a host of tender recollections. How different was the bright, sunny, trusting affection which she then felt for him, from her present perturbed state of mind!—in which jealousy of Arabella Crofton and estrangement from her husband (springing originally from his neglect and injustice, and kept alive by the untoward events of their London season) contended with a love, the strength of which was proved by the wretchedness all these doubts and misunderstandings caused her. Scarcely hearing her mother’s question, she replied, mechanically, “No, that she was not ill,” and relapsed into her train of gloomy musing. Mrs. Hazlehurst regarded her in anxious silence for a few moments, then observed abruptly—
“Alice, you never speak of your husband now; yet, when you were first married, your letters were full of his praises, and you could neither talk nor write of anything but Harry’s perfections. How is this?”
“Oh! one cannot be always a baby,” was the reply. “While I was a new plaything, Mr. Coverdale spoiled me, and made much of me; and I was child enough to be delighted with his attentions—to fancy they would always continue the same, and that life would prove a path of roses, so I rhapsodised about it accordingly. I have now found out my mistake, and indulge in raptures no longer—that is all!” She strove to speak lightly and carelessly, but her tearful eyes and quivering lips belied the sense of her words. Her mother saw it, and could abstain no longer.
“Alice, my child, you are unhappy,” she said; “it is useless to attempt to conceal it. Come, tell me what it is. You know of old that I am to be trusted, and who so fit as your mother to confide in?—who so well able to sympathise with—and perhaps to counsel you?” As she spoke, she passed her arm caressingly round Alice’s slender waist, and drew her towards her. For a minute or so Alice submitted passively to her embrace, then, with an hysterical sob, she flung her arms round her and burst into a passion of tears. Mrs. Hazlehurst allowed her to weep in silence, until the violence of her grief had in some measure subsided, then, by degrees, drew from her an account, at first broken and disjointed, but becoming fuller and more coherent as she proceeded, of all her woes, real and imaginary, with which the reader is already acquainted.
“And now, mamma dearest, how can I ever again be happy, knowing as I do that Harry is still attached to that dreadful woman, and that he regrets his marriage with me more because it places a bar between them, than because I have disappointed him by not proving the spiritless, tender, and affectionate doll he fancied me when I first married? I—I almost wish I was, for then perhaps I could make him happy, and I’m sure I don’t now!” She paused, then resting her head against her mother’s shoulder, added, “Mamma—you will tell me honestly—do you think I have behaved very ill?”
“I certainly cannot exonerate you from blame, my poor child; there have been, as it seems to me, serious faults on both sides. Mr. Coverdale’s appear to me to have proceeded more from thoughtlessness than from intention; while yours, I am both sorry and surprised to find, seem chiefly to have arisen from warmth of temper.”