CHAPTER XXVII.
Some days had passed at Danvers's New Church; and I must not dwell upon their passing. "Time warns me to be brief," as worthy clergymen say in long-composed sermons, where no reference to time existed in the act of composition. But time, and the end of the volume apparent to the view (which are to an author what time and the end of life ought to be to every man), warn me that I must be brief. Several days had passed at Danvers's New Church since Hortensia Danvers and Ralph Woodhall had entered that house arm in arm. Fill up the time as you will, reader. I can not dwell upon it. Very little passed of any consequence. We well know how bulky trifles will become when we are trying to pack closely the portmanteau of the present. A child's toy will take up more room than a volume of philosophy, and a blown India rubber ball occupy ten times more space than all the essays of John Locke. Those days had been filled with trifles. They formed a period of little or no progress. Country gentlemen had come in--esquires, and justices, and barons, and lords of high degree--to offer their services and compliments to the young, graceful, beautiful Lady Danvers, upon her return to her ancestral home. Country gossips had flocked thither to see, and hear, and know all that was going on; for certain reports had been carried about by the tongue of Rumor as to the sojourn of a young and handsome cavalier within the walls of Danvers's New Church.
At first Hortensia was somewhat puzzled what to do; for, with all her readiness--which proceeded more from simple purity and rectitude of purpose, enlightened by a bright, clear mind, than any worldly wisdom--she could not help feeling that she was commencing a struggle against a very muddy but turbulent torrent called the world, which would require a stout heart to stem it.
If she refused to receive such visitors, she was certain to subject herself to misconstruction. If she appeared with Ralph, there was still a danger of misconstruction, and peril to him likewise. She resolved to receive them all; and she did so, with quiet ease, and calm, though somewhat cold demeanor, which rebuked curiosity, and put calumny at fault. She would not suffer Ralph, however, to appear, impressing upon him strongly the necessity of concealment for his own safety, and taking such means as her knowledge of the country, and her more general experience of the world and the world's ways, enabled her to adopt of finding some means of conveying him secretly to the coast of Holland. Every morning servants on horseback went out to different ports on the western shores of England. Every evening servants returned, bringing no satisfactory tidings. Nearly one half of life is consumed in emptinesses, and three quarters, at least, in emptinesses and disappointments taken together. So it was at Danvers's New Church.
But still a little progress was made--a very little. Nevertheless, it is worth while recording. It may be asked if Hortensia, when the consciousness came upon her that she had to swim, as it were, against the stream of the world's opinion, did not sometimes say to herself, "Ralph's arm may at any time save me, and bear me safe to shore."
I do not think she did so, for it was a subject upon which she did not like her thoughts to rest. She was fain to believe, and did believe, that she was actuated by no feeling but one, a sincere, unmingled desire of freeing a man whom she esteemed, the son of her mother's best friend, from perils and difficulties undeserved. And yet there were various little incidents--very indefinite--very intangible--a word dropped row and then--a deep fit of thought after the name of Margaret Woodhall had been mentioned--a grave and solemn earnestness of manner in protesting that nothing on earth could have induced him to draw his sword against Henry Woodhall, which, like the light gusts of the evening wind, bringing up misty clouds upon the western sky, cast over Hortensia's contemplated future a vague, uncertain gloom, from which she was pleased to turn her eyes, and rejoice in the sunshine of the present, when she and Ralph spent the evening alone together in her wide, tastefully-furnished withdrawing-room, sometimes reading authors whom we venerate as the fathers of the poetry and prose of England, but who were then hardly consecrated by the hand of Time; or singing, and playing upon instruments then in vogue, music which might strike us, perhaps, in the present day, as poor in the harmony, but which had a freshness, a vigor in the melody that is rarely to be found in this all-steaming age.
True, in the darkness of the night, Hortensia would often lay awake for hours, not indulging in apprehensive or regretful thoughts--not even, like the patriarch, struggling with the angel of Hope to win a boon at last from the Giver of all happiness, but watching, like a warder upon a tower, to prevent the entrance of any of the enemies that flocked continually forward to obtain admittance into the fortress of the mind.
Sometimes, wearied with this dark, silent strife, she would wake her maid, who now slept in the same room, and bid her strike a light and give her a book to while away the tedious hours till daylight came. This done, the maid would creep again to bed, and fall in a moment into dreamless, heavy slumber, the envy of the highborn lady lying near.
It was thus one night--I call the period of darkness night--when Hortensia, after reading for some time, placed the book beneath her pillow, raised her fair, beautiful arm, as children will do, under her head, and with the rich curls of her unfilleted hair falling over it, and partly shrouding her face, was trying to obtain a brief, refreshing draught of that sweet, calm, morning sleep, which often visits us just in the sober-colored dawn of day, when she heard the trotting of a horse; and the moment after, the great bell rang sharply.
No one answered, and several minutes passed; but then the bell rang again; and shortly after, slow and tardy steps were heard pacing the marble hall toward the great door.