Now, however, what were his feelings?--now that his situation was changed in every particular,--that in fortune, and in station, he had fallen at once from the situation in which she had promised him her hand; and when he felt that he had no right to claim from Marian de Vaux the execution of a promise which she had made under different circumstances, and to which he believed that all her friends would, of course, be opposed, as soon as his real position became known? He felt that he had no right either to ask or to expect it; and the darkest image that presented itself to his mind was, the loss of her he loved, for ever. Nor did this image come before him vague and undefined, as a thing of remote possibility,--though even then the apprehension would have been terrible enough,--but, in his present state of despondency, it appeared as an undoubted and inevitable certainty--as a thing that must and would take place. He felt as if Marian were already lost to him for ever, and the bright bubble of his happiness irreparably broken. He fancied, also,--he could not help imagining, that something like contempt would mingle in the pity that she felt for him. She was herself so pure,--delicacy, modesty, and virtue so characterized her every movement, and her every word,--that he tortured himself with believing that a part of the reprobation and scorn with which she must think of his mother, would fall upon himself. "She will look upon me as the child of vice," he thought; "she will see in me the offspring of guilt and shame, and will easily make up her mind to the separation. She is always so reasonable, and so willing to do what she considers right, at any sacrifice, that her mind will soon be tutored to forget Edward de Vaux. Were she of that warm, ardent, deep-feeling nature that casts fate and happiness upon one die, I might hope that she would still cling to me: but it is in vain thinking of it--I have no reason to hope it. She will follow the dictates of common sense and prudence, and abandon an alliance which all her friends would now oppose."
Poor Marian! thus did her unhappy lover contrive to wring his own heart even with her very virtues. After thinking for at least an hour in gloomy silence, a faint hope crossed his mind, that he might have mistaken the import of the letter--that his apprehensions might have deceived him. Experience, gained from the consequences of our faults, almost always, sooner or later, gives us a vague, unsatisfactory consciousness that such things exist in our bosom; and Edward de Vaux did know that he was given to torment himself needlessly. He therefore read the letter over again, and read it carefully; but, on doing so, his first impression was but the more confirmed.
"Yet it might be false," he thought; "the whole tale might be false, or might refer to something else, and be the mere blunder of some ignorant and presumptuous person." But then the remembrance of his father's words returned, and all that had before seemed strange regarding his mother came up before his mind; and he once more gave himself up to despair.
What was to be done, became the next question. There was just a sufficient portion of doubt mingled with his feelings to hold him tortured in suspense, without being enough to approach the limit of hope. This state, of course, he could have borne no longer under any circumstances; but his situation in regard to Marian rendered it absolutely necessary that he should put an end to all doubt upon the business. And yet it was terrible, most terrible, to feel that it must be his own hand which tore away the veil that concealed the obstacles to his marriage--that it must be his own hand that cast away his happiness for ever. The thought might cross his mind of letting things take their course--of choosing to disbelieve the letter--of treating it with contempt, and of proceeding with Marian to the altar, to secure the blessing of her hand, at least, before the rest was snatched from him. But if it did cross his mind, it was but as the image of a thing that might be with some men, but could never be with him. It occupied not a moment's consideration--it left no trace behind it. To investigate the matter instantly, and to the bottom, became his determination; and, having done so, to make the result known to those interested, and at once place himself fearlessly in the situation which he had alone a right to fill. He did get that there might be circumstances in the story which he was about to hear which might render it necessary to conceal it from the public ear, in consideration for the feelings of his father, or of others. But to Marian, at least, the facts must be told; she was too deeply implicated in it all to be left in ignorance of what touched her whole future happiness; and De Vaux resolved that not only should she be told, but that no lips but his own should tell it, as he well knew how a few explicative words, or a well-turned round of phrases, may pervert a plain tale from its true meaning. "I will trust none," he thought; "and, whatever the truth may be, from my lips alone shall she first hear it."
The course to be pursued in his investigation became the next question. Two were pointed out in the letter itself; but from the first, that of applying to his father, he shrank with irresistible repugnance. It was not alone that De Vaux, as is common--we might almost say universal--among men, possessed more physical than moral courage; that he feared the fierce and angry mood of his father, irritated as he had been by late opposition, and loved not to venture upon a discussion with him, which would rouse every dark and stormy passion into fiery activity; but he feared himself also: he feared that anguish and anger, and the haughty irritation with which he was sure to be encountered, might make him forget himself, and say words that no after-sorrow could recall. There might still be a doubt, too, upon even the very subject of his fears, and he felt that were those fears unfounded, his father might justly look upon it as little better than a gross personal insult, were he asked if he had passed his illegitimate son upon the world as legitimate, and promoted his union with the heiress of a large fortune, under the pretence of his being heir to an honourable name and great possessions.
De Vaux might believe that such conduct was not impossible; he might also think that his father was not actuated in so doing by the mean and sordid views which, at first sight, seem the only motives assignable for such behaviour. Various circumstances might have occurred, in earlier years, to make his father acknowledge an unreal marriage with his mother; considerations for her feelings, or for his own respectability, might be among the rest. Once having said so, and spoken of himself as of a legitimate child, Edward de Vaux knew well that his father's proud and reserved nature might have made him ever after silent upon the subject, till explanation became almost impossible; and the deceit he had practised or permitted might have been rather the result of haughty reserve than of cunning artifice.
De Vaux felt that, however, ere he presumed to insinuate to his father a bare suspicion of his having committed such an act, he must have much better information and clearer proof to justify the charge. When such evidence was once obtained, he might communicate the discovery he had made to Lord Dewry by letter, and thus avoid that painful collision which a personal discussion of the matter must induce; or, if he found that the evidence was faulty or inconclusive; that there was motive for suspicion against the person who tendered it, or that the whole was an interested calumny, he might lay it before his father, as an affair which required him to investigate the assertions, and punish the authors of them.
The determination, therefore, was taken to visit the gipsy himself; and the only consideration that remained was, whether to go alone, or to ask Manners to accompany him. From the latter idea he shrank, as, in that case, he must have exposed to his friend doubts and apprehensions which were bitterly humiliating, and might even compromise the secrets of others, to whom his friend was a stranger, in a manner which he had no right to do. The letter, also, bade him come alone; and, on reading it over once more, everything tended to make him give credence both to the sincerity of the writer and the accuracy of the facts. He had a faint remembrance, too, of having heard the name of Pharold mentioned by his aunt, as connected with the early days of her family; and the fact of the writer having referred him, in the first instance, to his own father, tended to show that there existed no design against himself personally. Besides, De Vaux was not a man to entertain fears of any kind for his own safety; and, as he clearly saw that Manners was totally ignorant of the contents of the letter which he had brought him, he determined to go alone, and investigate the matter thoroughly.
His next question to his own heart was, "and, in the meantime, what shall be my conduct towards Marian? How shall I behave while I expect and believe that a few more hours will alter our situation towards each other for ever, and render that conduct wrong which was perfectly consistent with our engagement towards each other? If I change my manner, she may think my affection cooled, and feel herself unkindly treated. But then," he thought again, bitterly enough, "but then that will but serve to smooth the way to the change which is ultimately to take place; and perhaps it had better be reached by some such intermediate step." The next moment, again, his wavering thoughts turned to the other side, and he demanded whether he had any right to give her one instant's pain more than necessary. The reply was ready:--"No, no! that were cruel and unkind indeed; and should I do so, and my fears prove false, my behaviour would necessarily, from all the circumstances of the case, remain unexplained--a dark blot upon my affection towards her. Yet, hereafter, if she should learn that such tidings have been in my possession,--that such doubts have been justly working in my mind,--will she not think it wrong, and even deceitful, of me to treat her as my promised bride, when I know that she never can be such?"
What was to be done? De Vaux, according to the old scholastic term, had got himself between the horns of a dilemma; and we must pause for one moment, in order to inquire how far he was art and part in putting himself into that situation. It is wonderful, most wonderful, how people deceive themselves in this world, and how they go on arguing with themselves on both sides of the question for an hour together, affecting to be puzzled, and asking themselves what is to be done, when, from the very first, they have determined, in secret counsel, what to do; and all this logic and disquisition has solely been for the purpose of bewildering reason, or duty, or conscience, or any other of those personified qualities of the soul, which the great parliament of man's passions choose to look upon as the public, the spectators.