The King's Highway

by G. P. R. James

Wilton felt the small rounded fingers of Laura's hand rest, for a single instant, more heavily in his own, while she drew a deep long breath, as if a weight had been taken from her bosom.

"Oh, Wilton!" she said, "it makes all the difference in his views. It will make all the difference in our fate. You know that it would make none to me; that the man I loved would be loved under any circumstances of fortune or station, but with him it is the first, the greatest consideration. There may be difficulties still; there may be opposition; for, as you know, I am an only child, and my father thinks that nothing can equal what I have a right to expect; but still that opposition will vanish when he sees that my happiness is concerned, if the great and predominant prejudice of his education is not arrayed against us. Oh! Wilton, Wilton, your words have made me very happy."

Her words certainly made Wilton happy in return;—indeed, most happy. His fate had suddenly brightened from all that was dark and cheerless, from a situation in which the sweet, early dream of love itself but rendered everything that was sombre, painful, and distressing in his course, more gloomy, more bitter, more full of despair, it had changed, to the possession and the hope of all that the most sanguine imagination could have pictured of glad, and joyful, and happy, to the prospect of wealth and station, to the hope of obtaining the being that he loved best on earth, and to the certainty of possessing her early, her first, her warm, her full affection.

Had Wilton given way to what he felt at that moment, he would have clasped her to his heart and sealed the covenant of their love on the sweet lips that gave him such assurance of happiness. But he remembered that she was there alone with him, in full confidence, under the safeguard of all his best feelings, and he would not for the world have done one thing that in open day could have called the colour into her cheek. He loved her deeply, fully, and nobly, and though, under other circumstances, he might scarcely have hesitated, he now forebore. But again and again he pressed his lips upon her hand, and thanked her again and again for all that she had said, and for all the hopes and glad tidings that her words implied.

Their conversation then turned to love, and to their feelings towards each other. How could it be helped? And Wilton told her all; how the passion had grown upon him, how he had struggled hard against it, how not even despair itself had been able to crush it; how it had gone on and increased in spite of himself; how intense, how ardent it had become. He could not tell her exactly, at least he would not, what he had felt on her account, when he believed that she was likely to become the bride of Lord Sherbrooke; but he told her fully, ay, and eloquently, what agony of mind he had endured when he thought of seeing her give her hand to any other man, without affording him an apparent chance of even making an effort for himself. In short, he gave her the whole picture of his personal feelings; and there is no woman that is not gratified at seeing such a picture displayed, when she is herself the object. But to a mind such as that of Lady Laura, and to feelings such as were in her bosom, the tale offered higher and nobler sources of delight. The love, the deep love, which she felt, and which was now acknowledged to her own heart, required every such assurance of full and ample return as his words afforded, to render it confident and happy. But from the display of his feelings which he now made, she felt, she saw, she knew that she was loved as she could wish to be—loved as fully, as intensely, as deeply, as she herself loved—loved with all those feelings, high, and bright, and sweet, which assured her beyond all question that the affection which she had inspired would be permanent as well as ardent.

Wilton won her, too, to speak upon the same subject as himself, though, of course, he could not expect her to dwell upon what she felt in the same manner. There was a great difference: on the one hand, all the sensations of his heart towards her were boldly avowed and minutely detailed; the history of his love was told in language straightforward, eager, and powerful. The love of her bosom, on the contrary, was shadowed forth rather than spoken, admitted rather than told, her feelings were referred to, but not depicted.

"You make me glad, Wilton," she said, "by telling me all this, for I almost feared—and was teasing my own heart about it at the rectory, lest I should have done the unwomanly thing of loving first—I will not call it, being too easily won; for I should certainly despise the woman who thought anything necessary to win her, when once she really loved, further than the conviction of her lover's sincerity, and honour, and nobility of spirit. But yet I thought, that even you might somewhat despise me, if you found that I had loved you before you loved me. And yet, Wilton," she added, after a momentary pause, "I cannot help thinking that even if it had been so, I should have been more pardonable than many people, on account of the very great services you have rendered me at various times, and the perils you have encountered in my behalf. How could I help loving a man who has twice risked his life for me?"

"Oh, dear Laura," replied Wilton, "those services have been very small ones, and not worthy of your naming. I certainly did strive to conceal my love," he continued; "but I believe that, let us struggle against our feelings as we will, there are always some signs and tokens which show to the eyes of those we love—if there be any sympathy between their hearts and ours—that which is passing in regard to themselves within the most secret places of our bosom. There is a cabalistic language in love, Laura—unknown to any but those who really do love, but learnt in a moment, when the mighty secret is communicated to our hearts. We speak it to each other without knowing it, dear Laura, and we are understood, without an effort, if there be sympathy between us."

In such conversation wore the night away, as the carriage wended slowly onward. Two changes of horses were required to carry Laura and her lover back to the metropolis, and bells had to be rung, ostlers and postilions wakened, horses brought slowly forth, and many another tedious process to be gone through, which had brought the night nearly to a close, before the carriage crossed the wide extent of Blackheath, and passed through a small part of the town of Greenwich, which had then never dreamt of the ambitious project that it has since achieved, of climbing up that long and heavy hill.

Wilton and Laura had sufficient matter for conversation during the whole way: for when they had said all that could be said of the present and the past, there still remained the future to be considered; and Laura entreated her lover by no precipitate eagerness to call down upon them opposition, which, if it showed itself of a vehement kind at first, might only strengthen, instead of diminishing with time. She besought him to let everything proceed as it had hitherto done, till his own fate was fully ascertained, and any doubt of his birth and station in society was entirely removed.