“And you did this?” asked Annie, clasping Lady Emily’s, hand in both hers, and almost startled at its coldness—the only proof that the narrator told not her tale unmoved.
“I did more, my child. Though poetry and satire were now to me but fearful spectres, from which a tortured spirit shrank—though that very hour I burned every fragment of composition once so precious, yet, during three long weary weeks, I was to him and to all around me as I had always been; perhaps even more sparkling, more animated, and far more joyous. Without any visible effort, I so far changed in bearing towards him, that instead of finding in his conversation as before an echo to my own, I questioned, I doubted, and more than once I saw him quail beneath my glance or tone, compelled, ere we parted, to doubt the influence which he had boasted he possessed. But what availed all this? It did not, could not quench the burning fever within; and when I returned to the quiet of my father’s roof, the tight-strung cord was snapped, and overwrought energies so gave way, that for months, nay, years, the effects of that struggle were visible in a state of health so precarious, so exhausted, that I have seen my poor father pace my chamber hour by hour in silent agony, without the power to address him. For many months all was to me a blank; yet I believe I was not wholly insensible nor always under the influence of fever. Ere I recovered sufficiently again to mingle with the world, he who had so deceived me became the husband of another; and that other, one who had been my dearest friend, and who has shunned me since as if she too had deceived, and had courted me from policy, not love. I have had no proof that this really was the case, but my faith in all that was good, and beautiful, and true was so shaken, I believed it as a thing that must be, for such was human nature. This marriage sufficiently accounted to my family for my mysterious illness. Indignation was so generally felt, that had I been awake to outward things, my mind might have been perfectly at rest that I had given him no undue encouragement: and his manner had indeed been such as to give, not alone to myself, but to all who had observed, no doubt of his apparent meaning; but I knew nothing of all this. While chained to my couch by bodily exhaustion, memories of my past life rose to appal me, and to add the bitter agony of unmitigated self-reproach to that of unrequited affection. Precious gifts had been intrusted to me, and what account could I render of them at that awful throne, before which daily, almost hourly, I expected to be summoned? They had estranged me from my God, and from His creatures. I learned to feel His words were true. Unguided by either religion or reason, what could I have been but the idle follower of folly and romance. No throb of kindness or of gentle feeling had interfered to check the contempt I felt for, and breathed in cutting satire upon, others. I had wilfully trampled on many a young kind heart, and it was but just that I should have been thus trampled on myself. Presumption and self-conceit caused me to smile, to scorn the censure of the world, and in all probability my manner had been too unguarded. This bitter self-humiliation only increased the struggle to forget that I had loved. In reproaching myself I ceased to reproach him; the pride that had supported me was gone. These thoughts continually pressing on heart and brain were, I am well aware, the sole sources of my long and incurable disease, but I had no power to shake them off; and, fearfully as I suffered, I have never ceased to bless the gracious hand that sent the chastening and recalled me, ere it was too late, unto Himself.”
Lady Emily paused; the quivering of her voice and lip betraying emotion which she evidently struggled to suppress. Annie’s tears were falling on her hand, and ere she spoke again, she bent down and kissed her forehead.
“You now know, dearest Annie, more of me than I ever breathed to mortal ear,” she resumed, in her usual calm and quiet tone, “more than I ever thought could pass my lips. But do not weep for me, my child; I am happier, safer now, than I could have been had the wild, misguided feelings of earlier life continued. It was no small portion of my suffering so to control myself as never to give vent to the satirical bitterness that, when I rejoined the world, tinged my words and thoughts more darkly than ever. The determination never to use that dangerous gift, gave to my words and manner a stiffness and cold reserve which have banished from me all those whose regard I would have done much to win. Many young loving hearts have shrunk from me, perceiving no sympathy in their warm imaginations and glowing feelings; and I dared not undeceive them, for I felt no confidence in myself, and feared again to avow sentiments I had buried so deeply in my own heart. Others again shunned me, because terrified at a semblance of austerity, which they could not know was exercised only towards myself; and frequently have I wept in secret at the loneliness which seemed to characterise my path on earth. Even you, my Annie, gentle and forbearing as you were, till I could not but love you, have often checked your animated words beneath the cold, withering influence of my glance or smile.”
“Do not call it cold and withering, my dear, kind friend,” replied Annie, warmly. “I learned to love you long before I dared hope to win your regard; but could I doubt you in my hour of anguish? Though even then I did you wrong; for I thought I was alone in my misery—and you had suffered doubly more.”
“You needed not such awful chastisement, my love; I brought it on myself. But you are right; fearful as is the death of a beloved one, it is happiness compared to the death of love, to the blasting of our belief in the good and true; the disrobing an idol, till we ask what it is we have loved. My dearest Annie, bless God that this you have been spared.”
Annie was silent several minutes, and then raising her head, she abruptly and strangely asked, “Aye, this; but there are other trials. Oh, Lady Emily, what must be the agony of that heart, who, sacrificing for the sake of the living the memories of the supposed dead, finds too late, that circumstances, not death, have come between her and the object of her first affections; that they love each other still, yet must be strangers, parted more completely than by death. What must be her duty then?”
“You ask me a difficult question, my dear child. If the heart clings to such a thought, better never wed.”
A bright gleam, as of relief, flitted over Annie’s features; but, changing the subject as abruptly as she had entered upon it, she asked, with hesitation, “And that poetic talent to which you have alluded, do you never exercise it now?”
“Never,” replied Lady Emily, taking her companion’s arm, and entering the house. “On my first recovery I dared not, for my sinful abuse of the power had been too recent; though I do believe, that as my taste had completely changed in the poets which I read, so too would my writings have done. But year after year passed; gradually I destroyed every memorial of my passed life, and found peace and happiness in the employment which you have seen and aided, until at length even the inclination to write passed away; and I forgot, even as you must, dear girl,” she added, with a smile, “that I had been a poet, and one of no mean grade.”