On which he begged permission to dispatch a line to the coachman himself. He stood ten minutes without obtaining any answer, and then taking silence for consent, proceeded to do as he had suggested.
The exertion of mind necessary to comprehend and reply to John's queries, or even a part of them, seemed to recall Willoughby to some recollection of the duties he had himself to perform. He must write to Lady Palliser—he must account for his abrupt departure. That he might do so in strict compliance with the request contained in the letter of this morning, he applied himself to the reperusal of the epistle which had already caused him so much affliction. It was, as our readers have probably anticipated, from Caroline. Driven to desperation by her mother's perseverance in her determination of marrying her to Sir Willoughby, and terrified by her violence, which at every interview increased, she was at length compelled to conquer all the timid reluctance she felt to take what to her seemed the boldest of steps, and address to Sir Willoughby the letter we have seen him receive in so frantic a manner.
After a hesitating, and almost unmeaning commencement, consisting of broken sentences, and awkward apologies, she went on to say: "Yet if I would avoid calling down upon myself your just resentment, by appearing in your eyes to be guilty of the most unjustifiable caprice; I must I fear relate a circumstance which—I have been so unwilling to mention, that—I have—I know—in consequence—delayed this explanation much too long. But before your arrival in Cheltenham, before ever our acquaintance had even commenced, I had promised to—to—accept—the hand of—of—Mr. Arden, your brother; and though by my mother's positive command, I was compelled the next day to withdraw that promise, I cannot—I never can—I am sure too—you will think.—But I know I express myself very badly—very confusedly, yet I hope you will see—at least that my being quite—quite unable ever to enter into the engagements my mother has wished to form for me, does not proceed from any caprice or change of mind on my part, or any want of gratitude for the flattering regard with which you have so kindly honoured me.
"What I now entreat of your compassion is, that you who have nothing to fear from my mother's anger, would generously interpose yourself between me and a storm, before the very thought of which I tremble till my hand can scarcely hold the pen with which I attempt to write.
"I know I ought to have made this explanation long since, but a foolish, a culpable fearfulness, made me ever ready to believe no opportunity a fitting one. At Lady Arden's ball I did attempt it, but we were interrupted; so that I only made things much worse. I was so confused too, I was glad of the respite. I thought I could say what I have now written, when you should call the next morning;—but on that occasion my mother interfered, and has never since allowed me to see you."
On finishing Caroline's letter for the second time, Willoughby, in a sort of desperation, wrote a hurried scrawl to Lady Palliser, towards whom he felt strong resentment for the deception she had practised. His epistle was written in strange incoherent language, but its general purport was that he considered himself trifled with in having been so long debarred from seeing Lady Caroline Montague; and in consequence, begged leave to withdraw his addresses finally. Nor was the truth in this much disguised, for he felt that had he been permitted to see Caroline from the first he should much sooner have been undeceived.
CHAPTER XVII.
With a trembling hand, and apparently in the utmost haste, Willoughby folded and sealed the letter he had just finished; and without allowing himself one moment for reflection, rang and ordered the person who appeared to take it to the post-office immediately.
As the door closed, however, after the servant to whom he had given this command, a sense of terror at having thus himself rendered his fate irremediable, overwhelmed him; and, with an instinctive impulse, he grasped at the bell, but immediately flinging it from him, he assumed a mock composure, and as though there had been some one present before whom to act a part, with a ghastly sort of smile, seated himself. He had for some time been almost expecting, though he would not confess it to his own thoughts, some such blow as this: he had seen, despite every effort to avert his mental vision from the view, that all could not be right; and, weary of secret dread—the true definition of that hope deferred, which maketh the heart sick—he now fancied, for the moment, that there was a sort of stern satisfaction in knowing that fate had done its worst. His brain, however, was already beginning to wander; he was already contemplating, though vaguely, the fatal step which finally ended his career. He thought of Alfred, and his soul secretly yearned for the consolation of pouring out all its sorrows into his affectionate bosom; but Pride, under the form of wounded vanity, with a jealous soreness, shrank from the salutary exposure; while so irritable was the state of his mind, that the very pleadings of his own heart, for the balm it longed for, seemed importunate, and were resisted with something of his characteristic obstinacy. Nay, the pettiest and most contemptible considerations from time to time blended themselves indistinctly with his despair, and became, to a certain degree, governing motives of conduct.