WE were now in complete possession of our little solitary house; our humble neighbors had become accustomed to us, and no longer clustered about their doors and talked in whispers when we came out for our daily walk. I have no doubt that there was still much gossip, and even some suspicion about Alice and me; but we were inoffensive, and were not without means, so we were annoyed by no great investigations into our history.
We had no one in the house with us. Alice did everything; and though I made a pretence of helping her, I did her little service. Sometimes I put my own bedchamber in order, with a childish satisfaction, but no small degree of fatigue; and with so small a house, and so little trouble necessary, there was not much to do. I could not bear Alice to be out of my presence; we ate together, sat together, walked together; I was quite dependent upon her; altogether a great change had come upon me. I never had been what people call intellectual, but now in the day of my weakness how I clung to the womanly occupations, the womanly society, aye, to such a poor thing as gossip, which was only redeemed from being the very vulgarest of amusements, because it was gossip of the past. When I sat at my sewing, with Alice talking to me; when I listened to tales of this one and the other one, whom she had known in her youth,—everything about them; their dress, their habits, their marriages, their children, their misfortunes; when I cut, and sewed, and contrived these pretty things I still was making, sometimes I was almost happy. Yes, if it was in reality a descent from more elevated and elevating occupations, I still must confess to it, a woman after all is but a woman, and there are times when the greatest book, or the grandest imaginations in the world, have no attractions compared with those of a piece of muslin, a needle and a thread. I felt it so, at least. I remember the little parlor gratefully, with its round table and overflowing work-basket, the beautiful river and the passing boats without, and Alice recalling the experiences of her youth within.
For all this time my only safeguard lay in trying to forget, or to turn my back upon the great question of my life. I no longer brooded over the injury my husband had done me; it seemed to have floated away from my sight, and become an imagination, a vision, a dream. I could not even recall our life at Cottiswoode; when I attempted to return to it a veil fell upon my eyes, and a dull remorse at my heart made the very attempt at recollection intolerable to me. Instead of that, the bright days before our marriage, the bright days after it, continually, and even against my will, came to my mind. I went over and over again the course of our happy journey; I recalled all our hopes, all our conversations, all our plans for the future; and this was all over, all gone, vanished like a tale that is told! It is not wonderful that I should try with all my might to keep myself from thinking. It was dreadful to fall into such a reverie as this, and then to awaken from it, and recollect how everything really was.
I had heard from my agent in Cambridge, and had received money from him. We were plentifully supplied, yet needed very little. We lived as simply as any peasant women could have lived; and though we had now a few flowers in the little fantastic flower-pots before the window, and had dismissed the shabby evergreens, and pruned the “traveller’s joy,” we had made no other alteration in the house. It was now May, nearly the middle of the month, and perfect summer, for, as I have said, everything was unusually early this year. No letters except the agent’s had come to me. I thought my husband was content that I should be lost, and have my own will. When I was quite alone, I sometimes thought that he was eased and relieved by my absence, and the thought cost me some bitter tears. I could not bear to be of no importance to him; and then I fretted myself with vain speculations. Why was he so angry when I spoke of Flora Ennerdale? If he had but married Flora Ennerdale, how happy she would have made him; and I—I would have pined and died in secret, and never done him wrong. So I thought in my fond, wretched, desolate musings. Fond!—yes, my heart had escaped from me, and flown back to him. I would not for the world have whispered it to any one—I refused to acknowledge it to myself, yet it was true.
I was alone in the house, and these thoughts had come strongly upon me. Alice was very reluctant to leave me alone, and only when she was compelled by some household necessity went out without me; but she had wanted something this afternoon before the time of our usual walk, and I was sitting by myself in the silent little house. Though I avoided solitude by every means in my power, I yet prized the moment when it came to me—and I had been indulging myself in dreary longings, in silent prayers, and weeping, when Alice returned. She came in to me very hastily, with a good deal of agitation in her face, and when she saw my eyes, where I suppose there were signs that I had been crying, she started, and cried, “Have you seen him? have you seen him already?”
“I seen him—whom?” I cried with a great shiver of excitement. What a useless question it was! as well as if I had seen him, I knew he must be him.
She came and took my hand and bent over me, soothing and caressing. “Darling, don’t be startled,” said Alice; “oh, how foolish I am! I thought you had seen him when I saw the water in your eyes. Dear Miss Hester, keep a good heart, and don’t tremble, there’s a dear. I’ve seen him indeed—he’s here, come to see you, looking wan and worn, and very anxious, poor young gentleman. Oh, take thought of what you will say to him, Miss Hester; every minute I expect to hear him at the door.”
It was a great shock to me; I felt that there was a deadly pallor on my face. I felt my heart beat with a stifled rapid pulsation. I could not think of anything. I could not fancy what I would say. I was about to see him, to hear his voice again. I felt a wild delight, a wild reluctance; I could have risen and fled from him—yet it seemed to lift me into a sudden Elysium, this hope of seeing him again. Strange, inconsistent, perverse—I could not be sure for a moment what impulse I would follow. I sat breathless, holding my hand upon my heart, listening with all my powers. I seemed for the instant to be capable of nothing but of listening for his footstep; my physical strength and my mental were alike engrossed. I could neither move nor think.
I do not know how long it was; I know there was a terrible interval during which Alice talked to me words which I paid no attention to, and did not know, and then it came—that well-known footstep; I heard the little gate swing behind him—I heard the gravel crushed beneath his quick step, and then Alice opened the door, and a sudden lull of intense emotion came over me. He was before me, standing there, yes, there—but a dizzy, blinding haze came over my eyes—after the first glimpse I did not see him, till I had recovered again.
And he was not more composed than I was; not so much so in appearance, I believe. He came up and held out his hand, and when I did not move, he took mine and held it tightly—tightly between his own, and gazed full into my face, with his own all quivering and eloquent with emotion. At this moment the impulse for which I had been waiting came to me, and steadied my tremulous expectation once more into resolve—once more the bitterness which had perished in his absence returned with double force—his own words began to ring in my ears, and my cheek tingled with the fiery flush of returning resentment. I had deceived him; he had married a sweet and tender woman, and when his eyes were opened, he had found by his side only me. I thought no longer of my bridegroom, my yearnings for affection were turned into a passionate desire for freedom; it was not Harry, but Edgar Southcote on whom I looked with steady eyes.