“But what shall I do, dear Ann Woodburn? What can I do?” said Millicent.
“That is more than I can tell,” said Ann. “God alone can direct you in such a crisis. What is to be done! What will be the end of it?”
Millicent went on passionately to detail the growth and incidents of this change, and to defend her new friends from the blame which Ann charged them with, as dishonourable and selfish. At length she said, “Dear, dear Millicent, all I can advise is, for you to do nothing hastily. You have been dazzled by the splendours you have been living amongst. Take time for reflection; in the quiet of the country, in the midst of your old associations, a different view of things may again present itself. Poor Dr. Leroy!—so good, so clever! My dear friend, the sudden bursting upon me of this news is like a thunderbolt. I cannot collect my faculties; all I can say is, don’t hurry, don’t hurry, and pray earnestly, incessantly for help and direction from God.”
The friends parted with a long and tender embrace, and Millicent rode off, not homewards, but to Bilts’ farm, to see whether she could draw a ray of comfort or counsel from Elizabeth Drury. But the same scenes took place there. After the first glad and mutual salutations and embraces, Millicent laid open her trouble to her friend Elizabeth, and with much the same result as with Ann Woodburn. Elizabeth Drury opened her large grey eyes in astonishment, and then said, “Mercy! What a fatality! what a perplexity! My dear Millicent, were there no Dr. Leroy, I should congratulate you with all my heart on such a connection. But—but!—what in the world is to be done? Millicent dear, I can only say, with that wise, yet loving Ann Woodburn—take time. I am no Quaker, you know. I have made no vows against ‘the pomps and vanities of this wicked world,’ though I suppose somebody did for me one day. I can understand to a certain extent the fascinations of great wealth, great splendour of position, great gaiety and prestige of fashionable life; but let me tell you, I prefer ten thousand times this more simple and quiet existence here in the country. What do we want more than we have? A lovely country, sufficiency of means for enjoying it, friends dear, intelligent, and refined. Ah! I do not think the luxurious and more glittering life of the metropolis or of high aristocratic rank can compare with it. When the attention is drawn every day over such a multitude of objects and persons, where can it settle? how can the heart take root anywhere? No—the heart—the heart, my dear friend, in that lies the fountain of happiness, and a few deep, tender, and lasting attachments are worth more than a million of mere superficial acquaintances. I say, with dear Ann Woodburn—take time: weigh well your decision, dear Millicent. Remember that it may be death, or worse than death, to a most estimable man, and of much sorrow to others. Wait—wait! Here you have the prospect of a happy and useful life; here you are loved and honoured far round; here a great field of beneficent labour awaits you. Oh! to me, how much more delightful than the grander but hurrying, whirling life of busy London! How much more worth seem to me the solid satisfactions of an affluent and intellectual country life, than the pageantry and ornamental glare of a more artificial existence.”
Millicent assented with passionate tears to every word of her friend’s discourse, but this did not help the real difficulty. Her heart had undergone a revolution, and the stern decision stood unabated before her. In a few more days Dr. Leroy had insisted on a candid statement of Millicent’s feelings towards him; and she had given it, though it cost her a terrible agony. She had no misgivings as to the necessity of this avowal; but the rent that must be made in many friendships, the sorrow which she knew it must bring upon her parents, and the misery which it must inflict on one who had been the friend of her earliest youth, came with a crushing weight upon her.
Dr. Leroy left the house, and returned to Castleborough, but it was with the look of a man who had received an inner death-wound. Pale and silent, he seemed to casual passers as if he had suddenly become actually black. There was the dark shadow of a dreary desolation on his countenance. He made no complaint to any one, not even to his own mother; he made none to the parents of Millicent, but they saw in her pallid, compressed features, in her silent manner, and her eyes, whence she strove in vain to remove the traces of weeping, that something was going awfully wrong. It was not long before Mrs. Heritage had managed to draw the astounding secret from Millicent’s lips, on condition only that she should not write to the Barringtons about it.
What a millstone was that which thus fell on the sober happiness of Fair Manor. Mrs. Heritage, with her high notions of Christian truth and integrity, could scarcely realise such a calamity as the breach of so sacred an engagement with so estimable a man as Dr. Leroy. Earnestly did she entreat her daughter to pause before she made an irrevocable decision. Earnestly, wrestlingly did she lay all this great trouble before God. Scarcely less severe was the blow to Mr. Heritage. He looked at the happiness of his daughter but as connected with her reputation for integrity of purpose, and he deeply lamented the cruel blow given to Dr. Leroy. Both Mr. and Mrs. Heritage wrote affectionate and tenderly sympathising letters to him, hoping that things might take a better turn. But the condition of Millicent occasioned them not only severe grief, but deep alarm. Though she had, in a mood of desperation, broken the link of attachment with Dr. Leroy, it had brought no peace to her own bosom. She felt the sharpness of the wound which she had given him. She recalled the long season of their youthful friendship, and his many merits and virtues. She saw in the grief of her parents the amazement and blame which would run through the circle of her friends; but in vain did she endeavour to recall a sense of the love which had flitted to another object. The effect upon her was that of a wasting fire upon her nerves. She had no violent illness, but she was miserable, pale, and sad. The least sudden sound shook her like an electric shock. She was the walking shadow of a withering despondency.
Elizabeth Drury, who was shocked more and more at every fresh sight of her, proposed that they should go together to some cheerful, genial sea-coast; and as she had an aunt living at Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, she suggested to Mr. and Mrs. Heritage that they should go there for a while. To this they eagerly agreed; and the two young ladies, with Tom Boddily as groom, set out for the south without delay. As for Millicent, she would have gone to the north or south Pole, or to any place, if she could have hoped to run away from her own feelings and reflections.
A few days saw them located on the cliffs of Ventnor, overlooking the ship-studded sea, and amid the lively stir of gay summer visitors. Elizabeth Drury put forth all her powers of vivacity and entertainment. She showed her friend about, strolled with her along the margin of the sounding, dashing waves, read to her, and engaged horses on which to range the coast and the hills in every direction, from Sandown to Blackgang Chine, from St. Laurence’s minikin church to Appuldercombe, Godshill, or the ruins of Carisbrook. They had a handsome villa to themselves standing in a pleasant shrubbery, overlooking the town and sea, and out of the way of the general traffic. They could be in a crush or a solitude at pleasure. Under the guidance of Elizabeth Drury, and cheered by her buoyant spirit, which loved to look on the bright side of things as much as possible, and with her mind full of knowledge and amusing anecdote, Millicent began to breathe more freely, and to recover strength of frame, if not much greater peace of mind. There were letters frequently from London, the greater part of which she gave Elizabeth to read. They came from the Misses Barrington, regretting that her health was not strong, and saying, that their brother would be down to see her in a few days, and if she stayed much longer, they should come down in a flock to see whether they could not help nature to recover her spring. Millicent was evidently greatly excited, and that pleasurably, by the prospect of seeing Edmund Barrington, and Elizabeth Drury was curious to see the man who had been able to supplant Dr. Leroy. But they were destined to receive another visit before that of Edmund Barrington. Elizabeth had proposed the very next day to take a ride through Niton, and up to the tower of St. Catherine. They went alone. Elizabeth knew the way, and like a most experienced groom opened gates in ascending the fields from Niton to the top of the hill where the tower stands. They had reached the summit of the hill, and taken a delighted survey of the vast prospect over sea and land which it gave; the rocks along the winding coast, over which the milk-white waves were lashing; St. Catherine’s lighthouse below; the sweep of shore on towards Alum Bay and Freshwater, and the tamer interior of the island. Tying their horses to the gate leading into the field in which the tower stands, they first examined that empty and desolate object, which is familiar to the mariner so many leagues at sea. They then sat down on the mossy turf amid the scattered furze bushes, and enjoyed the scent of the native sward and the simple wild-flowers, and the peaceful scene of nature spread beneath their eye; the green corn waving on the slopes, the white flocks grazing silently on the down-like pastures. All at once they heard the hollow tramp of an approaching horse on the hill behind them. They sprang up, and observed a gentleman riding towards them. “Mr. Barrington! it must be Mr. Barrington!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “No! as I live, it is Dr. Leroy!”
She saw that Millicent had already turned deadly pale, and trembled violently. “What shall I do?” she said. “What will become of me?” Elizabeth could only say hurriedly, “Do and say nothing which can unnecessarily hurt his mind. Poor fellow, he is wretched enough. May God Almighty aid and guide you both.”