University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

Three hours had elapsed since all the inhabitants
of Ingleborough Hall had retired
to their own chambers, and one, at least,
since Marian had retired from her sister's
dressing-room, to bed, but not to sleep.
During that weary hour, she had lain
tossing to and fro, feverish with anxiety
and expectation, irresolute, anxious, and
heartsick.

The last words which Ernest De Vaux
had whispered in her ear, unheard by any
others, contained a fervent entreaty, perhaps—I
should say, rather, a command—
that she should meet him after all the
house had gone to rest, in the garden.
And strange it was, that despite all
that had passed, despite all her own

good resolutions, all the resistance of
her native modesty, all her conviction—
for she was almost convinced that he
was base and bad—she yet lacked firmness
to set the tempter at defiance.

It is a singular fact, but one which we
nevertheless encounter more frequently
than would be supposed, that it is women
of the most bold and free and fearless
characters, who, so long as their fancies
are untouched, appear the wildest and
the most untamable, that are subdued and
engrossed the most completely, when they
once become thoroughly enamored, when
they once meet with an overmastering
spirit.

And so it was with Marian Hawkwood;
high spirited and almost daring, while her
heart was free, no sooner had she fallen
desperately in love, as she did, with De
Vaux, than she became, so far as she was
concerned, the most thoroughly subjugated
and tamed of beings. Her whole nature,
towards him at least, seemed to
have undergone a change. Her very intellect
appeared to have lost much of its
brilliancy, of its rapid and clear perceptions,
as soon as he was to be judged.

To us, such things appear very strange,
although we see them happening before
our eyes almost daily. To us, they are as
inexplicable as the one half of our motives
and our actions must appear incomprehensible
to the other sex. But all these
diversities, all these inexplicable contradictions
as they seem, in the nature and
characteristics of our race, have been created,
and unquestionably for wise ends,
by Him whose every deed is all wise,
whose every purpose perfect. And it
may well be that it is these very differences,
these very extremities of thought
and action, that render the two sexes so
eminently attractive to another.

To the mind of a man it naturally would
appear impossible, that after what had
passed, Marian should still entertain a belief,
a hope even, that De Vaux could explain
honorably his most dishonorable
conduct—dishonorable, if possible, yet
more towards herself than towards Annabel.
It would seem that when he presumed
to whisper in her ear that prayer
for a clandestine interview, she would
have recognised and spurued him for the
villain that he was. But it was not so—
she still hoped—if she did not believe—
and if she made him no answer at the
time, it was that her maiden purity of
soul revolted from the idea of a rendezvous
with any man at that untimely hour,
and in a place so sequestered.

At first, indeed, she resolved that she
would not meet him, and even made up
her mind to confide his request to Annabel,
as a fresh proof of his atrocious baseness.
But gradually worse thoughts and
more fatal wishes began to creep in, and
she suffered the long conversation between
herself and Annabel to come to a
termination, without touching on the circumstance
at all. At length she left her
sister's chamber, and withdrew to her
own, still without any fixed intention of
granting his request, but certainly without
any fixed determination not to do so.

After she had undressed herself, however,
and that she did so was a proof that
up to this time her better principles had
the upper hand, she knelt down by her
bedside, buried her face in her hands, and
seemed, at least, to pray. It was, however,
but too evident that her mind was in
no state for prayer. She burst into a fit
of violent and convulsive weeping, mixed
with sobs almost hysterical, while strong
shudderings ran through her whole fair
frame.

“No!” she said, starting up after a
while, and calming herself by a powerful
effort of the will—“no, no, I cannot pray
—it is mockery—a shameful mockery to
bend my knees and move my lips in
prayer before the throne of God, when no
thought of him remains fixed in my mind
—when by no effort can I concentrate my
wandering senses upon his goodness and
mercy—when by no effort can I banish
from my soul the recollection, the wild
yearning for the creature usurping thus
the place of the Creator! Oh, my God!”
she continued, even more wildly than before—“my
God, what shall I do—what
shall I do! what have I done that I should
be thus terribly afflicted! To bed—to
bed!” she added, extinguishing her taper,
as she spoke—“to bed, but not to sleep!
never to sleep again in peace or dreamless.
Would to God that this bed were
the grave—the cold unconscious grave!”

And with the words, she laid her head
upon the pillow, and closed her eyelids,
saying to herself “no, no, it were unmaidenty,
I will not think of it—no, no!” But
she did think of it—nay, she could think
of nothing else; and ere long she unclosed
her eyes, and looked about her chamber
with a wild, eager glance, as if she were
in search of something which she expected
to see there, but saw not. Again she
closed them, and cast herself back impatiently
upon the bed, and lay quiet for a
little while; but it was only by a great effort
that she forced herself to do so, and
before long, she started up crying, “I shall
go mad—I shall go mad—I hardly know

if I am not mad already. It is all fire
here!” and she elasped her small white
hands over her brow, “all raging and consuming
fire! Air! air! I must have air—
I am choking, stifling! Can it be that the
room is so suffocating hot—or is it in my
own heart?”

The comfortable, roomy chamber in
which she lay, could not have been more
pleasantly attempered to the weather and
the season, had it been regulated by the
thermometer. It was a large and airy
chamber, situated at the corner of the
house, so that its two large latticed casements
looked out in different directions,
one over the little garden amphitheatre so
often noticed, the other down the broad
valley to the southward. The moon,
which now was nearly full, streamed in
at the eastern window, and would have
rendered the room nearly as bright as day,
if it had not been for the leafy head of one
of the huge sycamores that interrupted
the soft beams partially; and swaying
backward and forward in the west wind,
which was fitful and uncertain, now
blowing in long gusts, now lulling altogether,
cast huge and wavering shadows
over the floor and walls—so that they
were at one time all bathed in lustrous
light, and the next moment steeped in
misty shadows.

There was something in this wavering
effect of light and shade, that at first
caught the eye merely and attracted the
physical attention, if it is allowed so to
speak, and afterwards began to produce
an impression on her mind. It seemed to
her as if the vagueness and incertitude of
these fleeting shades were in some sort
assimilated to the wild and whirling
thoughts which were chasing one another
across the horizon of her own mind.
Then she compared them to the changes
and chances of mortal life, and thence,
as we are all so prone to do, when in
trouble and affliction, she began to charge
all her own misfortunes, and many of her
own faults, to the account of fortune.

If it had not been for the irresistible destiny
which had compelled Ernest to
leave her at York, it could not have been,
she thought, that seeking her out so eagerly
as he did on all occasions, and admiring
her personal charms so evidently,
Ernest should not have ended by loving
and wooing her instead of her passionless
and gentle sister.

And from this train of thought she fell
into another yet more perilous. How,
she now asked herself, had it come to
pass that he had wooed Annabel at all—
how, when he loved herself, should he
have sought her sister's love—or how,
loving her sister, should he have given
way, so clearly and openly as he had
done to-day, to a passion for herself.

His conduct did seem in truth incomprehensible—perhaps
to himself, even, it
might have been so—for, I believe that,
far oftener than is generally believed,
men, if they were to subject themselves to
strict self-examination, would be at a loss
to account to themselves for the motives
whence arise very many of their actions.

This very strangeness of Ernest De
Vaux's demeanor—this very impossibility
of accounting for his conduct on any
reasonable hypothesis, had the worst possible
effect for her happiness, on the mind
of Marian. If she was to consider this
whole course of conduct infamous and
base, the baseness seemed too gratuitous,
the infamy too void of motive, to be
credited. And hence she was led to fancy
that there must be some unseen and secret
hand which had given motion to the
whole machinery, and which, could it but
be discovered, would probably afford a
ready clue and complete solution to all
that now appeared dark and enigmatical
in her lover's words and actions.

For whatever we find glaringly inconsistent,
or foolishly miscontrived in the
conduct of men, we are wont in our
blindness and conceitedness of heart to
consider enigmatical and obscure, as if,
forsooth, men were anything but masses
of inconsistencies the most glaring and
self-evident.

Having soon brought herself to the conclusion
that because she could not understand
the conduct of Ernest, there must
necessarily be something in it to be understood,
she now went to work to find
out what this something could be. The
original bane of woman, curiosity, was
busy in her secret soul, and soon there
came together two sister friends to aid her
in the invidious onslaught she was seeking
on the strongholds of principle and
virtue—fit partners in the foul alliance,
vain self-esteem, and jealousy.

First she commenced asking herself
how it could have been that he should
have failed to love her, and yet have
fallen in love instantly with Annabel—
then she half doubted whether he had,
indeed, ever loved Annabel at all—that
he did so no longer was quite evident—
and in the end she convinced herself, that
she had been the object of his love from
the beginning, that by some misapprehension
of her manner he had been led to

believe her indifferent to himself, and that
in pique he had devoted himself to her
sister.

This train once kindled in her mind, the
flame ran rapidly from point to point, and
she was very soon so completely self-deluded,
that she gave herself up to the conviction
that she was herself the only true
love of De Vaux, that his conduct had
been natural, and if very blamable, still
honorable, and deserving some compassion
from the fact that her own charms
had been the cause of all the mischief.
Still she was very far from having made
up her mind to meet him, though she had
already admitted to herself that it was
cruel to condemn him without giving him
an opportunity of defending himself, and
one step leading to another, she soon began
to consider seriously the possibility
of doing that, which but an hour before
she could not have contemplated without
terror and disgust.

Ere long it was fear only that dissuaded
her from going—the fear of discovery, and
that was but a weak opponent to strong
and passionate love—for she did love
Ernest De Vaux strongly and passionately
—particularly when that love was, aided
and abetted by the other kindred spirits
of evil, which I have enumerated, and
which for ever lie hid in the secret recesses
of the human heart waiting the opportunity
to arise and do battle, when the
better principles are weakened by temptations,
and the tone of the mind soured
by vexation and rendered angry by disappointment.

Then she arose at length, half timidly
still, and half reluctantly. Nor did she
as yet admit to herself what was her intention
as she dressed herself hastily, and
stole with a beating heart and noiseless
step to the door of her sister's chamber.
Opening it with a careful hand, she entered,
and stole silently to the bedside.
Pale as a lily, calm and tranquil lay sweet
Annabel, buried in deep, and as she at
first thought, dreamless sleep. One fair
slight hand was pressed upon her bosom,
the other arm was folded under the head
of the lovely sleeper. The broad light of
the moonbeams fell in a flood of pure silvery
radiance over the lovely picture—and
surely never lovelier was devised—of virgin
innocence, and purity of meekness.

For many moments the perturbed and
anxious Marian stood by the side of the
couch gazing upon the face of that once
beloved sister—alas! that I must say once
beloved—for already had jealousy, and
distrust, and envy come over the heart of
the no less lovely watcher—and she felt,
as she stood there, that she no longer
loved that sister, as she used to love, or
as she was still herself beloved. No contrast
can be imagined more striking than
that between the sleeper, so still, so tranquil,
so serene—yet so inanimately pale
and spiritual in her aspect—and the
flushed cheeks, and flashing eyes, and
frame quivering with wild excitement of
the half trembling, half guilty girl who
stood beside her. The deep regular calm
breathing of the sleeper, the short quick
panting inspirations of the excited watcher—the
absolute unconsciousness of the
one and the terrible and overwrought
feelings of the other—the innocence, the
confidence, the trust in God, of Annabel—
the agonies, the wishes, and the doubts
of Marian.

And strange as it may seem, the very
peacefulness, the very absence of all semblance
of earthly feeling or earthly passion
in her slumbering sister, the infantile
repose which brooded over the candid
face, augmented Marian's feelings of nascent
dislike or disaffection. An angry
sense of vexation that Annabel should be
able to sleep sound and quiet even amid
her griefs, while she could neither rest in
mind or body. Then she began to justify
herself in her own eyes by suffering her
mind to dwell on the idea that Annabel
could not be wronged by her, should she
consent to wed Ernest, for that her very
calmness and tranquillity must needs betoken
the absence of true passion.

While she was wondering thus a slight
sound from the garden under the windows
caught her ear, and she started wildly,
her heart bounding as if it would have
burst out of her tortured bosom. A
shadow steals not across the moonlighted
landscape more noiselessly than did Marian
Hawkwood glide over the carpet to
the lattice, and gaze down into the quiet
shrubbery. Alas! for Marian—there on
the gravel walk, half hidden by the shadow
of the giant sycamores, stood the
graceful and courtly figure of the tempter.
His eyes were directed upward to the
casement at which she was standing—
they met hers—and on the instant, deeply
versed in all the hypocrisies of gallantry,
Ernest De Vaux knelt down, and clasped
his hands as if he were in prayer, and she
might see his lips tremble in the moonlight.

She turned—she retrod the chamber
floor in silence—she stood again beside
her sister's bed—but this time it was to
see only whether that sister's eyes were
sealed in oblivious slumber. As she
paused, she had an opportunity of judging

whether the dreams of that pale sleeper
were indeed so blissful—whether the heart
of Annabel was so serene and passionless.
The moonbeams fell full on her face, as I
have said, and Marian saw two heavy
tears glide from her deeply curtained lids,
and slide down her transparent cheeks;
and while she gazed upon her she stirred,
and stretched out both her arms, as if to
clasp some one, and murmured in her
sleep the name—of Marian.

Had that small simple thing occurred
before the girl looked out and saw Ernest,
all might yet have been well—but it was
all too late—passion was burning in her
every vein, and bounding in her every
pulse—it was too late!—she turned and
left the chamber.

Cautiously she stole to the staircase,
groping her way in the glimmering twilight
through the long oaken corridor—as she
reached the stairhead she again paused,
listened, and trembled—did she hesitate?
Upon that landing-place there stood two
complete panoplies of steel, worn by some
loyal Hawkwood of old time in the wars
of the Roses, and as the eyes of the excited
girl fell upon them, it appeared to her
that the spirits of her dead ancestors were
looking out from the bars of their avantailles
reproachfully on their delinquent
daughter. Hastily she darted past them,
and flew down the stairs and reached the
vestibule, and there she met another interruption,
for a small favorite greyhound—
her favorite—she had reared it from a
puppy when its dam perished—which
was sleeping on the mat, rose up and
fawned upon her, and would not be repulsed,
but stood erect on its hinder legs
and laid its long paws on her arm, as she
thought afterward, imploringly, and uttered
a low ominous whine as she cast it off.

She unbolted the hall door, opened it,
glided out like a guilty spectre into the
glimpses of the moon—and as she did so
a fleecy cloud passed over the pale face
of the planet, and a long wailing cry rose
plaintively upon the still night. It was
but the cry of an owl—there were hundreds
of them in the woods around, and
she heard them hoot nightly—yet now she
shuddered at the sound as if it were a
warning—and was it not so? The smallest
things are instruments in the hands of
Him, to whom all earthly things are small.