 | CHAPTER XI. Ingleborough Hall, and Lord of the manor |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
Despite the warning sounds, which at the
moment smote on her soul so ominously,
Marian went down the steps leading from
the little porch into the garden, although
her steps faltered, and her heart beat violeutly
between fear and expectation, and
the consciousness that she was acting
wrongly. Before she had advanced, however,
ten paces, round the corner of the
hall, into the grove of sycamores, wherein
the shadows fell dark and heavy over the
gravel walk which rhreaded it, she was
joined by Ernest de Vaux.
He appeared, at the moment, to be little
less agitated than she was herself; his
countenance, even to the lips, was ashy
pale, and she could see that he trembled,
and it was owing, perhaps, to this very
visible embarrassment on his part, that
Marian felt less forcibly the extreme impropriety,
if not indelicacy, of her own
conduct.
Had he come to meet her, confident,
proud, and evidently exhilarated by the
success of his machinations, it is possible
that her modesty would have been offended;
that she would have discovered the
danger she was running, and withdrawn,
ere it was yet too late, for happiness or
honor.
But, as it was, when she saw the man
she loved, coming to meet her, wan and
agitated, timid, and with the trace of tears
on his pallid cheeks, a sense of pity rose
in her bosom, and lent its aid to the pleadings
of that deceptive advocate within her
soul, which needed no assistance in his
favor.
Still, as she met him, there was an air
of dignity, and self-restraint, and maidenly
reserve about her, that went some little
way at least to screen her from the consequences
of her exceeding indiscretion;
and when she addressed him—for it was
she who spoke the first—it was in a voice
far cooler, and more resolute, than the
mind which suggested and informed it.
“I trust”—she said—“my Lord de Vaux,
that you have good and sufficient cause
for the strange request which you made
me at our last interview—some cause, I
mean, sir, that may justify you, in requiring
a lady to meet you thus clandestinely,
and alone, and her in consenting to do so.
There has been so much strange and mysterious,
my lord, in your whole conduct
and demeanor, from the first to the last;
and that mystery—if not deceit—has
wrought effects so baleful on my sister's
happiness, that I confess I have hoped
you may have something to communicate
own motives, which now seem so evil;
and repair the positive evil which you
have done her. It is on this consideration
only, that I have consented to give you a
hearing. It is in this trust only, that I
have taken a step, which I fear me is unmaidenly
and wrong in itself—but it is by
my motives that my conduct must be
judged; and I know those to be honorable
and correct. Now, my lord, may it please
you to speak quickly that you have got to
say—but let me caution you, that I hear
no addresses, nor receive any pleadings,
meant for my own ear—one such word,
and I leave you. Speak, my lord!”
“You are considerate, ever, dear young
lady”—replied Ernest de Vaux, in tones of
deep respect, not drawing very near her,
nor offering to take her hand, nor tendering
any of those customary familiarities,
which, though perfectly natural at any
other time, might, under present circumstances,
have had the effect of alarming
her, and checking her freedom of demeanor.
“You are considerate, ever, dear young
lady! and I am bold to say it, your confidence
is not misplaced, nor shall your
trust be deceived!”
“I do not know”—answered Marian—
“I do not know, my lord! It is for you
to show that—at present, appearances are
much against you; nor do I see what explanation
you can make, that shall exonerate
you. But to the point, my lord, to
the point!”
“None, Miss Hawkwood—none! I have
no explanations that I can make which
shall exonerate—”
“Then why”—she interrupted him,
warmly and energetically—“why have
you brought me hither?—or to what do
you expect that I shall listen?—not, methinks!
to a traitor's love-tale?”
“Which shall exonerate me, I would
have said”—De Vaux resumed, as quickly
as she left off speaking—“had you permitted
me, from the grossest and most
blind folly—hallucination—madness!—
Yes! I believe I have been mad.”
“Madness, my lord,” exclaimed Marian,
“is very apt to be the plea of some people
for doing just whatsoever they think
fit—without regard to principle or honor,
to the feelings of their fellow-creatures,
or to the good opinion of the world. I
trust it is not so with you; but I, for one,
have never seen aught in your conduct
that was incompatible with the most sound
and serious sanity.”
“I hardly know how I may speak to
you without offence, dear mistress Marian.
My object, in requesting you to hear a few
last words from a very wretched, and
very penitent man, arose from a painful
yearning to stand pardoned, if not justified,
in the eyes of one being at least, of
this family, to whom I owe so much, and
by whom I am now so grievously misapprehended.”
“Then I was right!” answered Marian,
joyously, and her eye sparkled for a moment,
and her pale cheek flushed crimson
—“then you have some excuse to offer—
well! my lord, well. It was in hopes of
hearing such, that I came hither—there
can be no offence to me in that—I shall be
very glad to hear that one of whom I have
thought well, is worthy of such estimation.”
“But to prove that,” he answered, in a
soft, low voice, “I must enter upon a history;
I must speak to you of things that
passed long ago—of things that passed at
York!”
“My lord!” and she started back, a
brief spark of indignation gleaming in her
bright eyes—“my lord!”
“Nay,” he replied, humbly and sadly,
“if you forbid me to speak, I am silent;
but by no means can I exculpate myself,
but by naming these things; and I asseverate
to you by the earth, and the heavens,
and all that they contain!—I swear to you,
by Him who made them all! that, if you
deign to hear me, I have a perfect and
complete defence against all but the
charge of folly. And, as you hope for
happiness yourself, here or hereafter, I do
conjure you hear me!”
“Your promises are very strong, my
lord; and your adjuration such, that I
may not refuse to listen to you.”
“I must speak to you of yourself,
lady!”
“Of myself?”
“Aye! of yourself—for you, Marian
Hawkwood, are the cause, the sole cause
of everything that has appeared inconsistent,
base, or guilty on my part!”
“I! my lord—I!—I the cause of your
inconsistency, your guilt, your baseness!”
she cried, indignantly. “Prove it, prove
it—but I defy you”—she added, more
calmly, and with a scornful intonation of
voice—“You know that all this is words
—words—false and empty words! Now,
sir, speak out at once, or I leave you—
better it were, perhaps, had I never come
at all!”
Better, indeed! Alas! poor Marian, that
your own words should be so terribly prophetic,
that your one fault should have so
sealed and stamped your life with the impression
of remorse and sorrow. For
he had so stimulated and excited her curiosity,
and through her curiosity, her interest,
that she was now prepared, nay,
eager, to listen to words, which, a little
while before, she would have shrunk from
hearing. And he perceived the advantage
he had gained—for all his seeming agitation
and embarrassment were but consummate
acting, and made himself ready
to profit by it to the utmost.
“You cannot but remember, lady”—he
resumed, artfully, adopting the unconcerned
tone of a mere narrator—“the day
when I first saw you at the High Sheriff's
ball?”
“I do not know, my lord, what very
charming memories I have to fix the time
or place, upon my mind, of an event by
no means striking or delightful; was it at
the High Sheriff's ball?—it might have
been, doubtless; for I was there—and if
you say it was, I do not doubt that you
are quite right.”
But this affected unconcern, this little
stratagem of poor Marian, availed her nothing
with De Vaux; for he saw through
it in a moment. He knew instinctively
and instantly, that it was affected—and
more, the affectation convinced him that
there was something that she would conceal;
and what that something was, his
consummate knowledge of the female
heart informed him readily. But he replied,
as if he was taken in by her artifice.
“It is fortunate for you,” he said, “that
you can forget so easily—would to God
that I had been able to do likewise—but
if you have forgotten the time and the
place, I cannot believe that you have as
speedily forgotten the deep and evident
impression which your charms made upon
me—my eagerness to gain your acquaintance—my
constant and assiduous attentions—in
short, the deep and ardent passion
with which you had filled my very
soul, from the first hour of our meeting.”
“Indeed!” she replied, very scornfully,
and coldly, “you do far too much honor
to my penetration. I never once suspected
anything of the kind; nor do I even now
conjecture what motive can impel you to
feign, what, I believe, never had an existence
in reality.”
“You must have been blind, indeed,
lady, as blind as I was myself. And yet
you cannot deny that my eye dwelt on
you; followed you everywhere—that I
danced with you constantly, with you
alone, and that when I danced not with you,
I waited ever nigh you, to catch one glance
from your eye, one murmur from your
sweet voice. You cannot but have noticed
this!”
“And if I did, my lord?—and if I did,
ladies of birth and station do not imagine
that every young man, who likes to dance
with them, and talk soft nonsense to them,
who perhaps thinks them pretty enough,
or witty enough, to while away a tedious
hour in the country, is in love with them,
any more than they wish gentlemen to
flatter themselves, that they have yielded
up their hearts, because they condescend
to be amused by lively conversation, or
even flattered by attentions, which they
receive as things of course!”
“And did you so receive—did you so
think of my attentions?”
“Upon my word, my lord, I don't remember
that I thought anything at all
about them, that I perceived them even!
But your self-justification is taking a
strange turn. To what is all this tending,
I beseech you?”
“To this, Marian Hawkwood, that
when I saw you daily, nightly, at York, I
loved you with the whole passionate and
violent devotion of a free, honest heart—
that I endeavored by all means in my
power, by the most eager and assiduous
devotion, by all those nameless indescribable
attentions, which we are taught to
believe that women prize above all
things—”
“Women are much obliged to you, my
lord, upon my word!” she interrupted
him.
“To let you perceive,” he continued, as
if he had not heard her, “to make you
understand how I adored you; and I believed
that I had not been unsuccessful—
I believed more, that you both saw, and
appreciated, and returned my love, Marian!”
“Did you, indeed?” she replied, with a
bitter expression of haughtiness and scorn.
“Did you, indeed, believe so? Then you
were, in the first place, very unhappily
mistaken; and, in the second place, egregiously
misled by your vain self-conceit.”
“I believe not. Mistress Marian, ladies
are generally sufficiently clear-sighted in
matters that concern the heart, especially
when men endeavor to make those matters
evident to them. I did so, and you
received my attentions with very evident
gratification. I do not now believe that
you are in the least a coquette—though I
did think so for a time—besides, I know
that you love me now.”
“Love you,” she replied, with a burst
of fiery indignation, “nay! but I hate,
scorn, loathe, detest you!” and she gave
and hysterical weeping; staggered
back to a garden chair; and sank into it;
and lay there with her head drooping
upon her breast, the big tears rolling down
her checks, heavy and fast as summer's
rain, and her heart throbbing and bounding
as if it would break from her
bosom.
| CHAPTER XI. Ingleborough Hall, and Lord of the manor | |