University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

So far, the pursuit of Beauchampe had seemingly been
unproductive; but perseverance, where passion is the impelling
power, will sooner or later work its way to the object
which it seeks. We pass over numerous small details

which were yet important in bringing about our conclusion;
and reach the period when the young lawyer was
at length admitted to the house of Miss Cooke, as a friend
of the family. Love, you are to understand, gentle reader,
was an interdicted subject. But when would love stay interdicted?
Can you tell? Not easily, I reckon. It did not
stay so in this case. Time wrought favourably for Beauchampe;
enabled him to show his resources of mind and
character. Anna Cooke found him both abler in intellect,
and gentler in disposition than she at first fancied him. It
is one effort of love, to excite the sensibilities into the most
commanding activity; to subdue the sharpnesses of character,
even as it subdues the asperities of accent; to throw a
softness into the eyes; a tenderness into the utterance, and,
above all, so suddenly and certainly to lift the mind, that
even the vulgar nature under its influence becomes modified,
and the ignorant mind receives at least such an increase
of intelligence as enables it to conceal its own deficiencies.
Neither vulgar nor ignorant, Beauchampe was
yet full of those salient points of character and manner,
which betray the want of that refining attrition of a metropolis,
which perhaps no other course of education can well
supply. But love carries with it that instinct of good taste,
that refinement becomes inevitable the moment it is put in
exercise; and without his own consciousness, though it
did not escape hers, our hero, under the eyes of his mistress,
underwent a rapid transition of character, from the
rough, sturdy rustic, confident in his independence, and
ignorant of more attractive qualities of behaviour, to the
subdued, unostentatious gentleman, solicitous always of the
sensibilities of those whom he addressed, and nicely considerate
of that utterance, and those manners, which he
now felt had never before been justly taught the beauties of
forbearance. His improvement in this course of tuition
was rapid. A few weeks made the most surprising changes
in his deportment. His features—and this fact is not unimportant
to the psychologist, for it is as dear to all moral
analysis, as it is of unquestionable result—his very features
became spiritualized, in the wonderful progress which the
spiritual nature was making in his soul. Anna Cooke was
not insensible to this change. Nay, she was not insensible
to his devotedness. But how could she requite it?
We have seen her reflections. They underwent no change.
Nay, they grew stronger, by a natural tendency, as her
interest in the young man increased. She resolved that he
should not be sacrificed, and this resolve was the necessary
parent of another. She could never give encouragement to
the object of her present lover. She could never be his
wife. No! she already felt too much interested in the
youth, to use her own energetic language, uttered in midnight
soliloquy—“to dishonour him with her hand!” She
was not conscious of the sigh which fell from her lips
when this determination was spoken. She was not conscious,
nor consequently apprehensive, of the progress
which a new passion was making in her heart. That
sigh had its signification, but that, though it fell from her
own lips, was inaudible to her own ears.

Labouring under this unconsciousness with regard to
her own feelings, it was perhaps not so great a stretch of
magnanimity on her part to resolve that Beauchampe should
not be permitted to serve her brooding hatred or to share
in her secret sorrows. Such was her determination. One
day he grew more warm in his approaches. Circumstances
favoured his object, and the topics which they had discussed
on previous occasions insensibly encouraged this.
Suppressing his eagerness of manner, putting as much curb
as he could on the impatient utterance which was only too
habitual to him, where his feelings were excited, he strove,
in the most deliberate form of address, to declare his passion,
and to solicit her hand.

“Mr. Beauchampe,” she said firmly—“I thank you. I
am grateful for this proof of your regard and attachment;
and, in regretting it, I implore you not to suspect me of
caprice, or a wanton desire to exercise the power which
your unhappy preference confers on me. Nor am I insensible
to your claims. Were it possible, sir, that I could
ever marry, I know no one to whom I would sooner entrust
my affections than to you. But there is an insuperable
bar between us—not to be broken—not to be overpassed.
Never! never! never!”

“Do not speak thus, dearest Miss Cooke. Spare me
this utterance. What is the bar—this insuperable bar, not
to be broken, not to be overpassed. Trust me, it can be
broken, it can be passed. What are the obstructions that
true love cannot remove?”

“Not these! not these! It is impossible, sir. I do not
deceive myself—I would not deceive you—but I assure

you, Mr. Beauchampe, that the truth I declare is no less
solemn than certain. I can never listen to your prayer—I
can never become your wife;—no! nor the wife of any
man! The bar which thus isolates me from mankind, is, I
solemnly tell you, impassable, and cannot be broken.”

“Suffer me to strive—it is not in me that your objections
arise?”

“No! but—”

“Then suffer me to try and overcome this difficulty—
remove this bar.”

“It will be in vain, sir—you would strive in vain.”

“Not so! declare it—say in what it consists, and believe
me, if such talents as are mine, such toils as man can
devote, with such a reward awaiting him as that which my
success would secure for me, can effect an object, I must
succeed. Speak to me freely, Miss Cooke. Show me this
bar, this obstacle—”

“Never! never! There, at once, the difficulty rises. I
cannot, dare not reveal it. Ask no more, I entreat you; I
should have foreseen this, and commanded it otherwise. I
have suffered your attentions too long, Mr. Beauchampe,
for your own sake—let me forbid them now. They can
never come to good. They can have no fruits. Here,
before heaven, which I invoke to hear me, I can never
be—”

“Stay!—do not speak it!” he exclaimed passionately
catching her uplifted hand, and silencing, by his louder
accent, the word upon her lips. “Stay, Miss Cooke! be
not too hasty—be not rash in this decision. I implore
you for your sake and mine. Hear me calmly—resume
your seat but for a few moments. I will strive to be calm;
but only hear me.”

He led her to a seat which she resumed with that air of
recovered dignity and stern composure which shows a
mind made up and resolute. He was terribly agitated in
spite of all his efforts at composure. His eyes trembled
and his lips quivered, and the movements of his frame were
almost convulsive. But he also was a man of strong will.
But for his youth he had been as inflexible as herself. He
recovered himself sufficiently to speak to her in tones surprisingly
coherent, and with a degree of thoughtfulness,
which showed how completely determined will could control
the utterance even of extraordinary passion.

“Hear me, Miss Cooke. I can see that there is a mystery

about you which I do not seek to penetrate. You
have your secret. Let it be so still. I love you, deeply,
passionately, as I never fancied it was possible for me or
any man to love. This passion rends my frame, distracts
my mind—makes it doubtful if I could endure life in its
denial. I have seen you only to worship you—lost to me,
I lose faith as well as hope. I no longer know my divinities—I
no longer care for life, present or future. Do not
suppose I speak wildly. I believe all I say. It must be
as I say it. Now, hear me; to avoid this fate, I am willing
to risk many evils—dangers that might affright the
ordinary man under the ordinary feelings of man. You
spoke the other day of having but a single passion which
was not love!—”

“Hate!” she interrupted him to say.

“Hate, it was, and that gave birth to another not unlike
it.”

“Revenge!—yes!—Revenge!” such was her second
interruption. He proceeded.

“I understand something of this. You have been wronged.
You have an enemy. I will seek him. I will be
your champion—die for you if need be—only tell me that
you will be mine.”

“Will you, indeed, do this?”

She rose, approached him, laid her hand on his arm,
and looked into his eyes with a keen, fixed, fixing and fascinating
glance like that of a serpent. Her tones were very
low, very audible, but how impressive. They sunk not
into his ear, but into his heart, and a cold thrill followed
them there. Before he could reply, however, she receeded
from him, sunk again into her seat, and covered her face
in her hands. He approached her. She waved him off.

“Leave me, Mr. Beauchampe—leave me now and forever.
I cannot hear you. I will not. I need not your
help. You cannot revenge me.”

“I will! I can! Your enemy shall be mine—I will
pursue him to the ends of the earth. But give me his name.”

“No! you shall not,” she said with apparent calmness.
“Thus I reject your offer—your double offer. I will not
wrong your generosity—your love, Beauchampe, by a
compliance with your prayer. Leave me now, and O!
come not to me again. I would rather not see you. I
pity you—deeply, sincerely—but, no more. Leave me
now—leave me for ever.”

He sunk on his knee beside her. He clasped her hand
and carried it passionately to his lips. She rose, and
withdrew it from his grasp.

“Rise, Beauchampe,” she said in subdued but firm accents.
“Let it lessen your disappointment to know that if
I could ever be the wife of any man, you should have the
preference over all. I believe your soul to be noble. I
do not believe you would be guilty of a baseness. Believing
this I will not abuse your generosity. You are young.
You speak with the ardour of youth; and with the same
ardour, you feel for the moment the disappointment of
youth. The same glow of feeling will enable you to overcome
them. You will forget me very soon. Let me entreat
you for your own sake to do so. Henceforward I
will assist you in the effort. I will not see you again.”

A burst of passionate deprecation and appeal answered
this solemn assurance, but did not affect her decision. He
rose, again endeavoured to grasp and detain her hand, but
she broke away with less dignity of movement than usual,
and had not the eyes of the youth been blinded by his own
weaknesses, he might have seen the big tear in hers, which
she fled precipitately only to conceal.