10. X.
MY FATE.
I pause, and lean my forehead on my hand, and
laugh. I did not laugh then: the scene I speak of did
not arouse my merriment.
It took place at Helvoetsluys, a country palace of
the Prince of Orange, whither the queen went on a
visit, towards the spring, taking her suite with her.
An old park, beyond which the sluggish waters of a
canal were seen,—the country around flat and prosaic;
the park bare and dreary with its leafless trees,—
amid such a scene I was walking at twilight with Frances
Villiers, and had just made a passionate speech, to which
the young lady had listened with a burning blush.
Through the mists that have gathered in all the years
since that moment, I can see her plainly. She wore a
dress of red brocade, and had thrown some furs around
her shoulders. From beneath a silken hood her great
eyes shone, half covered, as her head sank, by curls;
her cheeks were crimson with that sudden blush; and
the hand I held in my own was bent upward, with the
palm downward, so that the round white wrist was bent.
The hand tried to release itself, and some words came
in a sort of murmur from the lips, turned away from
me.
“Have pity on me! You know now that I love you
more than my life! You must have seen it all these
days. Now I speak, and await my fate!”
Something like this escaped from the young man
holding the hand of the girl; and a long deep breath
which she drew, as though to relieve her bosom from
a weight upon it, filled the lover with delicious hope.
Alas!—
It came!—that reply which so many a gay gallant
has received in this world:
“I cannot!—oh, no! Why force me to this, Mr.
Cecil?”
She stopped, and all at once her confusion seemed
to disappear. Her head turned towards me; the great
eyes were full of calm goodness and sweetness; the
blushes had disappeared, and the hand was gently withdrawn.
“There is something terrible in this,” she murmured.
“Our interview is doubly unfortunate, Mr.
Cecil.”
“Terrible?—unfortunate?”
“Is it not unfortunate when—”
She paused.
“Speak!—you torture me,” I said.
“I would fain speak, Mr. Cecil,” she said, with
earnest feeling, “but I know not how to tell you all.
'Tis hard for a maiden to say what I desire to utter.
And yet—'tis better, is it not, ever to be frank and
open?”
“A thousand times better! Speak thus, I pray you!”
She raised her eyes, which had been cast down for an
instant, and they beamed with candor and goodness.
“We are friends; I value your friendship; will
you then permit me to speak as your friend, with the
unreserve even of a sister? Do not woo me, sir:
'twould bring unhappiness: I have read in books that
'tis terrible when two brothers are rival suitors!”
Her face flushed again, and, as she thus spoke, she
turned towards the palace.
I followed in a sort of stupor. 'Tis terrible when
two brothers are rival suitors! Those words rang in
my brain, and confused me like a blow. Harry was a
suitor of Frances Villiers, then! I had never dreamed
of that, regarding them as friends only; now the announcement
came suddenly that I was my dear brother's
rival.
“God help me!” I groaned, at length; “why was
this concealed from me? What evil fate has placed me
in opposition to my dearest brother?”
“Evil indeed, sir!” murmured the young girl:
“were that brothers' love to be broken by me, I
should die of grief and shame.”
I walked on in silence beside her, and we drew near
the entrance to the palace. Suddenly she turned her
head and fixed her eyes upon me. The earnest glance
seemed to read all that was passing in my mind.
“There is something I should add,” she said, in a
low tone; “and I will not shrink now. Yes, your
brother is my suitor; but I have no heart for any one,
sir. My life—like my character, perhaps—is a strange
one, Mr. Cecil. I am an orphan, nearly alone in the
world: my life is dedicated to but one great sentiment,
—my love for the queen. I shall never marry. Forget
me! those are the last words I said to your brother,
Mr. Cecil.”
She went up the great staircase slowly, leaving me
standing at the foot.
Then Harry loved her,—and he had bid me goodspeed
in my wooing!
My face must have flushed; a sudden warmth made
itself felt in my heart, as I remembered my brother's
last greeting when I left him.
“Well, 'tis fortunate,” I muttered, “that I have
received my quietus too! 'Twill make my course easier,
my resolution from this moment not to stand in the
path of my dear Harry. He abandons the field to me,
—I abandon it to him. My heart may break; at least
I shall not be dishonored.”
Do you smile, reader, and say that all this was romantic
and high-flown? Would that to-day my heart
were as fresh and true and unselfish as 'twas then, when
I gave up the love of a woman for the love I bore my
brother!
