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
untameable, 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 he was concerned, the most thoroughly subjugated
and tamed of beings. Her whole nature, toward 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 one 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
toward herself than toward Annabel. It would seem that when
he presumed to whisper in her ear that prayer for a clandestine
interview, she would have recognised and spurned 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 can not 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 unmaidenly,

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 clasped 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 suffocatingly 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 afterward
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 blameable, 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 over-wrought 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 moon-lighted 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 moon-light.

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 have yet 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.