"Sweet Henrietta, listen to me one moment. Suppose I had quitted you last night for Bath, merely for this purpose, as indeed we had once thought of, and that your father had arrived at Ducie before I had returned to make my communication: would you style your silence, under such circ.u.mstances, a secret engagement? No, no, dear love; this is an abuse of terms. It would be a delicate consideration for a parent"s feelings."
"O Ferdinand! would we were united, and had no cares!"
"You would not consider our projected union a secret engagement, if, after pa.s.sing to-morrow with your father, you expected me on the next day to communicate to him our position. Is it any more a secret engagement because six or seven days are to elapse before this communication takes place, instead of one? My Henrietta is indeed fighting with shadows!"
"Ferdinand, I cannot reason like you; but I feel unhappy when I think of this."
"Dearest Henrietta! feel only that you are loved. Think, darling, the day will come when we shall smile at all these cares. All will flow smoothly yet, and we shall all yet live at Armine, Mr. Temple and all."
"Papa likes you so much too, Ferdinand, I should be miserable if you offended him."
"Which I certainly should do if I were not to speak to Sir Ratcliffe first."
"Do you, indeed, think so?"
"Indeed I am certain."
"But cannot you write to Sir Ratcliffe, Ferdinand? Must you really go?
Must we, indeed, be separated? I cannot believe it; it is inconceivable; it is impossible; I cannot endure it."
"It is, indeed, terrible," said Ferdinand. "This consideration alone reconciles me to the necessity: I know my father well; his only answer to a communication of this kind would be an immediate summons to his side. Now, is it not better that this meeting should take place when we must necessarily be much less together than before, than at a later period, when we may, perhaps, be constant companions with the sanction of our parents?"
"O Ferdinand! you reason, I only feel."
Such an observation from one"s mistress is rather a reproach than a compliment. It was made, in the present instance, to a man whose princ.i.p.al characteristic was, perhaps, a too dangerous susceptibility; a man of profound and violent pa.s.sions, yet of a most sweet and tender temper; capable of deep reflection, yet ever acting from the impulse of sentiment, and ready at all times to sacrifice every consideration to his heart. The prospect of separation from Henrietta, for however short a period, was absolute agony to him; he found difficulty in conceiving existence without the influence of her perpetual presence: their parting even for the night was felt by him as an onerous deprivation. The only process, indeed, that could at present prepare and console him for the impending sorrow would have been the frank indulgence of the feelings which it called forth. Yet behold him, behold this unhappy victim of circ.u.mstances, forced to deceive, even for her happiness, the being whom he idolised; compelled, at this hour of anguish, to bridle his heart, lest he should lose for a fatal instant his command over his head; and, while he was himself conscious that not in the wide world, perhaps, existed a man who was sacrificing more for his mistress, obliged to endure, even from her lips, a remark which seemed to impute to him a deficiency of feeling. And yet it was too much; he covered his eyes with his hand, and said, in a low and broken voice, "Alas! my Henrietta, if you knew all, you would not say this!"
"My Ferdinand," she exclaimed, touched by that tender and melancholy tone, "why, what is this? you weep! What have I said, what done? Dearest Ferdinand, do not do this." And she threw herself on her knees before him, and looked up into his face with scrutinising affection.
He bent down his head, and pressed his lips to her forehead. "O Henrietta!" he exclaimed, "we have been so happy!"
"And shall be so, my own. Doubt not my word, all will go right. I am so sorry, I am so miserable, that I made you unhappy to-night. I shall think of it when you are gone. I shall remember how naughty I was. It was so wicked, so very, very wicked; and he was so good."
"Gone! what a dreadful word! And shall we not be together to-morrow, Henrietta? Oh! what a morrow! Think of me, dearest. Do not let me for a moment escape from your memory."
"Tell me exactly your road; let me know exactly where you will be at every hour; write to me on the road; if it be only a line, only a little word; only his dear name; only Ferdinand!"
"And how shall I write to you? Shall I direct to you here?"
Henrietta looked perplexed. "Papa opens the bag every morning, and every morning you must write, or I shall die. Ferdinand, what is to be done"?"
"I will direct to you at the post-office. You must send for your letters."
"I tremble. Believe me, it will be noticed. It will look so--so--so--clandestine."
"I will direct them to your maid. She must be our confidante."
"Ferdinand!"
""Tis only for a week."
"O Ferdinand! Love teaches us strange things."
"My darling, believe me, it is wise and well. Think how desolate we should be without constant correspondence. As for myself, I shall write to you every hour, and, unless I hear from you as often, I shall believe only in evil!"
"Let it be as you wish. G.o.d knows my heart is pure. I pretend no longer to regulate my destiny. I am yours, Ferdinand. Be you responsible for all that affects my honour or my heart."
"A precious trust, my Henrietta, and dearer to me than all the glory of my ancestors."
The clock sounded eleven. Miss Temple rose. "It is so late, and we in darkness here! What will they think? Ferdinand, sweetest, rouse the fire. I ring the bell. Lights will come, and then------" Her voice faltered.
"And then------" echoed Ferdinand. He took up his guitar, but he could not command his voice.
""Tis your guitar," said Henrietta; "I am happy that it is left behind."
The servant entered with lights, drew the curtains, renewed the fire, arranged the room, and withdrew.
"Little knows he our misery," said Henrietta. "It seemed strange, when I felt my own mind, that there could be anything so calm and mechanical in the world."
Ferdinand was silent. He felt that the hour of departure had indeed arrived, yet he had not courage to move. Henrietta, too, did not speak. She reclined on the sofa, as it were, exhausted, and placed her handkerchief over her face. Ferdinand leant over the fire. He was nearly tempted to give up his project, confess all to his father by letter, and await his decision. Then he conjured up the dreadful scenes at Bath, and then he remembered that, at all events, tomorrow he must not appear at Ducie. "Henrietta!" he at length said.
"A minute, Ferdinand, yet a minute," she exclaimed in an excited tone; "do not speak, I am preparing myself."
He remained in his leaning posture; and in a few moments Miss Temple rose and said, "Now, Ferdinand, I am ready." He looked round. Her countenance was quite pale, but fixed and calm.
"Let us embrace," she said, "but let us say nothing."
He pressed her to his arms. She trembled. He imprinted a thousand kisses on her cold lips; she received them with no return. Then she said in a low voice, "Let me leave the room first;" and, giving him one kiss upon his forehead, Henrietta Temple disappeared.
When Ferdinand with a sinking heart and a staggering step quitted Ducie, he found the night so dark that it was with extreme difficulty he traced, or rather groped, his way through the grove. The absolute necessity of watching every step he took in some degree diverted his mind from his painful meditations. The atmosphere of the wood was so close, that he congratulated himself when he had gained its skirts; but just as he was about to emerge upon the common, and was looking forward to the light of some cottage as his guide in this gloomy wilderness, a flash of lightning that seemed to cut the sky in twain, and to descend like a flight of fiery steps from the highest heavens to the lowest earth, revealed to him for a moment the whole broad bosom of the common, and showed to him that nature to-night was as disordered and perturbed as his own heart. A clap of thunder, that might have been the herald of Doomsday, woke the cattle from their slumbers. They began to moan and low to the rising wind, and cl.u.s.ter under the trees, that sent forth with their wailing branches sounds scarcely less dolorous and wild.
Avoiding the woods, and striking into the most open part of the country, Ferdinand watched the progress of the tempest.
For the wind had now risen to such a height that the leaves and branches of the trees were carried about in vast whirls and eddies, while the waters of the lake, where in serener hours Ferdinand was accustomed to bathe, were lifted out of their bed, and inundated the neighbouring settlements. Lights were now seen moving in the cottages, and then the forked lightning, pouring down at the same time from opposite quarters of the sky, exposed with an awful distinctness, and a fearful splendour, the wide-spreading scene of danger and devastation.
Now descended the rain in such overwhelming torrents, that it was as if a waterspout had burst, and Ferdinand gasped for breath beneath its oppressive power; while the blaze of the variegated lightning, the crash of the thunder, and the roar of the wind, all simultaneously in movement, indicated the fulness of the storm. Succeeded then that strange lull that occurs in the heart of a tempest, when the unruly and disordered elements pause, as it were, for breath, and seem to concentrate their energies for an increased and final explosion. It came at last; and the very earth seemed to rock in the pa.s.sage of the hurricane.
Exposed to all the awful chances of the storm, one solitary being alone beheld them without terror. The mind of Ferdinand Armine grew calm, as nature became more disturbed. He moralised amid the whirlwind.
He contrasted the present tumult and distraction with the sweet and beautiful serenity which the same scene had presented when, a short time back, he first beheld it. His love, too, had commenced in stillness and in sunshine; was it, also, to end in storm and in destruction?
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
_Which Contains a Love-Letter_.