CHAPTER IV.
Oh Lord, thou hast enlarged the grief Of this poor stricken heart, That only finds in tears relief, Which all unbidden start: Long have I borne the cruel scorn Of one I could not love nor hate; My soul, with secret anguish torn, Yields unresisting to its fate--S.M.
Mark Hurdlestone"s triumph was complete; his revenge fully gratified, when he led his beautiful bride from the altar to the carriage, which was in readiness to convey her to her future home. She was his, and Algernon might return as soon as he pleased. Elinor Wildegrave was beyond his reach. She could never be his wife.
Tranquil, but not happy, Elinor viewed the change in her circ.u.mstances as an intervention of Providence to save her from a life of poverty and suffering; and she fancied that, if she did not love her benefactor, feelings of grat.i.tude and a sense of duty would always prevent him from becoming to her an object of dislike or indifference.
How little had she studied human nature; how ignorant was she of the mysterious movements of the human heart; and when, after much painful experience, she acquired the fatal knowledge, how bitter were the effects it produced upon her own.
When once his victim was in his toils, Mr. Hurdlestone did not attempt to conceal from her his real disposition.
He laughed at her credulity in believing that love alone had actuated him in making her his wife. He related to her, with terrible fidelity, the scene he had witnessed between her and Algernon in the garden, and the agonies of jealousy that he endured when he discovered that she loved another; and he repulsed with cold and sarcastic neglect every attempt made by Elinor to render their union more tolerable, and his home more comfortable.
To Elinor his conduct was perfectly unaccountable. She could not believe that he did not love her, and she was not a little mortified at what she considered his unnatural coldness and neglect.
"Marcus," she said to him one evening, as she sat on a cushion at his feet, after making many vain attempts to attract his notice, or win from him one kind look or word, "you did not always treat me with indifference; there was a time when I thought you loved me."
"There was a time, madam, when I adored you!--when I would have given all I possessed in the world to obtain from you one smile."
"Then why this coldness? What have I done to merit your dislike?"
"You loved Algernon. You love him still. Aye, that blush! Your face tells no falsehood. You cannot conceal it from me."
"I do not deny my love. But he is dead. Why should you be jealous of the dead?"
Mark smiled a grim bitter smile. "But if he were alive?"
"Ah!" and she pressed her small white hand tightly on her heart. "But then, Marcus, I should not be your wife. It would no longer be my duty to love another."
"You think it, then, your duty to love me?"
"Yes. You are my husband. My heart is lonely and sad. It must be filled by some object. Dear Marcus, suffer me to love you."
She laid her fair cheek meekly upon his knee, but he did not answer her touching appeal to his sympathy with a single caress.
"I cannot make you happy, Elinor. Algernon alone can do that."
"Algernon! Why Algernon?" said Elinor, bursting into tears. "Is it to make me more miserable that you constantly remind me of my loss?"
"How do you know that he is dead?"
"I have your word for it; the evidence of your friend"s letter; his long silence. What frightful images you conjure up! You seem determined to make me wretched to-night."
She sprang from her lowly seat, and left the room in an agony of tears.
Mark looked after her for a moment:--"Aye, he still keeps your heart.
But I have had my revenge."
The agony which he had endured in the garden on that memorable night, when he first discovered that Elinor loved his brother, was light in comparison to the pangs which shook the inmost soul of his unhappy wife, when time at last revealed the full extent of her misery, and of her husband"s deep-laid treachery--and Algernon returned from India with an independent fortune to claim his bride, and found her the wife of his brother.
The monster who had supplanted him in his father"s affections had now robbed him of his wife. Algernon did not seek an explanation from Mrs.
Hurdlestone, either personally or by letter. He supposed that her present position was one of her own choosing, and he was too proud to utter a complaint. The hey-day of youth was past, and he had seen too much of the world to be surprised at the inconstancy of a poor girl, who had been offered, during her lover"s absence, a splendid alliance. He considered that Elinor was sufficiently punished for her broken vows in being forced to spend her life in the society of such a sordid wretch as Mark Hurdlestone.
"G.o.d forgive her," he said; "she has nearly broken my heart, but I pity her from my very soul."
When the dreadful truth flashed upon the mind of Mrs. Hurdlestone, she bitterly accused her husband of the deception he had practised. Mr.
Hurdlestone, instead of denying or palliating the charge, even boasted of his guilt, and entered into a minute detail of each revolting circ.u.mstance--the diabolical means that he had employed to destroy her peace.
This fiend, to whom in an evil hour she had united her destiny, had carefully intercepted the correspondence between herself and Algernon, and employed a friend in India to forge the plausible account he had received of her lover"s death--and finally, as the finishing stroke to all this deep-laid villany, he had overcome his avaricious propensities, and made Elinor his wife, not to gratify a sensual pa.s.sion, but the terrible spirit of revenge.
Poor Elinor! For a long time her reason bowed before the knowledge of these horrible facts, and when she did at last recover her senses, her beauty had faded beneath the blight of sorrow like the brilliant but evanescent glow of the evening cloud, which vanishes at the approach of night. Weary of life, she did not regret the loss of those fatal charms which had been to her a source of such misery.
The last time the rose tint ever visited her once blooming cheeks was when suddenly informed by Mr. Hurdlestone of his brother"s marriage with a young lady of large fortune. "May he be happy," she exclaimed, clasping her hands together, whilst the deepest crimson suffused her face. "I was not worthy to be his wife!" Ere the sentence was concluded the color had faded from her cheek, which no after emotion recalled.
His brother"s marriage produced a strange effect upon the mind of Mark Hurdlestone. It cheated him of a part of his revenge. He had expected that the loss of Elinor would have stung Algernon to madness; that his existence would have become insupportable without the woman he loved.
How great was his mortification when, neither by word nor letter, nor in conversation with his friends, did his injured brother ever revert to the subject! That Algernon did not feel the blow, could scarcely be inferred from his silence. The grief he felt was too acute for words, and Algernon was still too faithful to the object of his first ardent attachment to upbraid her conduct to others. Mark, who could not understand this delicacy of sentiment, concluded that Elinor was no longer regarded with affection by her lover. Elinor comprehended his silence better, and she loved him more intensely for his forbearance.
Algernon the world reputed rich and happy, and the Squire despised Elinor when her person was no longer coveted by his rival. His temper, const.i.tutionally bad, became intolerable, and he treated his uncomplaining wife with such unkindness, that it would have broken her heart, if the remembrance of a deeper sorrow had not rendered her indifferent to his praise or censure. She considered his kindest mercy was neglect.
Having now no other pa.s.sion to gratify but avarice, Mark Hurdlestone"s h.o.a.rding propensities returned with double force. He gradually retrenched his domestic expenses; laid down his carriage; sold his horses; discharged his liveried servants; and, to the astonishment of his wondering neighbors, let the n.o.ble park to a rich farmer in the parish, with permission to break it up with the plough. He no longer suffered the produce of his extensive gardens to be consumed in the house, or given to the poor; but sold the fruit and vegetables to any petty greengrocer in the village, who thought it worth his while to walk up to the Hall, and drive a bargain with the stingy Squire. He not only a.s.sisted in gathering the fruit, for fear he should be robbed, but often acted as scarecrow to the birds, whom he reviled as noisy, useless nuisances, vexatiously sent to destroy the fruits of the earth.
Elinor gently remonstrated with him on the meanness and absurdity of such conduct; but he silenced what he termed her impertinent interference in matters which did not concern her. He bade her to remember that she brought him no fortune, and he was forced to make these retrenchments in order to support her. After this confession, there was no end to his savings. He discharged his remaining domestics; sold most of the splendid furniture by public auction; and, finally, shut up the Hall to avoid paying the window-tax, only allowing the kitchen, one parlor, and two bed-rooms to be visited by the light of day. The only person whom he allowed to approach the house was the gardener, Grenard Pike, who rented a small cottage at the end of the avenue that led to the back premises of the once n.o.ble mansion.
This favored individual was the Squire in low life; and the gossip dealers in the village did not scruple to affirm that the likeness was not _merely_ accidental; that Grenard Pike was brother to the Squire in a natural way; but whether this report were true or false, he and his master, if unrelated by blood, possessed kindred spirits, and perfectly understood and appreciated each other. This man had neither wife nor child, and the whole business of his life was how to get money, and, when got, how to turn it to the best advantage. If the Squire was attached to anything in the world, it was to this faithful satellite, this humble transcript of himself.
The wretched Elinor, shut out from all society, and denied every domestic comfort, was limited by her stingy partner to the awkward attendance of a parish girl, who, together with her mistress, he contrived to half starve; as he insisted on keeping the key of the pantry, and only allowed them a scanty meal twice during the twenty-four hours, which he said, was sufficient to keep them in health; more was hurtful both to the mind and body.
Elinor had dragged on this miserable existence for twelve years, when, to her unspeakable grief, she found that she was likely to become a mother, for the prospect of this event served rather to increase, than diminish her sorrows. It was some time before she dared to communicate this unwelcome intelligence to her sordid lord. Still, she hoped, in spite of his parsimony, that he might wish for a son to heir his immense wealth. Not he! He only thought of a spendthrift, who would recklessly squander all that he toiled and starved himself to save; and he received the promise of his paternal honors with a very bad grace.
"All the world!" he exclaimed, "are conspiring together to ruin me. I shall be ate out of house and home by doctors and nurses, and my rest will be constantly disturbed by squalling brats; for I suppose, madam, that like my worthy mother, you will entail upon me two at a time. But my mother was a strong healthy woman, not delicate and puling like you.
It is more than probable that the child may die."
"And the mother," sighed Elinor.
"Well if He who sends is pleased to take away, He will find me perfectly resigned to His will. You need not weep, madam. If my conduct appears unnatural, let me tell you that I consider those human beings alone fortunate who perish in their infancy. They are in no fear of coming to the gallows. They are saved from the threatened torments of h.e.l.l!"
Elinor shrank from the wild flash of his keen dark eyes, and drew back with an involuntary shudder. "Happy had it been for me if I had died an infant on my mother"s breast."
"Aye, if you had never seen the light. You were born to be the bane of my house. But since you have confided to me this precious secret, let me ask you what you think will be the probable expense of your confinement?"
"I really cannot tell. I must have a doctor--a nurse--and some few necessaries for the poor babe. I think, with great economy, ten pounds would be enough."
"Ten pounds!"
"It may cost more, certainly not less."
"You will never get that sum from me."