Kitabı oku: «Under St Paul's: A Romance», sayfa 9

CHAPTER IV.
THE BETROTHAL

When at last they reached the street he said, – 'I could not speak to you in a room. A room is quiet too and lonely now. I feel lonely in my mind, and I like to see thousands of people round me. It diminishes my own importance in my own eyes, and I want to put myself wholly out of sight if I can.' The hazel-grey eyes were lifted to his in curiosity and trouble. What was it he could not say to her in a room and could in a crowded street? Something unpleasant. What could it be? His eyes were fixed before him. He did not look at her. She simply said, 'Yes,' softly. 'On a country road, or in a wood I could say to you what I have in my mind, or in our own quiet house at home. But in that boarding-house I could not, Marie. On a country road, or among trees, or in our home there would be a solemn background of nature or of associations, and these would take my mind off, Marie, your beauty and my great love of you. I should there understand you and I were then taking only a part in a vast concert in which thousands sang. I should be able to keep my mind off the overwhelming importance to me of your personality, by having forced upon me greater facts than our association. These busy streets act on me like the wood or open fields or the house to which my mother came as bride, in which she mourned as widow.' He was talking more to himself than to her. He was accounting to himself rather than explaining to her why he preferred the streets to the house. She was looking up timidly at him. This was to her unintelligible. She knew he had some reason for wishing to speak to her out of doors. That was all she wanted to know. That was quite enough for her. What could this great long introduction mean? What was he going to say? He had kissed her, and looked at her very affectionately that morning, but his manner was strange. He went on, – 'But in that house we have left all is vulgar and commonplace but your presence, and when we are alone I can think of nothing but your great beauty and my great love for you.' She pressed his arm very softly, looked up at him with eyes of timid mirth. 'Why should you wish to forget, love?' He knit his brows, and looked down at her with eyes that did not see. 'Because I had a dream last night.' 'But surely you put no faith in dreams?' 'No. But I put no faith in omens either. Yet, if I see an angry sky, I prepare for bad weather.' 'Bad weather often, generally, follows angry skies, but nothing follows dreams.' He looked down at her again for a moment with abstracted eyes. 'You are quite right. I employed a bad figure; I will try to find a better one. If I am driving a coach along a road, and I see another coach overturned by reckless driving, I am likely to be more careful for awhile, although there may be nothing more than coincidence in my seeing the drag overturned. So my dreaming last night that I had lost you may make me more careful not to lose you, although there is nothing more than coincidence between the facts of yesterday and my dream.' She pressed his arm slightly, and bowed her head. 'This is the love I dreamed of,' she thought. 'This is the love that will not change; for it is the love that first thinks of the loved one, and then of the love, and last of itself. This is the royal self-disdaining love. My George! My love!' She said aloud, 'May I hear what the dream was?' 'It was a kind of allegory, and was connected with one of my waking dreams. This fact alone would make it remarkable, for not one time in fifty thousand do we dream in sleep what we dream awake. I need not trouble you with my waking dream; I will tell you that at another time. In sleep this morning (I lay down for an hour or so after dawn) I saw the sea-' 'You have never really seen the sea?' 'No, but I know something of it.' 'I have seen much of it.' 'Then you shall tell me of it in our evenings by the fire by-and-by.' She pressed his arm, and looked up softly into his face. His eyes were fixed before him, and he did not look down. 'And in your dream?' 'I saw a boat come into this sea. I was in this boat, steering it. A bundle of furs lay at my feet. For days and nights I steered that boat until it entered the Thames. I knew someone-a woman-lay under these furs. I knew she was a stranger, a savage woman-' 'How fond you are of this place,' she said, interrupting him. He threw his eyes up, and surveyed, with eager admiration the august pile rising up to heaven. 'I have always loved the place,' he said, 'even before I saw it.' He withdrew his glance from aloft and cast it once more before him. Her eyes were fixed on him wistfully as she asked, – 'And since you have seen it?' 'I have loved it all the more.' His eyes were still speculative and busy with some scene not present to his bodily eye. 'It was here,' she whispered, 'that I first saw how good and how noble you are-here, just where we are now, under St Paul's.' He looked down at that beautiful young face with that wistful expression upon it. For a moment his face softened; he bent a little over her. Then he lifted his eyes once more, and resumed speaking in the same voice he had used before-a dull, monotonous voice, under which ran an undercurrent of uneasiness. 'Ah! Is it so? I did not know that.' A vague shadow of disappointment came over her face. He might take a little interest in that fact, no matter what other things were in his mind. He went on, – 'I knew she was a strange savage woman, and I knew why I brought her to England. The reason was ridiculous, but it satisfied, as ridiculous reasons satisfy in dreams.' She had a much lessened interest in the story of that dream now. That dream had come between him and her, and had made him indifferent to the place at which her heart had first felt moved towards him. He still kept on, – 'In a while we drew near London. I knew I had to land my passenger as near this spot as possible. I steered the boat to the wharf down there. The husband of the woman stood upon the wharf. I called to him to come for his wife; he came and carried away the woman. Then I pushed off my boat.' He paused, and, looking at the northern entrance of the cathedral, said, – 'Shall we go in?' 'Yes, if you wish it,' she answered listlessly. As they entered the vestibule he said, – 'In getting away from the wharf I lost my paddle. I had now no power to guide the boat, no power to regain the wharf. I cried to the man for help.' Here they entered the body of the cathedral. 'When I looked, the cloak and hat which the man had worn had fallen away, and the furs from the figure of his wife-' 'The service is going on, George; do you wish to take part in it?' she said. She thought, 'This dream is very long, and he is so wrapped up in it he does not remember this is service-time; he cannot even see that the service is going on.' 'The figure of the man was now a fleshless skeleton, and the woman in the arms of the skeleton was you!' She started from his side, with an exclamation of terror she could not suppress. 'So I have come here to-day during service, to thank God that it was only a dream, and to pray that no evil may ever come to my Marie through my fault, and that her faith may be permanently confirmed. Marie, of course the dream has no more to do with you and me than with Kate or Mr Nevill; but it will do neither of us harm to thank God my dream was but a dream; to pray I may never do you harm, and to ask that you may be continued in your pious resolves.' 'There is only need for us to pray for the last,' she said, clinging to his arm with redoubled tenderness. All had been explained-more than explained. All had been not only justified, but swept away; and, in place of the cold sensation caused by his peculiar manner of that morning, now glowed a love warmed for the first time by gratitude. They moved into the cathedral and sat down. He bent over her and whispered, – 'That dream did not affect me as you might think. It did not chill me or make me uneasy because of any dread I had I should lose you in an ordinary way. My notion of life here and life hereafter is that we are sent here to learn to love one another, and then we go to a better place to enjoy the love we have acquired here. Now, Marie, what horrified me in that dream is that it seemed to me a kind of allegory. The sea-voyage which I had with you when I did not know you, was our life on earth. When our earthly life had run, when our voyage was finished, we were separated, and I saw you in terrible company, and was powerless to rescue you. You were in the arms of Death, at the gateway of the great city of the Dead. This suggested to me that, though you and I might go through time together, we might be separated in eternity.' She turned her face to his, and asked gravely, sadly, – 'Why should we be separated in eternity? What could separate us?' 'Marie, I am no bigot. I do not say that any man will be lost because of his faith, so long as he has faith of some kind. But I believe that when we die we shall be classed together in the order of our faith. You have been long indifferent. Suppose you should grow indifferent again. Suppose you should be indifferent at the last. Suppose I should die ten years hence, and you should survive me ten, twenty years; and at the end of those twenty years have lost all faith, or have married again and adopted a new one, you would be lost to me.' 'George, how can you say such cruel things? You should not say such things. You know I should not marry.' 'Let us not talk like children, Marie. No one knows that. I am sure that if you marry me now, you and I will be for ever together in the hereafter. We do not know everything. We are not told that; but I believe, when a man and woman marry for love, they are husband and wife for ever. Now you see, child, why I am so anxious.' 'Yes,' she murmured, looking up at him half-frightened. He was putting things in a terribly earnest way. She had often thought of love and marriage before-who is it does not think of these things? – but she had never thought of them so surrounded by awe before. Most people treated love with levity, and marriage as a matter of legal contract, to be embodied in documents and secured by stamps. Now this man whom she had agreed to accept as a husband was taking precautions, not only for their earthly happiness, but for their eternal union also. He had often seemed great and noble to her, but he had never overawed her before. She looked up at him with wonder and devotion, mingled with grave concern. He went on, still in the low voice he had first employed, and with his lips close to her ear, – 'I thought, Marie, that as under these walls we had our first serious conversation, as under these walls you had first been guided from trivial things by my hand, there could be no place better for a talk of this importance, and asking you to do the first favour I request of you.' She was profoundly moved. She had wronged him. She had thought him indifferent to her to-day, and all the time he had been taking the most elaborate care of her, had been expending the finest portion of his intellect, and the deepest fountains of his love on her. She looked upon him with gratitude that was a kind of worship, and said, – 'I will promise you beforehand. I will promise now to do in my life all you may ask me.' 'No,' he said. 'That would not be a wise or a just promise.' 'I will promise, then, beforehand.' 'No; there is no reason for that. That would be unfair. Besides, there is no reason why you should not know what I want you to promise. It is this, "I promise God never to be again indifferent to religious matters; to adhere to the faith of the Church in which I was born, the faith of the Church in which I now kneel, and to marry no man who does not belong to the faith of this Church, and take an active part in its worship."' She repeated the words slowly and distinctly. When she had finished, she looked up at him with eyes full of happy tears, and said, – 'It would be a great sin to break that promise, George?' 'It would. A great sin.' 'That promise is as binding in your eyes as the marriage ceremony?' 'Quite as binding in my eyes as the marriage ceremony.' 'Oh, thank you for having asked me to make it, and to make it here. I feel now as if some great dread or weight had fallen off me.' 'But, Marie, you have accepted a grave responsibility.' 'How?' she asked, looking up at him incredulously. 'You have promised to be a practical Christian of the Church of England all your life.' 'That will not be very hard; and you will help me all my life.' 'But if I die you must not marry any man of any other faith.' 'I shall marry one man, and one only, and that is you. I will add that to the promise.' 'No, no. Such a promise would be wrong. You have done all I ask.' 'Will you do all I ask now, George?' 'What is it?' 'Believe that all the love woman has to give to man I give to you, and that I am more grateful to you for the trust you have shown in me to-day than for all the other things you will ever do for me.' 'Trust! What trust, my love, my child?' He looked at her with a puzzled, perplexed expression. 'When, although you do not know me a month, you take my word that I will not do a certain thing, even if I live twenty years after you die.' He looked at her in amazement. 'Break your promise to me, love! How could you? What would be the value in my mind of vows at the altar if I thought you would not keep a solemn promise like that? The woman who would, after my explanation, break a promise such as that, would care little how she broke any vows or oaths.' She looked up at him with some of her old archness. 'I know whom all this is aimed at!' 'Whom?' 'The only man I know who doesn't believe anything is Mr Nevill; and you know he and I were great friends once.' Osborne shook his head gravely. 'I should not like you to marry a man such as he.' 'George, George, the service is over, and we have not minded it.' 'The service has not yet begun.' 'Begun! The people are all going away.' 'Wait a moment, and you will see I am right.' When the people had cleared off, and they were almost alone in the portion of the church where they sat, he said, – 'Let us kneel hand-in-hand for a betrothal.' She took off her glove. He knelt at her left side and took her hand. He let go her hand in a moment. A vivid blush darted over her face, and they both rose. As she did so, upon the third finger of her left hand flashed five rubies she had never seen before.

CHAPTER V.
AN INTRODUCTION

Shortly after Osborne and Miss Gordon had left the drawing-room, Nevill raised his head, and saw he and Miss Osborne were alone. 'Bless my soul!' he cried, 'but they have slipped out. They are as artful as a pair of conspiring schoolboys.' She turned away her calm fair face to the room, and said, – 'I did not hear them go.' 'That was their artfulness. Ah well, Miss Osborne, there is nothing sharpens the wits so much as love.' She made no reply. She felt a great reserve about George's love-affair. She spoke little or nothing to Marie about it. She would not speak to Mr Nevill. He might take it ill or well of her, but she would not speak. The sallow, plain-looking man raised his eyes quickly to hers. 'I suppose, Miss Osborne, you never met a greater fool than I?' 'Oh, Mr Nevill! How could you say such a thing! I am sure I never thought anything of the kind.' 'You always look at me as if you thought me a very great fool.' 'I am exceedingly sorry,' she said, with an appealing look, 'and I hope you forgive me. I did not mean it, believe-' 'Ah yes,' he sighed; 'I am sure you did not mean it I am quite sure of that. But what are you to do? You can't help it. You are young and candid. You see me. Your estimate of me immediately appears on your face. You cannot help letting me see you think me a very great fool.' 'But I assure you I do not think you anything of the kind,' cried the girl, in distress. She did not like to be drawn into an animated discussion, and nothing in the world could pain her more than to think she had unwittingly inflicted pain on others. 'You mustn't mind a bit, though,' he said quickly. 'I am quite used to being considered a fool, and it doesn't hurt me nearly as much as it would an average man.' 'Mr Nevill, I am greatly grieved and shocked to think you have got any such notion in your head. Pray dismiss it, I beg of you.' She was in great pain. She did not know how to convince him. He seemed disposed not to take her word for her innocence. What more could she give him than her word? 'You must not worry yourself in the least about it. I assure you nine out of ten people I meet take me for a fool. I should not have mentioned the matter to you at all, only your brother happens to be one of those tenth men, and does not take me for a fool; and I had an unwise hope you might look at me in somewhat the same way. I am sure you wouldn't do it if you could help it.' 'Mr Nevill, you are almost unkind to say such a thing. I assure you there is not the least truth in it. Do believe me. Can I in no way convince you?' She was in acute pain now. She could endure any pain herself; but the thought that she had inflicted pain on others was intolerable. 'Let me beg of you, Miss Osborne, not to mention the subject again. It is of really no consequence, and I have been most unfortunate in introducing the subject to you. I should have known it would hurt your good-nature. Forgive me, I beg of you! I hope you will forgive me. If you had been in doubt as to whether I was a fool or not, you can no longer be in any; for I may tell you frankly, I should not like you to despise me, and I don't know in what way I could more surely injure my chances of your good opinion than by alighting on so unhappy a subject of conversation. Really, Miss Osborne, you will do me the greatest possible favour if you will not again allude to the subject.' 'But,' she cried beseechingly, 'nothing in the world-' 'No, no, no, no! I beg-I pray of you not to say any more about my hideous blunder; I assure you I shall not forget it in an hour. What an unlucky fool I am!' She looked at him with a face full of pain. She did not know what to do, what to say. He would not believe her. She would not willingly hurt the humblest of God's creatures, and here was a man who had gravely disquieted her at first, but from whom she had latterly derived much amusement, attributing to her thoughts most uncomplimentary and ungenerous to him, thoughts which she did not entertain. She felt inclined to cry. It was cruel of him to fix such a charge upon her. She said, looking up earnestly at him, – 'I think it is not generous of you to refuse taking my word for what I say. I am sure if you told me anything about yourself I should believe you.' 'I accept that test,' he answered quickly. 'Now, since I have met you, Miss Osborne, I daresay you have noticed that I speak now and then.' She smiled, and answered, 'Yes.' 'Now, do you believe every word I uttered?' 'No. You spoke a lot of things you did not want anyone to believe.' 'How do you know that?' 'I cannot tell you how I know it, but I am sure of it. You exaggerated so much. You told tales of your own adventures, which I think you invented to amuse those present.' 'And you don't think it much harm to invent adventures for the amusement of a general company?' 'Certainly riot. They do no harm to anyone; they do not deceive anyone.' 'Oh, I see. It is by the result you judge.' 'I don't understand you.' 'You think there is no harm in inventing tales so long as they do not hurt anyone and do not deceive anyone?' 'Yes. They are then no more than novels or poems.' 'Ah well, I don't agree with you there; but we will not discuss that. I want to ask you another question. Suppose a person had invented something with the sole view of paining and deceiving another, what would you think of the act and the man?' 'I should think it most unkind, ungentlemanly, most vile, and I should be sorry to know the man.' 'Ah,' he sighed, 'you see my second condition is worse than my former one.' 'What do you mean?' 'A little while ago I said you considered me a fool. Now you must think me a scoundrel.' 'Mr Nevill, you should not say such things! I think nothing of the kind of you.' 'You must.' 'Indeed, no.' 'But I tell you, you must; you cannot help it.' 'It is too bad of you to say such dreadful things. You are very hard on me, and I am not aware I have done anything to deserve it. I am sure I never thought you a fool; and as to the other thing, it is too dreadful even to think of.' 'Yet,' said he dismally, 'whatever reason you may have for not thinking me a fool, there isn't the shadow of a chance of your thinking me anything but a scoundrel.' She said, with a slight show of displeasure in her manner, – 'I think there is no use in our trying to agree about this matter. I am exceedingly sorry if I have caused you pain. I never intended it; and I apologise most fully. Will you accept my apology, and let us change the subject? It distresses me.' She evidently felt uncomfortable. There was a faint flush on her cheek, and a dim dissatisfaction in her eyes. 'We cannot change the subject,' he said relentlessly, 'until we have decided whether you or I happen to be wrong.' 'I would rather admit I have been wrong than continue the topic. I assure you it gives me great pain.' 'I will be brief. When I said I knew you thought me a great fool, I did not believe what I said; I intended you should think I did believe it, and I said the words in order to give you pain.' She raised her eyes to his, and looked at him in silent wonder. 'Do you believe me now?' he asked. 'I do not know. You surprise me very much. Why should you try to pain me?' she asked, looking at him in perplexity. 'Because I wanted to try an experiment.' 'An experiment! What experiment? You are a strange man.' To the former look of perplexity had by this time been added a look of fear. 'I will not tell you now. But you see I am a scoundrel. Out of your own showing I am a scoundrel.' 'But you ought to tell me what this experiment is; and as to what I said about a man wilfully hurting and misleading, I meant that to apply to important things, to things of consequence only. What you said of me, and the little uncomfortableness I felt, are not worth a word, a thought.' 'It is only your goodness leads you to say so.' 'No, I am quite sincere.' 'Yes, your gentleness is always sincere.' She raised her eyes to him for a moment, and then dropped them, and kept them down. There was something in his look and manner that subdued her, surprised and silenced her. He went on, – 'I do not agree with you at all, Miss Osborne, about these trifling annoyances to you being of no consequence. On the contrary, I think them of the greatest consequence. The difficulty you will have to solve is this: how is it that I, who look on any trifle which might annoy you as a thing of great consequence, should yet deliberately invent a means of rendering you seriously uncomfortable?' For a moment she looked up at him. All other expression but that of fear had now left her face. 'I-I don't know,' she said, with hesitating timidity. 'I merely wanted to try if I could interest you in any way. I wanted to find out if, by falsely attributing to you unfavourable opinions of myself, I could rouse any uneasiness in your mind. You think that very cruel no doubt.' 'I do not think you cruel.' 'Ah, that is not my question. Do not you think that cruel?' 'I really do not know. I am sure you would not be cruel to anyone.' 'No, not without a motive; and in the present case my motive was to find out if you could be hurt through me.' 'You have taken a great deal of trouble. I am sure what I could or could not feel is not worth while taking so much trouble about.' 'I know you do not mean that for satire.' 'No, no, no! I am quite in earnest. Please forgive me for any rash thing I may say. I am not clever, and often seem to mean what I do not want to say, what I do not mean.' 'Well,' he said, 'as you do not care to pursue the subject, we will drop it for the present.' 'Say for ever,' she cried, looking up pleadingly in his eyes. 'No, I cannot drop it for ever. I must speak to you of it again.' 'Why?' 'Because at some future time I intend asking you a question of an opposite character, and of ten thousand times more importance to me.' There was a long pause after this. He thought briefly, and with a self-congratulatory inward smile: 'If that does not puzzle and interest her, I know nothing about women.' She thought: 'I wish George would leave this place to-day. This man makes me most uncomfortable. I do not know what he means, and I don't see why he cannot let me alone. I shall avoid a tête-à-tête with him in future. What can the meaning be of all he said to me? Perhaps it is a scientific experiment of some kind; perhaps he wants to find out something about the human mind. I shouldn't mind it a bit if 'twas that. I wish George would take Marie and me down to Stratford to-morrow. I never met anyone like Mr Nevill before; he frightens me, and yet I am not afraid of him. I know he wouldn't do anything to hurt me, and yet he invented that story about my thinking him a fool. I don't think him a bit a fool; I think him very clever, like George, only his cleverness runs in a different way. I wonder what is this other thing he has to say to me; I wonder will he say it soon? I wish George would come back. How fond of George Marie must be! It must be very strange to be fond of any man not your brother. But Marie has no brother; she must be very fond of George, for she has no brother to divide her affection with. I wonder is she afraid of George, and does he set her riddles and tell her he'll ask her another question another day? I wonder is there any likelihood of George going home soon? He will go home at Easter, of course; but I mean before that.' Miss Osborne took up a book, and Nevill went to the piano and rattled off airs from comic operas, now and then addressing a word or two about music to Miss Osborne. He could play tolerably well any slap-dash music, but could not sing. The door opened, and a servant entered. 'Miss Gordon?' 'She is not here,' answered Kate. 'A gentleman wants to see her, miss, and I don't know where she is.' 'Have you tried the other rooms?' 'Yes, miss.' 'You'd better take the gentleman's name, and say she is out' 'When I asked him for his name to take up, he said she would not know it.' The servant shut the door. In a minute she returned and brought word the gentleman had gone, but would return in a little while. In the afternoon Marie and Osborne came back. Nevill was a little shy for a few minutes, but then turned the conversation in a new channel. He noticed something peculiar about the two. 'I can't make it out,' he thought, while Miss Gordon had gone to take off her hat and coat, and Osborne was speaking to his sister. 'I can't make it out. They went away looking anything but jolly. He looked worn and anxious, and she seemed disconcerted by his manner. They have been out an hour or two, and they come back as calm and collected as if they were brother and sister, not lovers. There is what I call a domestic look about them. Osborne appears as if he had nothing more important on his mind than the quarter's bills. I never saw so great a change in so short a time. By Jove! it can't be they have gone and got married on the quiet! No, no; Osborne isn't the man to do that.' In the meantime Osborne bent over his sister, and whispered in her ear, – 'Kate, it is all settled between Marie and me. I shall write to mother this evening. I know you think I have done well.' 'I am sure of it, George. It will be very sudden and unexpected news for mother.' 'But don't you think when she sees and knows my Marie she will like her as you do?' 'I am quite sure of it, George. All I meant to say was that it will be a surprise. I am sure in the end she will like her. Who could help liking her?' 'Who could help it? as you say, Kate, dear. I think no man on earth could be happier than I am to-day.' The servant put in her head. 'Miss Gordon. A gentleman to see Miss Gordon.' 'She is in her own room,' answered Miss Osborne. A few minutes passed. The servant put in her head once more, – 'Miss Gordon would be obliged if Miss Osborne would step into the parlour.' Kate rose. George bent over her, and whispered, – 'You will kiss your new sister when you meet her?' 'Yes, George. I wish you all the happiness in the world, my dear good brother. You deserve it.' Miss Osborne left. Once more the servant entered the room. 'Miss Gordon begs Mr Osborne to come to the parlour.' 'She wishes to introduce me to her friend,' thought he, as he set out. When he reached the parlour there were four people in it. His sweetheart, his sister, and a man whose back was towards him. Osborne advanced with a cordial, open smile. Nothing could please him more than to meet a friend of hers on this great day. 'Allow me,' said his radiant sweetheart, 'to introduce to you Miss Osborne's brother. Mr Osborne-' She paused, and laughed a rich, full laugh. 'By-the-way, although you are so old a friend of mine as you say, I do not know your name.' The man turned round, and Osborne looked at him. With a cry he started back. 'I think I have seen your face before,' said the stranger. 'Yes,' whispered Osborne. 'Your name is Parkinson.' 'It is.' George raised his eyes, and fixed them with a wild look on Marie's face.