"Since I have placed my trust in GodA refuge always nigh,Why should I, like a timorous bird,To yonder mountain fly."
"Since I have placed my trust in GodA refuge always nigh,Why should I, like a timorous bird,To yonder mountain fly."
But erroneous as might have been the cause of action, crooked the path he had been morbidly driven to pursue; innumerable causes seemed now to oppose the conduct that angel-like minister with unworldly and too prevailing voice now urged him to pursue. No, for the present let it suffice that she was saved from a fate, which apart from all selfish feelings, he feared for her worse than death; for the rest, matters must take their natural course, work out their own intended end, swayed by the hand which ruleth the universe—much more the affairs of the sons of men; for neither to blind chance, or what men call fate, did Eustace Trevor commit his ways.
My gentle lad, what is't you readRomance or fairy fable?Or is it some historic pageOf kings and crowns unstable?The young boy gave an upward glare:"It is the death of Abel!"HOOD.
My gentle lad, what is't you readRomance or fairy fable?Or is it some historic pageOf kings and crowns unstable?The young boy gave an upward glare:"It is the death of Abel!"
HOOD.
It was about ten days after the event recorded in the last chapter, that Mary Seaham, for the first time since her illness, came down stairs; and wearied by the exertion, and left comparatively alone—for Mrs. de Burgh was driving with her little girl, and Mr. de Burgh, and her brother—who had arrived to take his sister away as soon as she was sufficiently strong enough to move—were also from home; only the quiet, eldest boy remained to keep her company.
She was lying late in the afternoon upon the drawing-room sofa, the effects of her still lingering weakness causing a dreamy feeling of weariness to creep over her. Struggling with the sensation, and wishing to arouse herself, she now and then opened her languid eyes, and spoke to her little companion, who sat so seriously at the foot of the couch, amusing himself with the book upon his knee—his favourite book of scripture prints and stories.
He was an interesting and peculiar child, very unlike the girl, who had all theeveillé, excitable disposition of her mother—or the high-spirited, most beautiful child, the youngest boy, of whom his parents were so proud and fond.
"What are you reading, Charlie?" Mary inquired.
"About Cain and Abel. Here is the picture of Cain, that dark, bad man, who hated his brother Abel," the child replied.
"And why did he hate him, Charlie?"
"Because his brother's works were good, and his were evil."
"It is very dreadful not to love one's brother. Always love your's, Charlie," Mary said mournfully.
"I do love him," the boy answered with simple earnestness, lifting up his expressive eyes to his gentle monitor's face; "and look," he continued, sidling closer to her side, "here are two other brothers, who once did not love one another; and one was obliged to go and live for a great many years in a far-off country; but see here, he is returned, and the brothers have forgiven one another; and," continuing in the words of the scripture explanation written in the page, "'Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.' That is a nicer picture, Mary, than that of Cain and Abel, for Abel there is dead, and Cain can never be forgiven; but must wander about the earth with a mark upon his forehead, lest people should kill him; but Jacob and Esau might be friends on earth, and meet again in heaven."
Mary placed her hand fondly and gratefully on the head of her dear little expositor. A tear of happier feeling trembling amidst the lashes of her drooping eyelids, than had gushed for many a day from her perplexed and troubled spirit, for she thought of two other brothers, who, through the mercy of God, were still spared on earth—the one to forgive, the other to be forgiven; and a calm, peaceful, expression stole over the sweet countenance whose placid serenity distressing thoughts had of late so sadly disturbed, till at length, as Charlie went on to read to her, at full, the history, as he said, "of another brother—the best brother of all." "Even Joseph, who was sold for a servant, whose feet they hurt in the stocks, who was laid in irons, until the time came that he was delivered, the word of the Lord tried him;" but who yet, when his brothers were brought to bow down before him, he spoke kindly to them, even to those who had done him such grievous wrong, and kissed them, and wept over them, and made them as rich and happy as he could—the soft monotony of the child's voice lulled her senses to repose; and with that glittering tear still moistening her drooping lashes, and a smile, sweet and innocent as might have been that of the child by her side, she peacefully slept.
The boy's voice then sunk to a whisper, and so absorbed was he in his interesting task, and the carpet of the saloon so thick and soft, that he perceived or heard nothing till a darkening shadow fell upon his book.
Then he quietly lifted up his serious eyes, and beheld a tall stranger gentleman standing at a little distance before him. But the stranger was not looking at him, the little boy: his full, dark eyes were bent with earnest intensity upon the sleeping Mary, who, as she lay there with that still serenity of brow, that look almost of child-like innocence which sleep, like death, sometimes brings back to the countenance, might have well suggested to the recollection of the gazer these beautiful lines of Mrs. Hemans, "The Sleeper:"
"Oh lightly, lightly tread,Revere the pale still brow,The meekly drooping head,The long hair's willowy flow."Ye know not what ye do,That call the slumberer backFrom the world unseen by you,Unto life's dim, faded track."Her soul is far awayIn her childhood's land perchance,Where her young sisters play,Where shines her brother's glance."Some old sweet native sound,Her spirit haply weaves;A harmony profound,Of woods with all their leaves."A murmur of the sea,A laughing tone of streams;Long may her sojourn beIn the music land of dreams."
"Oh lightly, lightly tread,Revere the pale still brow,The meekly drooping head,The long hair's willowy flow.
"Ye know not what ye do,That call the slumberer backFrom the world unseen by you,Unto life's dim, faded track.
"Her soul is far awayIn her childhood's land perchance,Where her young sisters play,Where shines her brother's glance.
"Some old sweet native sound,Her spirit haply weaves;A harmony profound,Of woods with all their leaves.
"A murmur of the sea,A laughing tone of streams;Long may her sojourn beIn the music land of dreams."
The stranger's rivetted regard seemed to attract the young Charlie's also, for he now turned his eyes upon the slumberer, and then, as if equally attracted by the angelic sweetness of her expression at that moment, or wishing to demonstrate to the intruder the privileged position he held with respect to the object of their joint attention, he slid still nearer to Mary's pillow, and gently kissed her cheek; then, again looking up, something remarkable in the stranger's mien and countenance—something mournful and tender, yet altogether more noble and beautiful than he had perhaps ever seen before upon the face of man, seemed to inspire favour and confidence in his innocent breast; for the little fellow smiled benignantly and trustfully, as, holding out his hand, he said softly:
"And you may kiss her too, if you like; but very gently: you must not wake her, she has been so ill, poor thing!"
At these words his listener started, dropped the little hand he had kindly taken, the crimson blood suffusing his brow. He cast one hurried glance on the object of their conversation, then with irresolute quietness turned away, and paced the room with hushed but rapid steps, as if to calm some sudden storm of troubled feeling, the boy's innocently spoken words had awakened in his breast.
When next he paused before the couch, the deep flush had passed away, leaving his countenance paler than before, though calmer and more composed; and smiling kindly upon the watchful child, as if to promise him that his injunctions should not be disregarded, he reverently stooped, and "very gently," as the boy had enjoined, touched with his lips the fair white hand which drooped by Mary's side; and when again he raised his head, the wondering child perceived a tear glistening in the tall, pale stranger's eye. And no wonder if the heart of Eustace Trevor swelled with peculiar emotion at that moment! The last time his lips had pressed the form of woman it had been in that kiss of agony, in "that last kiss which never was the last," which, in his strong despair and mighty anguish, he had imprinted on the cold, cold brow of his mother, ere they hid her from his sight for ever!—his then only beloved on earth, with whom all the light and hope of his existence would be quenched for ever!
And must he not now turn away from her he had learnt since to love, with a love such as he had thought never again to feel on earth?—from that being, fair, and gentle, and good as the object of his soul's first pure, faithful idolatry: she whose sleeping smile—cold, pale and tranquil almost as that which had greeted his arrival that night of never-to-be-forgotten misery—now welcomed the exile on his homeless, hearthless, desolate return!
Must he turn away, and never look onher—never look on Mary thus again? Was it the last time, as it had been the first, that he should ever dare to press that dear hand as now he had done? Nay, more—must he see it given to another?—would he be called upon to crown the measure of that generous mercy with which he had come, his heart overflowing—by withdrawing the restraining hand he had, for the few last years, held between his unnatural enemy, and that innocent object of his enemy's covetous affections? Was he to be called upon—yes, perhaps by Mary herself—to abstain from his threatened exposure of the past, and stand from between Eugene and herself?—now, in his hour of triumph, to be merciful, generous and forgiving in this also?
For why else did he see her here?—why, if the purport of her letter still held good, that she had bade adieu—cancelled for ever her engagement with her former lover? Why, then, was she here, in the very place where she had first fallen into this dangerous snare?
Ah, no!—he saw it all too plainly! Impelled by the impulse of a woman's mistaken, but generous devotion, her lover's fallen fortunes, whilst engaging her pity, had redeemed his offences in her eyes, and recalled her alienated affections; that she was here, like a ministering angel, to assure him of this—to console him, to sympathize; perhaps to ward off, by her intercession, the disgrace and ruin to which his injured brother's dreaded coming threatened to overwhelm the object of her solicitude.
But he had no time to dwell on these things. There had been something in his touch, light as it had been, which proved sufficient to break the charm of slumber. Mary slowly unclosed her eyes, and murmuring:
"Are you there, Charlie?" looked up and beheld her new companion. One uncertain bewildered gaze she fixed upon his face, then gliding to her feet cried: "Mr. Trevor, are you really come?" and burst into tears.
"Yes, Miss Seaham, I am come," was the reply, in a voice trembling with emotion; and taking the hands she had extended towards him, gently reseated her on the sofa, and sat down by her side, looking with earnest mournfulness in her face.
"Yes, I am come, and thank you for this feeling welcome, which is but too much required, for you may well imagine what a coming, one such as mine must be."
"Yes, yes," she murmured through her fast falling tears; "I know, I feel it must be a fearful trial; your father's dreadful death, the melancholy destruction of your home. But—but, Mr. Trevor, it is the hand of the Almighty—His great and terrible hand—we must look upon it as such; and," lifting up her streaming eyes, "hope for His loving-mercies to shine forth once again. There has been much of dark and terrible in the past, but let us pray that the future may atone. Yes, you have returned, and all may still be right."
"You think so," he replied gently, but still most mournfully; then averting his face, added in low and sterner accents of interrogation: "and my brother?"
"He has been ill," was Mary's low reply, "suffering, it is to be feared, as much from mental anxiety as from physical pain. Oh, Mr. Trevor, your coming to him indeed must prove a relief—a relief from the worst of sufferings—suspense."
"What has he to fear?" demanded Eustace Trevor.
"What? You will learn too soon the desperate nature of your brother's position, unless, indeed, he finds in you one more generous and forgiving than he has any right or reason to expect."
Mary spoke earnestly, but with firmness, almost severity; and as she uttered these last words Eustace Trevor turned and anxiously regarded her.
"Eugene need have no fears on any pecuniary account," he again repeated; "he will find in me one who cannot set too low a value on that of which he strove so hard to deprive me. Surely you, Miss Seaham, could not have believed me capable of so poor and contemptible a spirit of revenge, as to entertain any doubt or fear as regards my conduct in that respect?"
"No, no," Mary replied, with trembling fervour; "I might have rested well assured as to what must be the high and holy character ofyourrevenge. 'If your enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink;' and oh, Mr. Trevor, by so doing, coals of fire will indeed be heaped upon your unhappy brother's head. But, alas! canhesuppose you capable of such magnanimity—he of so different a spirit to your own?"
There was a spirit in the mild eyes, a colour on the pale cheek turned towards him, as she thus expressed herself, which caused a corresponding glow to illumine the countenance of her listener, and with still greater earnestness he regarded her.
Mary turned away, bending her head over the boy, who had again drawn caressingly to her side, whilst in low, faltering accents she replied to his inquiries, whether she had come to Silverton since the fire?
"No, the afternoon before it had occurred."
"Had she seen his brother?"
"She had, contrary to her cousin Olivia's promise, that so painful and useless an ordeal should be spared her. She had found him at Silverton on her arrival. It had been an interview most distressing and repugnant to her feelings at the time, though the startling and terrible events, which so closely succeeded, had in a great degree diverted her mind from any selfish consideration. She had since then been very ill. Her illness had detained her at Silverton, but this I shall not regret," she added. "I shall now depart with the happy consciousness, which I have not experienced for the last few years, that all is right which has been for long so very wrong, my mind relieved of its harassing weight of doubt, darkness and perplexity."
"Yes, your sense of disinterested justice may be satisfied; but your heart, will it remain equally so? The cause which you have so generously espoused, established; will not other feelings re-assert their power, and my brother again triumph in the possession of that which, to call my own, I would gladly have cast at his feet the richest inheritance on earth?"
These words were uttered with almost breathless agitation.
"No," was the reply in a voice so low and trembling that the anxious listener had to hold his breath to catch its accents; "such feelings have long been destroyed, and can never re-assert their influence. Even pity is done away save for the wounded conscience, which he who once I loved must carry with him through life; yes, pity even is now scarcely to be excited; and love—can love survive esteem?"
With a jealous, yearning glance Eustace Trevor watched the tears again falling from the agitated speaker's eyes, kissed away by the sympathising child; and then he rose and began again to pace the room as if to stem some fresh torrent of inward emotion which stirred within his breast. But at this juncture the door opened abruptly, and in another moment Eustace Trevor's hand was clasped in Louis de Burgh's, who, followed by Arthur Seaham, entered the room; and Mary, leaning on her brother's arm, left the re-united friends together.
Flesh and blood,You brother mine, that entertained ambition,Expelled remorse and nature,* * * * *I do forgive thee,Unnatural as thou art—Forgive thy rankest fault.TEMPEST.
Flesh and blood,You brother mine, that entertained ambition,Expelled remorse and nature,* * * * *I do forgive thee,Unnatural as thou art—Forgive thy rankest fault.
TEMPEST.
Arthur Seaham stood at the hall door two days after, looking out for the carriage which was to convey himself and sister from Silverton, some delay having been occasioned by the non-arrival of the post-horses.
Suddenly a single horse's hoof was heard approaching, and he had but just time to retreat out of observation, when Eugene Trevor rode up to the door.
Arthur Seaham could not but feel shocked at his altered appearance—his haggard countenance, and the strong marks of mental suffering it exhibited. His very form seemed bowed down by the sudden weight of care and anxiety which had fallen upon him; and when, having dismounted, and rang the bell, he stood there, whilst waiting for the servant to attend the summons, unconscious of human regard, holding his horse's rein;—there was something touching to the young man's kindly heart, in the manner in which Eugene Trevor stroked the glossy mane of the noble animal as it rubbed its head against his master's shoulder, looking up affectionately into his face.
The action seemed as expressively as words to say:
"Poor fellow! it must go hard indeed with me before I can make up my mind to part with you; in your eye, at least, is none of the suspicion and distrust I plainly perceive in every other." And softened by this touch of nature, and remembering the attachment to his sister—sincere he believed at the time, which like a fair flower amongst noxious plants had shewn his nature to be so capable of better things—a feeling of regret was excited in Arthur Seaham's mind that that "root of all evil," the promoter of "every foolish and hurtful lust—the love of money," should ever have struck its baneful fibres in this man's heart.
Eugene Trevor had demanded a personal interview with his brother previous to his departure for London, through the lawyer who for many years had been the legal adviser of the family, and whom he still retained on his own account. Eustace Trevor had deemed it expedient to call in another man of business for himself. This person was now at Silverton, with some of the necessary documents connected with the property now devolving upon him; and Mr. de Burgh proposed the meeting of the brothers should take place there.
It was with perfect unconsciousness of what awaited her, that Mary Seaham entered the library some few minutes after, in order to bid adieu to her cousins, who, she had been told, were awaiting her there.
She had closed the door behind her before perceiving her mistake, and stood rooted to the spot with feelings the nature of which may be better imagined than described, at finding herself at this critical moment in the presence of the brothers—those two beings with whom her fate had been so strangely, so intricately involved.
Yes, there stood the one, with look and bearing almost like that said to have distinguished man before the Fall:
"Erect and tall—Godlike erect, with native honour clad,Within whose looks divine the image of the glorious Maker shone,Truth, wisdom, sanctitude, severe and pure.His fair large front and eye sublime"—
"Erect and tall—Godlike erect, with native honour clad,Within whose looks divine the image of the glorious Maker shone,Truth, wisdom, sanctitude, severe and pure.
His fair large front and eye sublime"—
Irradiated with that attribute of God himself—a free and full forgiveness of an enemy.
And the other—with whom might his aspect at that moment suggest comparison? Alas! we fear but to
"That least erected spirit that fellFrom Heaven; whose looks and thoughts even in HeavenWere always downwards bent, admiring moreThe riches of Heaven's pavement trodden gold,Than aught divine or holy there."
"That least erected spirit that fellFrom Heaven; whose looks and thoughts even in HeavenWere always downwards bent, admiring moreThe riches of Heaven's pavement trodden gold,Than aught divine or holy there."
For as there he sat, even as he had done when suddenly confronted that night with his offended, injured brother, in the room of the London hotel, with bent brow and lowering eye, half defiance and half fear; so now still more he seemed to shrink into abject nothingness before him, abashed and confounded by the majestic power of goodness—the awful loveliness of a virtuous and noble revenge. For a few grave, calm, but gentle words from Eustace Trevor's lips had already set his anxious fears at rest—had assured him that the well-merited ruin with which the overthrow, so sudden and unlooked-for, of his unrighteous hopes and machinations had threatened to overwhelm him, would be averted.
And there stood Mary, pale and motionless. Whilst from one to another wandered her distressed and startled glance, she yet saw and marked the contrast; saw—and mourned in spirit that thus too late her eyes were opened; that thus, for the first time, had been presented, side by side to her enlightened perception, the brother whom in her deceived imagination she had so blindly chosen—the one she had so ignorantly refused.
Yes, too late—for could she dare now to lift her eyes to own the full, but tardy abnegation of every thought and feeling of her heart, as well as understanding, to the noble being it had lost?
Oh, no! for those two last days that they had passed under the same roof together—in the same manner, as she had seemed to shrink, with timid, lowly, self-abasement from the brother of her discarded lover, had Eustace Trevor appeared almost equally to avoid any close communion with that brother's alienated love. It was, therefore, influenced by these considerations, that after her first astounded pause, feeling that it was now impossible to retreat, and scarcely knowing what she did, Mary approached the table over which Eugene Trevor had been leaning on her entrance, but now had risen—holding out her hand, as her kindly heart perhaps, under any circumstances, would have instinctively dictated towards any being suffering under like vicissitude; but something in the grasp which closed over it—a detaining grasp, such as that with which the miser may be supposed to clasp some treasure on the point of making itself wings to fly away, seemed to distress and perplex her.
She turned with downcast eyes towards Eustace Trevor. His face, as she had approached his brother, had been averted with an expression in which, perhaps, was more of human weakness than it had before exhibited; but now he turned again and gratefully received the other she extended, in sign of parting, then as gently released it; and standing thus between the brothers, all the noble self-forgetfulness of Mary's nature seemed to revive within her. She felt that through her means the gulph had further widened which kept them apart—that she had been the shadow between their hearts, as now she stood in person—it was over now for ever. She was to go from between them—from him towards whom her heart had too late inclined, and from him from whom it had declined. Let her last act be at least one more blest in its effects, than had been hitherto her destiny to produce concerning them.
With a smile, faint, sad, and tearful, such as might have seemed almost to plead forgiveness from the one whom she ceased, and the one whom she had learnt too late, to love, she again extended her hands, and with a gentle movement joined those of the brothers together; then hurried from the room.
A few moments more, and Mr. de Burgh who was on his way to seek her had conducted her to the carriage, and Arthur springing in by her side; once more Mary Seaham was driven far away from Silverton.
And the brothers—taken by surprise by Mary's abrupt departure, the eyes of both had followed her from the room with an expression in which emotion of no common kind was visible; then turned silently from one another, only too anxious to be released from a situation, of which they could not but mutually feel the increased delicacy and embarrassment; the lawyers were summoned to their presence; and if a few minutes before Eugene Trevor had pursued with wistful glance the retreating form of Mary, the still more anxious brow and eager eye with which he might have been seen soon after entering with those gentlemen into the discussion of the settlement of his intricate affairs, plainly testified that for him at least there was, as there had ever been closer affections twined about his heart—deeper interests at stake than any that were connected with that pale sad girl, who for so long had hovered like a redeeming angel round his path, but who now turned away her light from himfor ever.
Not so Eustace Trevor, as absent and inattentive he sat abstractedly by, or paced with anxious steps the boundary of the library, joining only when directly appealed to, or addressed, in the matters under discussion. It was plainly apparent how light and trifling the weight he attached to the heavy demand made under his sanction upon his generous liberality.
Only once he paused, and with more fixed attention looked upon his brother with an expression in which something of noble contempt seemed to curl his lip and to flash forth from his eye.
Perhaps the part he saw him play on this occasion recalled to his remembrance another scene of similar, yet contrary character, when he had found that brother seated in the library of Montrevor, with as much anxious avidity superintending arrangements of no such disinterested nature as those of which he now so graspingly availed himself.
But it was for a moment that any such invidious reminiscences retained their place within that generous soul. Soon had they vanished, as they came—the fire from his eye, the curl from his lip. And again Eustace Trevor paced the room—and thought on Mary.
A few months more, and Eugene Trevor, having settled his affairs to his entire satisfaction—thanks to the most generous and forgiving of brothers—had left England for the continent; and that same space of time found Eustace Trevor established in the neighbourhood of Montrevor, surrounded by admiring, and congratulating friends; superintending the improvement of his property, and making arrangements for the erection of a new mansion on the site of the one destroyed, but chiefly employed in acts of charity and beneficence towards the hitherto neglected poor and necessitous surrounding him, causing many a heart to sing for joy, who for many a long year had prayed and sued in vain at the wealthy miser's door.
Alas! the maiden sighed since firstI said: 'Oh, fountain, read my doom.'What vainest fancies have I nursed,Of which I am myself the tomb!L. E. L.
Alas! the maiden sighed since firstI said: 'Oh, fountain, read my doom.'What vainest fancies have I nursed,Of which I am myself the tomb!
L. E. L.
It was a beautiful evening of that next summer year, and a large family-party was assembled at Glan Pennant, now again inhabited by its rightful owner, Arthur Seaham: the handsome dowry of his lovely bride, Carrie Elliott, joined to the emolument derived from the rapid and promising rise in his profession, having enabled him to take possession of his much loved home on his marriage, about a twelve month since.
Not only were Alice Gillespie and her family the guests of the young couple; but Lady Everingham, their eldest sister, who had returned from India, and the beautiful Selina, whose husband was shortly to follow, was staying with their children at Plas-Glyn, with the Morgans; and no evening passed without, as may be supposed, some reunion of this sort taking place at one or the other of the neighbouring residences. But there was one still wanting, on this present occasion, without whom such gatherings could not be complete—one, regarded with a kind of peculiar love by each there present, though by none, perhaps, with such especial tenderness as by the young master and mistress of Glan Pennant; and ever and anon the question as to when Mary would return, and what could have kept her out so late, was heard repeated: the children of the party going back to Plas-Glyn, sorrowful at not having been able to wish that dear Aunt Mary good night.
Some one, at length, remarked that Mr. Wynne had not been seen for the last day or two. Arthur Seaham observed, in reply, that he had been expecting a visitor, with whom he had been probably occupied; and he and Carrie exchanged looks of some significance.
Mary was not a partner in their secret understanding. Calmly, as was her wont, she had been returning homeward, with the happy consciousness that her presence that day had lighted up many a face with sunshine—bound up by its consolation, many a wounded heart—that she could lay her head on her pillow that night, and feel that she had to-day lived to God, and to her fellow-creatures.
And truly many a tongue blessed, and many an eye turned with love and respect, as they looked upon that sweet pale face, returning slowly from her wanderings amongst them. Mary knew she was expected home to tea, but having turned a wistful eye towards her favourite hill, now all red and glowing in the early sunset, finally began the ascent; and once more we see her seated on that cool, quiet spot, her eye fixed on the same fair scene she had viewed with such fond, but hopeful regret, on the evening of her last departure from her mountain-home. And, oh! it was on such occasions, when hours of languid ease returned like this she now enjoyed, that Mary felt the urgent necessity of bracing up her mind and nerves by a course of healthy action, by carrying out into practice the lesson which the great trial of her early youth had taught her—"Patience, abnegation of self, and devotion to others." For then would she feel stealing over her senses the spirit of those days, when she had walked the earth overshadowed by a dream. Yes, the spirit of her dream had changed since last we followed Mary Seaham to this charmed spot!—the shadows of hopes at that time vaguely cherished in her breast, soon, to her sorrow, so wonderfully realized, had passed away for ever, as their idol object had been torn from its shrine.
And now this purer, nobler image, reared upon the crumbled image of the former, engendered by no ideal dreams—no morbid fantasy, but which, by the force of its own glorious strength and beauty, had won its victory over her soul—must this be also doomed to perish—to fade away into a haunting shadow of the past?
Yes, Eustace Trevor must be to her as one dead—not absent!—the dream be dissipated, for the hope was vain on which it was founded: vain—and incompatible with the pure, calm hope it was now the desire of her heart to aspire.
Not very long, therefore, did Mary allow herself to indulge in the beguiling luxury of her solitary repose; but remembering that there were loving hearts at home awaiting her return, she aroused herself from the spirit of reverie which was stealing over her, and waiting but to pluck some few sprigs of the first white heath of the season, with one last, lingering look on the fading beauties of the landscape, she rose and turned to depart; but as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder,
"Still she stood with her lips apart,And forgotten, the flowerets dropped from her fingers,Whilst to her eyes and her cheeks, came the light andThe bloom of the morning."
"Still she stood with her lips apart,And forgotten, the flowerets dropped from her fingers,Whilst to her eyes and her cheeks, came the light andThe bloom of the morning."
For it was no dream—no deluding vision of her imagination out of which she was called to awake—a shadow indeed was upon her path, but it was the form of Eustace Trevor, which in its noble reality stood before her!
The conversation which ensued was not so lengthened as that which had taken place between Edward Temple and Mary Seaham, on that same spot some six years ago; but need we say that its issue was of a very different character, and that this time Eustace did not descend the hill alone.
Mr. Wynne was waiting at the gate of Glan Pennant, when at length the stately figure of his friend, and leaning on his arm the fair and fragile form of Mary,
"The dew on the plaid, and the tear in her e'e,"
"The dew on the plaid, and the tear in her e'e,"
appeared in sight.
Hastening to meet them, he wrung the hand of Mary with emotion, but bade her go in fast and make the tea which had been waiting for her ever so long—the water getting cold whilst she was after her old tricks, dreaming on the hills; and Mary, with a grateful smile, having returned the fervent pressure of her good old friend, in broken accents, promised that she would dream no more.
She was not indeed free from a deep debt of gratitude to Mr. Wynne, for it was he who, it may be said, had formed the cementing link between the fates of Mary Seaham and Eustace Trevor.
Not that any such was wanting to maintain the strongly rooted attachment of Eustace towards Mary. It was one which must ever have exerted a sensible and indelible influence over his future life, as it had done over the few last years of his past existence. But there were scruples in his mind, the result perhaps of that extreme susceptibility conspicuous in his character, on every point of delicacy or honour, which restrained him from yielding himself to the delightful hope of obtaining the beloved of his brother for his wife; and it was these morbid scruples, as he deemed them, that Mr. Wynne had made every effort to overcome, and that not so much by direct argument, as by bringing before his friend's imagination the lovely picture of Mary's present existence, finally declaring that, through the daily increasing heavenliness of her life and conversation, she was growing so much too good for this world, that they should not be allowed to retain her long amongst them, did not some earthly tie of a very binding nature give her some motive for interest here below; and there was one alone he felt convinced could have that power—for that some secret grief, some sorrow unspoken, unsuspected—some strongly crushed affection, lay at the bottom of Mary Seaham's outwardly calm and patient demeanour, and this in no way connected with the old delusion of her youth, her old friend felt but too well assured.
So on this hint it was that Eustace Trevor came—came with a heart all yearning, tremulous tenderness and solicitude—and once more on the Welsh hill-side, laid the hope and happiness of his future life at the feet of Mary Seaham.
And the world—that part of it at least which had known of the engagement subsisting between Mary and Eugene Trevor—might remark on the singular and interesting circumstance of her union with the elder brother; but as the general understanding had been, that through Eugene's own fault his engagement had been dissolved, and his change of position considerably altering that same charitable world's estimation of the younger brother's character, there were few inclined to make any invidious comment on the new arrangement, nor deem it anything but one—most wise, fortunate, and just.
There was, however, amongst Mary's friends, one who seemed inclined at first to frown on the affair—Mrs. de Burgh was loth to the last to let fall the weapons of defence she had always wielded in behalf of her old favourite, and maintained, that if there was a law against a marriage with two brothers, she considered consecutive attachment to each equally to be repudiated. But as she could not well carry out the argument which her husband so triumphantly derided, she in the end let the subject drop; and finally, with as much kindly warmth as she had bestowed upon the beloved of Eugene, received beneath her roof the bride of Eustace Trevor.
As we are upon the subject, we might as well regretfully state, that Silverton has never yet become quite the perfect seat of conjugal felicity we would fain have left it, but that petty bickerings and debates still occasionally desecrate its inner walls.
Still we hope that, though there are no very conspicuous symptoms of reform, the evil is somewhat on the decrease; that the fair Olivia, as she grows older, steadies down in a degree her high-wrought expectations and ideas; and her husband, in proportion, softens away his asperity and selfish disregard, allowing his natural amiability of disposition to have its own way towards his wife, as well as to the rest of the world. Whilst, at the same time, was there not a mansion in the neighbourhood where a perfect pattern of unity and godly love was exhibited, such as put to shame every spirit of domestic strife which approached it?
In fact, the prosperity of the de Burghs continues so unabated, so little else do they find in life to ruffle the even tenor of their lot, that if they do still indulge in a few domestic quarrels, it would seem to be, that, preserved from every other exciting cause of trouble and annoyance, it must be on the principle adopted by two little sisters of our acquaintance, who, on being reproved for their continual squabbles with one another, begged that they might not be deprived of this privilege, saying that it would take from them their greatest amusement; in short, be so very dull, if they were not allowed to quarrel.
The Eustace Trevors first went abroad: there they revisited those scenes they had last viewed together under such different auspices, but which had been the period from which Mary dated the current of her fate to have been turned—a purer, nobler image to have risen on the ruins of the old; and Eustace Trevor—blessed beyond conception, finds himself in the enjoyment of that most ambitioned privilege, the guide and guardian of his Mary, beneath skies which seemed to grow still "fairer for her sake."
In about a year's time, they returned to England, where the new mansion awaited their reception. The mansion had been rebuilt much on the same plan as the other, only the position and arrangement of the library was entirely altered. One room, as far as it were possible, had been remodelled by Eustace after the fashion of the original—that one in which at once his happiest and his most agonizing hours in that old home might be said to have been spent.
Mary did not tell her husband, as they sat together in the sunny window of that apartment, the very afternoon of their arrival, what associations were in her mind connected with that place.
Eustace Trevor had had no personal communication with his brother since they parted at Silverton. It is easier for the offended to forgive than the offender to be forgiven, and no true reconcilement could ever heal the wounds, which his injured brother's generous conduct had impressed on Eugene's galled conscience. Besides, what sympathy could exist between two natures so different? what intercourse be established between two individuals whose course of conduct and habits of life were so widely apart?
What were Eugene Trevor's feelings when he heard of Mary Seaham's marriage with his brother, we cannot exactly define; but that it placed only a more decisive barrier between their personal intercourse, may be imagined. He lived on his handsome younger brother's income of two thousand a-year, in London; his brother having paid all his debts, and thus added to his legitimate claim of ten thousand pounds to which alone he was entitled.
The brothers met occasionally in London; but Eugene never accepted any invitation to visit Montrevor, nor was he scarcely heard of amongst his former country friends. Even Silverton was deserted by him.
Some say that the avaricious parsimony of his father is growing rapidly upon him, and this and many other similarities of character and conduct which year after year develop themselves, may well cause Mary gratefully to rejoice that she was suffered before too late to redeem the error ofher first mistaken choice.
LONDON:Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street
[Transcriber's Note: Hyphen and spelling variations within each volume and between volumes left as printed.]