Miles Tremenhere Volume Ii Part 6

"I will go," answered Minnie, pressing her hand warmly. "You are right, Mary; but do not you despond. I will see you again in a few days--now I will go at once."

And with a kind, gentle word to the sorrowing woman, she quitted the cottage, and, entering the fly awaiting her, drove rapidly towards home; and the brougham quitted its station too, and followed.

CHAPTER VI.

Minnie arrived at home, and, hastily taking off her walking-dress, sat down to think, as calmly as might be, of the events of that day. Despite all her efforts, a pang shot through her heart at the idea of seeing Miles. His temper had of late been so uncertain, that she trembled lest any fault should be imputed to herself; the more narrowly she examined her heart, the less could she find any thing to blame herself for in this affair. While she sat thus, Miles appeared at the outer gate. As he traversed the front garden, she thought she had never seen him look so pale; and, when he raised his eyes towards the windows, there was an intense look in them, which made their hazel darkness seem like blackest night--this was probably owing to the excessive pallor of his cheek and brow. When he entered the room where she sat, a choking sensation arose in his throat--he had paused, too, outside the door, to still the bounding of his heart. She rose to meet him; there was a smile on her lip, but it was forced, constrained--fear kept it from expanding into cheerfulness.

"You are home earlier than you promised to be, dear Miles," she said.

His eyes were riveted on her face. "Yes," he answered in a deep, hollow tone, which he endeavoured to render tranquil; "but I hope not less welcome for that?"

"Ever welcome--ever the one to come too late, and leave too early," she answered. "Where have you been, Miles?"

"In several places, Minnie,"--and he stifled almost a groan.

"Are you not well?" she inquired, delaying what she had to say in terror, and really anxious too about him; his pallor struck her as so unusual, but without one dawning thought of the truth.

"Quite well, Minnie; but I am weary--very weary," and he sunk exhausted in a chair--it was the mind which had lost all nerve. She drew a footstool close to his feet, and, in kneeling upon it, took both his hands in hers; but, in so doing, she did not feel the thrill which pa.s.sed over them; it was horror--the horror of doubt--no, she did not feel it; but holding them tightly, and leaning on his knees, she looked up in the face, whose rigid, intense gaze was fixed upon her uplifted countenance.

"Miles, I have something to tell you," she said at last; but her lip quivered as she spoke.

"Something to tell me!" he uttered, repeating her words; and a shadow of hope crossed over his face.

"Yes, dear Miles; but promise you will not fly in a pa.s.sion: you do not know how you terrify me in doing so. Hear all I have to say, and then let us, as calmly as may be, consult what is to be done." He could not speak; he was like one fluttering between life and death. She did not wait, however, for him to do so, but hurriedly told him the events of the morning; so anxious was she to say all, that she scarcely noticed his extraordinary silence. When she paused, he quietly drew his hands from hers, and still keeping his fixed gaze upon her, though the countenance had changed with every word of hers, still the eye had not one instant quitted her face. Withdrawing his hands, he placed them both on her shoulders as she knelt before him, and said in a low, measured tone, "Minnie, I know all you have told me; I followed you to-day. It may seem mean, unmanly, my doing so; but I was resolved to prove you--I knew all!"

"Knew all!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, shrinking back from his touch, as if it pained her.

"Why do you shrink from me, Minnie?"

"Because," she said, rising slowly to her feet, "you then have done it yourself, doubting, to prove me!"

"No, by heavens, I have not! Kneel down again, Minnie;" and he drew her reluctantly before him again. "Look upon me, Minnie, for I am your judge now, to hear, but not condemn. You have forced that character upon me; I came, fully determined to say nothing, to close my heart to proof and conviction, to bear all my wrongs, if such they were, and seek no elucidation, leaving all to time to prove you whatever you might be!"

"Oh, Miles--Miles!" she cried, looking up trembling in his face; "and can you suspect me still? And could you live with me a day, believing me so false to you?"

"Listen--I have pa.s.sed three hours of the bitterest anguish man ever suffered--a thousand mad thoughts and resolutions pa.s.sing through my brain; and at last I came to the determination which you know, for I, mere man, cannot fathom this affair. I would not for all the world condemn you; for though not a man p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tious thoughts, I feel there must be some demoniacal power in all this, Minnie," and he raised her face upwards in his hands. "You are either the falsest woman that ever drew breath--and if so, the breath which gives you life must be the vapour of h.e.l.l, from whence you draw it; or else there is a power around us which we cannot combat with, and 'tis best to still the heart's beatings, to subdue ourselves to callousness, and wait for time!

I am resolved _to bear_ and wait. Now, sit beside me here," and he rose and drew her to the ottoman calmly and composedly, "and shew me the letter you received."

She was so lost in terror at his extraordinary manner, that it was in vain she essayed to utter a word; in cold silence she placed the letter in his hand; he opened, and silently read it through, and over again.

"One of three persons wrote this letter," he said--"I, or Mary Burns, or Marmaduke Burton, for from childhood we had the same masters."

"'Tis Marmaduke Burton!" she cried with energy, seeing at last a path through this tangled forest of brushwood. "'Tis Marmaduke; for, as you must have seen, he came to Mary's cottage whilst Lord Randolph and I were there?"

A cold shudder pa.s.sed through Miles's heart, which had been awakening from its stupor of sorrow and suspicion, to take his proved faithful wife to it. This then, was the cause of her candour. Burton's most unexpected arrival at Mary's had induced her, from fear of discovery, to choose the wiser part, and tell him herself, lest another should! Oh, what a demon jealousy is! how unsleeping, how grasping in intellect; though all is perverted to harm!

"Tell me all that pa.s.sed," he uttered, without replying to her question; and, while she related, his mind formed all into the well-connected reality of a diseased brain. The same person who had so often warned him, none other than Marmaduke, had discovered this intrigue, and followed it up. The letter was probably written by Mary Burns, as an arm in Minnie's favour, should any thing be discovered by him; her absence, etc. Mary, who had once fallen, had doubly done so again, by pandering to the meetings of Lord Randolph and Minnie; he was a target for the scorn and contempt of all, and all these maddening thoughts pa.s.sed through his soul, leaving him in outward seeming calm. There is _nothing_ more fearful than this concentrated, chained pa.s.sion--'tis this which leads the best man to cold, deliberate murder. Silently he thought all this, and then, when the mind had compa.s.sed all his misery, it paused to deliberate on revenge. Then it was that mercy crept in, like the last ray of suns.h.i.+ne to the eyes dimmed by death, and he said to himself, "If she should be innocent still?"

And, lifting his eyes, they rested upon hers, troubled, but pure and holy in their dove-like innocence of expression.

"Minnie," he said, placing his arms around her, "I have many bitter thoughts in my heart. I am a very wretched man _now_--so happy once! But I feel my greatest sorrow would be your loss; as I before said to you, I _wish_ to think you innocent. I would rather know we were compa.s.sed by fiends, and be ever waging war with them in darkness, than know, or believe you false to me; _that_ would be my moral death, and make me the most reckless man on earth! I _will_ believe you innocent."

"I am, Miles; believe me. I have not even a thought which has ever wronged you."

"I will believe you, Minnie, against all evidence but proof," and he took the trembling woman to his heart, so shaken, but so true.

It cannot be imagined, that with that pardon, or reconciliation, Tremenhere became calm and happy; true it was, that Minnie never quitted home without him, scarcely ever quitted his side, but the mad dream which had been, left its trace on his every action; he was a broken-spirited man. His profession was a toil of every instant--a necessity, not a pleasure. He saw Minnie growing daily paler and sadder, and, though his heart ached to see it, still he could not overcome his sensations of doubt.

"She is perhaps fretting about Lord Randolph," he thought to himself, "and after all I said, in condemnation of her, poor child! she perhaps deserves more pity; for I took her almost one, from her home. She had seen no one to fancy herself in love with, till I came. Unjust coercion drove her into my arms; it was probably more from indignation than from love, yet, too, I think she loved me once," and here he pondered on many an unmistakeable proof of affection; her watchings for his return, the lighting up of the whole countenance, which no art could imitate. "Yes,"

he continued, "she certainly loved me once, but then she is of a gentle, loving nature; she knew not the vast difference between _affection_ and _love_, until _he_, perhaps, taught her. Poor child--poor Minnie! what a life of misery we have created for one another; but we must bear it, and linger on!"

And so completely did the thought take possession of his soul that these ideas were well founded, that for a while his feelings towards her a.s.sumed a tone of almost fatherly pity, so worn and old his heart felt.

He had vainly endeavoured to trace who sent the brougham, the letters--in short, to _prove_ it Marmaduke; but all failed.

The hire of the brougham, and order to send it to Chiswick, had been brought to the stables by a boy, who was not known or detained; there was nothing in the act to excite suspicion of wrong. He wrote to Lord Randolph a calm, deliberate letter, requesting, but in all politeness, that his visits might be discontinued. He was certain, he said, that Lord Randolph would see the absolute necessity of such a thing, after the many unaccountable circ.u.mstances which had taken place. And the "Aurora" was taken, unfinished, from her easel, and placed aside, and not a word on the subject pa.s.sed between Minnie and her husband; it was a state of coldness which could not last. The affair had been so painful a one, that by mutual consent neither ever spoke of it, nor even named it to Lady Dora, whose visits were not of very frequent occurrence. One day, however, she called, having been absent a month at Brighton; she was more excited than usually happened to her. After sitting some time in evident uneasiness, she at last begged Minnie to let her speak with her alone. Minnie rose to quit the drawing-room; she grew trembling; every thing new, startled her.

"I will not trouble your ladys.h.i.+p to leave the room," said Miles, rising coldly from his seat. "I am going to my studio; I should have remembered that husbands are often _de trop_."

"Pray, stay, Miles!" exclaimed Minnie, seizing his arm, like the Minnie of old. "There _can_ be nothing which you may not hear, that is, if it only concerns me," and she looked at Dora inquiringly.

"I should prefer speaking to you alone," answered the other coldly. "It is something which distresses me much, yet almost too painful, I hope, to be true."

"May I ask," said he, pausing on the threshold of the door, "if it be any thing relating to Lord Randolph Gray?"

"It is!" answered she, with a look of surprise.

"And--my wife?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation.

"Then you are not in ignorance of it?" she inquired, with an amazed look, mingled with one of contempt. "And you and Minnie are----"

"Friends, as you see," he said, turning back and reseating himself, and by a movement of generous feeling, taking his wife's trembling hand in his. "Now, Lady Dora," he continued, "you may tell all you have heard, and we may be able in a measure, to correct any inaccuracies."

"How do you mean, Mr. Tremenhere?" she said haughtily. "Do you accuse me of possible untruth?"

"Not you, Lady Dora, but your informant, whoever he may be."

"It was a lady," she replied. "The conversation turned one evening, in Brighton, on paintings; your name was mentioned flatteringly as an artist of genius," and then she paused. The remainder was embarra.s.sing to tell.

"Go on, Lady Dora," he said, in outward seeming calm.

"I had better tell you," she hastily rejoined; "for, if untrue, you may find means of silencing the slander."

"_If_," he uttered; "then your ladys.h.i.+p gives credit to the world's vile attack upon this poor girl; for I guess all you would say." Whatever his own fears at times might be in the warring of his spirit, he was resolved to uphold Minnie before all.

Lady Dora related all she had heard. In short, the whole affair of Minnie's discovery at Uplands, and her subsequent meeting with Lord Randolph at Mary's. It had been told with severe animadversions on the meanness of Mr. Tremenhere, whose marriage had been kept a secret from the world until this affair brought it to light, and who could receive his wife again, and even Lord Randolph, knowing, to say the least, of great imprudence on his wife's part. Much of this Lady Dora allowed to escape her, as having been freely discussed at the club to which Miles belonged.