Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete
through such trials, and amid such new ties, she had been faithful from
first to last. But when once more free, her heart flew back to the
far and lowly grave. Hence her yearly visits to Brook-Green; hence her
purchase of the cottage, hallowed by memories of the dead. There, on
that lawn, had she borne forth the fragile form, to breathe the soft
noontide air; there, in that chamber, had she watched and hoped, and
prayed and despaired; there, in that quiet burial-ground, rested the
beloved dust! But Alice, even in her holiest feelings, was not selfish:
she forbore to gratify the first wish of her heart till Evelyn's
education was sufficiently advanced to enable her to quit the
neighbourhood; and then, to the delight of Aubrey (who saw in Evelyn a
fairer, and nobler, and purer Eleanor), she came to the solitary spot,
which, in all the earth, was the _least_ solitary to her!
And now the image of the lover of her youth--which during her marriage
she had _sought_, at least, to banish--returned to her, and at times
inspired her with the only hopes that the grave had not yet transferred
to heaven! In relating her tale to Aubrey or in conversing with Mrs.
Leslie, whose friendship she still maintained, she found that both
concurred in thinking that this obscure and wandering Butler, so skilled
in an art in which eminence in man is generally professional, must be of
mediocre or perhaps humble station. Ah! now that she was free and rich,
if she were to meet him again, and his love was not all gone, and he
would believe in _her_ strange and constant truth; now, _his_ infidelity
could be forgiven,--forgotten in the benefits it might be hers to
bestow! And how, poor Alice, in that remote village, was chance to throw
him in your way? She knew not: but something often whispered to her,
"Again you shall meet those eyes; again you shall hear that voice; and
you shall tell him, weeping on his breast, how you loved his child!"
And would he not have forgotten her; would he not have formed new
ties?--could he read the loveliness of unchangeable affection in that
pale and pensive face! Alas, when we love intensely, it is difficult to
make us fancy that there is no love in return!
The reader is acquainted with the adventures of Mrs. Elton, the sole
confidant of the secret union of Templeton and Evelyn's mother. By a
singular fatality, it was the selfish and characteristic recklessness
of Vargrave that had, in fixing her home at Burleigh, ministered to the
revelation of his own villanous deceit. On returning to England she had
inquired for Mr. Templeton; she had learned that he had married again,
had been raised to the peerage under the title of Lord Vargrave, and was
gathered to his fathers. She had no claim on his widow or his family.
But the unfortunate child who should have inherited his property, she
could only suppose her dead.
When she first saw Evelyn, she was startled by her likeness to her
unfortunate mother. But the unfamiliar name of Cameron, the intelligence
received from Maltravers that Evelyn's mother still lived, dispelled her
suspicions; and though at times the resemblance haunted her, she doubted
and inquired no more. In fact, her own infirmities grew upon her, and
pain usurped her thoughts.
Now it so happened that the news of the engagement of Maltravers to
Miss Cameron became known to the county but a little time before
he arrived,--for news travels slow from the Continent to our
provinces,--and, of course, excited all the comment of the villagers.
Her nurse repeated the tale to Mrs. Elton, who instantly remembered the
name, and recalled the resemblance of Miss Cameron to the unfortunate
Mary Westbrook.
"And," said the gossiping nurse, "she was engaged, they say, to a great
lord, and gave him up for the squire,--a great lord in the court, who
had been staying at Parson Merton's, Lord Vargrave!"
"Lord Vargrave!" exclaimed Mrs. Elton, remembering the title to which
Mr. Templeton had been raised.
"Yes; they do say as how the late lord left Miss Cameron all his
money--such a heap of it--though she was not his child, over the head of
his nevy, the present lord, on the understanding like that they were to
be married when she came of age. But she would not take to him after she
had seen the squire. And, to be sure, the squire is the finest-looking
gentleman in the county."
"Stop! stop!" said Mrs. Elton, feebly; "the late lord left all
his fortune to Miss Cameron,--not his child! I guess the riddle! I
understand it all! my foster-child!" she murmured, turning away; "how
could I have mistaken that likeness?"
The agitation of the discovery she supposed she had made, her joy at the
thought that the child she had loved as her own was alive and possessed
of its rights, expedited the progress of Mrs. Elton's disease; and
Maltravers arrived just in time to learn her confession (which she
naturally wished to make to one who was at once her benefactor, and
supposed to be the destined husband of her foster-child), and to be
agitated with hope, with joy, at her solemn conviction of the truth of
her surmises. If Evelyn were not his daughter--even if not to be his
bride--what a weight from his soul! He hastened to Brook-Green; and
dreading to rush at once to the presence of Alice, he recalled Aubrey to
his recollection. In the interview he sought, all, or at least much, was
cleared up. He saw at once the premeditated and well-planned villany
of Vargrave. And Alice, her tale--her sufferings--her indomitable
love!--how should he meet _her_?
CHAPTER V.
YET once more, O ye laurels! and once more,
Ye myrtles!--LYCIDAS.
WHILE Maltravers was yet agitated and excited by the disclosures of the
curate, to whom, as a matter of course, he had divulged his own identity
with the mysterious Butler, Aubrey, turning his eyes to the casement,
saw the form of Lady Vargrave slowly approaching towards the house.
"Will you withdraw to the inner room?" said he; "she is coming; you are
not yet prepared to meet her!--nay, would it be well?"
"Yes, yes; I am prepared. We must be alone. I will await her here."
"But--"
"Nay, I implore you!"
The curate, without another word, retired into the inner apartment, and
Maltravers sinking in a chair breathlessly awaited the entrance of Lady
Vargrave. He soon heard the light step without; the door, which opened
at once on the old-fashioned parlour, was gently unclosed, and Lady
Vargrave was in the room! In the position he had taken, only the outline
of Ernest's form was seen by Alice, and the daylight came dim through
the cottage casement; and seeing some one seated in the curate's
accustomed chair, she could but believe that it was Aubrey himself.
"Do not let me interrupt you," said that sweet, low voice, whose music
had been dumb for so many years to Maltravers, "but I have a letter from
France, from a stranger. It alarms me so; it is about Evelyn;" and,
as if to imply that she meditated a longer visit than ordinary, Lady
Vargrave removed her bonnet, and placed it on the table. Surprised that
the curate had not answered, had not come forward to welcome her, she
then approached; Maltravers rose, and they stood before each other face
to face. And how lovely still was Alice! lovelier he thought even than
of old! And those eyes, so divinely blue, so dovelike and soft, yet with
some spiritual and unfathomable mystery in their clear depth, were once
more fixed upon him. Alice seemed turned to stone; she moved not,
she spoke not, she scarcely breathed; she gazed spellbound, as if her
senses--as if life itself--had deserted her.
"Alice!" murmured Maltravers,--"Alice, we meet at last!"
His voice restored memory, consciousness, youth, at once to her!
She uttered a loud cry of unspeakable joy, of rapture! She sprang
forward--reserve, fear, time, change, all forgotten; she threw herself
into his arms, she clasped him to her heart again and again!--the
faithful dog that has found its master expresses not his transport more
uncontrollably, more wildly. It was something fearful--the excess of her
ecstasy! She kissed his hands, his clothes; she laughed, she wept;
and at last, as words came, she laid her head on his breast, and said
passionately, "I have been true to thee! I have been true to thee!--or
this hour would have killed me!" Then, as if alarmed by his silence, she
looked up into his face, and as his burning tears fell upon her
cheek, she said again and with more hurried vehemence, "I _have_ been
faithful,--do you not believe me?"
"I do, I do, noble, unequalled Alice! Why, why were you so long lost to
me? Why now does your love so shame my own?"
At these words, Alice appeared to awaken from her first oblivion of all
that had chanced since they met; she blushed deeply, and drew herself
gently and bashfully from his embrace. "Ah," she said, in altered and
humbled accents, "you have loved another! Perhaps you have no love left
for me! Is it so; is it? No, no; those eyes--you love me--you love me
still!"
And again she clung to him, as if it were heaven to believe all things,
and death to doubt. Then, after a pause, she drew him gently with both
her hands towards the light, and gazed upon him fondly, proudly, as if
to trace, line by line, and feature by feature, the countenance which
had been to her sweet thoughts as the sunlight to the flowers. "Changed,
changed," she muttered; "but still the same,--still beautiful, still
divine!" She stopped. A sudden thought struck her: his garments were
worn and soiled by travel, and that princely crest, fallen and dejected,
no longer towered in proud defiance above the sons of men. "You are not
rich," she exclaimed eagerly,--"say you are not rich! I am rich enough
for both; it is all yours,--all yours; I did not betray you for it;
there is no shame in it. Oh, we shall be so happy! Thou art come back to
thy poor Alice! thou knowest how she loved thee!"
There was in Alice's manner, her wild joy, something so different from
her ordinary self, that none who could have seen her--quiet, pensive,
subdued--would have fancied her the same being. All that Society and
its woes had taught were gone; and Nature once more claimed her fairest
child. The very years seemed to have fallen from her brow, and she
looked scarcely older than when she had stood with him beneath the
moonlight by the violet banks far away. Suddenly, her colour faded; the
smile passed from the dimpled lips; a sad and solemn aspect succeeded
to that expression of passionate joy. "Come," she said, in a whisper,
"come, follow;" and still clasping his hand, she drew him to the door.
Silent and wonderingly he followed her across the lawn, through the
moss-grown gate, and into the lonely burial-ground. She moved on with
a noiseless and gliding step,--so pale, so hushed, so breathless, that
even in the noonday you might have half fancied the fair shape was not
owned by earth. She paused where the yew-tree cast its gloomy shadow;
and the small and tombless mound, separated from the rest, was before
them. She pointed to it, and falling on her knees beside it, murmured,
"Hush, it sleeps below,--thy child!" She covered her face with both her
hands, and her form shook convulsively.
Beside that form and before that grave knelt Maltravers. There
vanished the last remnant of his stoic pride; and there--Evelyn herself
forgotten--there did he pray to Heaven for pardon to himself, and
blessings on the heart he had betrayed. There solemnly did he vow, the
remainder of his years, to guard from all future ill the faithful and
childless mother.
CHAPTER VI.
WILL Fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
_Henry IV._ Part ii.
I PASS over those explanations, that record of Alice's eventful history,