The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories
have a game of ‘Magical Music.’ Tom, will you go out first? That’s
right; now, girls, what shall we hide? Oh, papa’s keys; they will do,
and then, if he wants them, he will take quite an interest in coming
and joining in the game himself.”
I resigned my seat, and stole a hasty glance at the other end of the
room. Mrs. Rodwell was busily engaged upon her knitting, and Bruce was
sitting on an ottoman close by Amy’s side; so, gasping for fresh air
and one moment’s solitude, and unperceived by the laughing group of
children, I left the apartment and ran hastily up to the bedroom which
I had first entered. The gas was lighted there, and the fire burned
warmly on the hearth, but in my present state of feeling neither
warmth nor light was what I most desired. I felt as though I were
choking--as though, if no relief were at hand, I must scream aloud, or
dash my head against the wall, for my nerves were overstrung, and the
demon of hysteria was gaining strength with every minute, and I almost
feared would win the victory. But pride came to my assistance--that
mighty supporter of human weakness--and flying to the window, I raised
the sash and leaned my head out of it, drinking in deep draughts of
the foggy night air. And as I did so, watching the bustle in the
street below, and the calm stars in the sky above, I felt strength
return to me,--strength, not to avoid suffering, but to suffer in
patience. The tears rose to my eyes and fell quietly over my cheeks,
and as they fell they seemed to dissolve the hard, dry lump which had
settled in my throat and threatened to deprive me of breath. I thought
of Bruce Armytage as I had known him in the past, and my tears fell
fast for the loss I had sustained in him; but I thought of him also as
I saw him in the present, and pride and jealousy made me dash them
from my eyes, and resolve that if I died--yes, if I died of grief and
love and longing combined--he should never have the gratification of
knowing that I had retained one particle of my old affection for him.
With which intent I hurried on my walking things, determined not to
expose myself any longer to the danger of betrayal; but before I had
finished doing so, Mrs. Rodwell was in the room, all anxiety to know
what had occasioned my sudden absence.
“What is the matter, Lizzie? Did you feel the heat of the room? Why,
my dear child, you are never going! It is only just nine o’clock.”
“Yes, dear Mrs. Rodwell, I think I had better do so. Lady Cunningham
will not be late to-night, and you know how particular she is about my
being home before her. Please let me go.”
“Well, dear, it must not be so long again before we see you. We must
try and get up a few parties this winter, as it will be Amy’s last in
the home circle. And mind, Lizzie, you are to be one of her
bridesmaids; she insists upon it.”
“Ah! She is very kind, as you all are, but we will talk of that when
the time comes. Good-night, dear Mrs. Rodwell. Kiss the girls for me.
I won’t go into the drawing-room, such a figure as I am.”
But Mrs. Rodwell accompanied me down the stairs, conversing as she
went.
“I am sorry the doctor is from home, my dear; he would have seen you
round to Northampton Lodge; but he is never to be depended on from one
hour to another, you know.”
“Oh, it is of no consequence, Mrs. Rodwell; I am used to going alone.”
“But I don’t half like your doing it, Lizzie: the night is so very
dark, and--”
“Allow me to have the pleasure of accompanying Miss Lacy, Mrs.
Rodwell,” said the voice of Bruce Armytage. We had reached the
drawing-room floor by that time, and he stood on the threshold of the
open door.
“No, no!” I exclaimed, as I shrank backward; “I do not desire it--I
would rather go alone;” and with a hasty kiss on Mrs. Rodwell’s cheek,
I ran down the remaining stairs and out at the hall door. The wind was
blowing fresh and cold as I turned into the open air, and the night
was very dark, but I thought of nothing but his offer to accompany me,
and I hurried onward. Did he wish to add insult to injury?
But I had not gone far when I heard the sound of footsteps running
after me; and I had hardly realised it was indeed himself before he
was by my side, apologising for his presence by the excuse that Mrs.
Rodwell had desired him to overtake me and see me home. Would I
forgive what might otherwise seem an intrusion to me? I was too
indignant to vouchsafe him any answer.
We walked on in silence side by side for several minutes, I with my
head bent down and holding my thick cloak around me, and he vainly
endeavouring to look me in the face. At last, as though making a great
effort, he cleared his throat, and said,
“I suppose, after the manner in which you spoke to me at the piano
this evening, my pride ought to forbid my attempting any further
explanation with you, but in this case I have one feeling more
powerful than pride, Miss Lacy, and I must ask you what you meant by
saying that all that this world could give of solace was yours?”
“I meant what I said,” I answered abruptly, “or rather, that I require
no pity from you or any other stranger. Our paths in life are widely
enough divided now: let each walk in his own track, without
interfering with the other.”
“That is easier said than done, perhaps,” he replied; “it is difficult
in this world for people to forget what they have been.”
“It does not appear so to me.”
“Ah, perhaps you are differently, more happily, constituted than most.
They told me so long ago, though I did not believe them. Will you
consider an old friend impertinent for asking if that from which you
derive your solace now is the same from which you derived it then? and
if so, why I still find you unsettled in life?”
“You are speaking in riddles,” I replied. “I do not understand you.”
“Your present engagement--is it the same which separated us? Do not be
afraid to tell me the truth, Lizzie. I have borne a good deal in my
lifetime, and am proof against suffering.”
His voice was so tender and kind, so much like the voice which I
remembered in the old days of our love, that it won me to listen to
him quietly.
“My engagement!” I echoed in surprise. “What are you talking of? I
have never been engaged--never since”--and then I halted, fearing what
my revelation might suggest to him.
“What do you tell me?” he exclaimed. “What object have you in
deceiving me? Were you not engaged, even before your parents’ death,
to young Hassell, of Fairmead, and was it not by his father’s means
that your present situation was procured for you? I little thought to
meet you here,” he added bitterly. “I imagined you were married long
ago, or I should have been more careful of my own feelings. And now
you are engaged for the third time! How easily life runs for some
people!”
“Who could have told you such a falsehood?” I said, turning to him.
“It is true that old Mr. Hassell stood my friend when I had not one in
the world, and that he found my present situation for me; but as to
being engaged to his son, why, he is a married man--he married my own
cousin.”
“Could the mistake have arisen so?” said Bruce Armytage, as he seized
my hand. “Oh, Lizzie, do not be angry; think what I have gone through!
When I returned home from that wretched foreign tour, during which I
was not allowed to correspond with you, the first news which I heard
from my own family was, that your father and mother had died some
eighteen months before, and that you were engaged to Robert Hassell,
and living with some old lady (no one could tell me where) until the
time for your marriage arrived. I would not believe them; I rushed
down to Fairmead myself to make inquiries, and reached there on the
very day of young Hassell’s wedding with Miss Lacy. Do you think I was
a coward not to stop and see the bride, believing her to be yourself?
Perhaps I was; but I flew from the spot as though I had been haunted;
and I suffered--ah, Lizzie, I cannot tell how much! It is so fearful,
so awful a thing to teach one’s self to believe the heart in which we
have trusted to be faithless and unworthy.”
“I know it,” I said in a low voice, which was nearly choked by my
tears.
“How I have lived since that time I can hardly tell you,” he continued
as he pressed my hand. (I knew it ought not to remain in his, but it
was so sweet to feel it there.) “I have had very little hope, or
peace, or happiness, though I have struggled on through it all, and
made myself a name in my profession. And then to meet you again
to-night so unexpectedly, still free, but promised to another, myself
and my love so evidently forgotten, and to feel that it has been but a
chance that separated us! Oh, Lizzie, it is almost harder than it was
at first.”
“I am not engaged,” I answered, sobbing; “you choose to take my words
at the piano as meaning so, but it was your mistake, not mine. I have
lived much in the manner you describe yourself to have done--not very
happily, perhaps, and finding my best relief in work. But I am glad to
have met you, Bruce--glad to have heard from your own lips what parted
us; and I thank you for this explanation, though it comes too late.”
“But why too late, my dearest?” he exclaimed joyfully. “Why, if you
are free to accept my hand, and can forgive all that has made us so
unhappy in the past, should we not bury our mutual trouble in mutual
love? Oh, Lizzie, say that you’ll be mine--say that you’ll be my own
wife, and help me to wipe out the remembrance of this miserable
mistake!”
I thought of Amy. I looked at him with astonishment; I recoiled from
him almost with disgust. Was I to accept happiness at the expense of
that of my dear friends, of the only creatures who had shown me any
affection during my long years of exile from him? Oh no. I would
rather perish in my solitude. The very fact that he could propose it
to me made him sink lower in my estimation.
“Bruce!” I exclaimed, “you must be mad, or I am mad so to tempt you
from your duty. Think of all your offer involves--of the distress, the
disappointment, the shame it would entail on those who have been more
than friends to me; and consider if it is likely I could be so
dishonourable to them as to take advantage of it.”
“I don’t understand you, my darling,” he said, with a puzzled look.
“Not understand?” I reiterated, in surprise, “when your engagement to
Amy Rodwell was only settled this morning, and the preliminaries for
your marriage are already being talked of! Would you break her heart
in the attempt to heal mine? Bruce, we must never see each other again
after this evening.”
“Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie!” he said, shaking his head, “we are playing at
dreadful cross-purposes. Did it never enter into your wise little pate
to inquire _which_ Mr. Armytage was going to marry Amy Rodwell? I can
assure you I have no desire or intention to risk getting a pistol-shot
through my heart for stepping into my cousin Frederick’s shoes.”
“And is it really--is it really, then, _Frederick_ whom she is going
to marry?” I exclaimed, breathless with the shock of this new
intelligence. “Oh, how can she?”
“It is indeed,” he answered, laughing. “Lizzie, did you seriously
think that it was I? Why, what a taste you must give me credit for, to
choose that pretty little piece of white-and-pink china, after having
had the chance of such a woman as yourself! And now, what is my
answer?”
What it was I leave for my readers to guess. Let those who have
thirsted until life’s blood lay as dry dust in their veins, thrust the
chalice of sparkling wine from their parched lips if they will: I am
not made of such stern stuff as that.
LITTLE WHITE SOULS.
I am going to tell you a story which is as improbable an one as you
have ever heard. I do not expect anybody to believe it; yet it is