Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

C >> Charlotte M Yonge >> Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

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'You do not know all,' said Mary. 'I could not show you his letter;
but, from it and from my aunt, I better understand what impressions
he has of you all, and how hopeless it is.'

'Tell me!'

She could not help giving herself the relief, when that most loving,
sympathizing face was pleading with her to let him comfort her. She
knew there was no fiery nor rancorous temper to take umbrage, and it
was best for him to know the completeness of the death-blow.

'Oh, Louis! he fancies that my dear mother's fondness for her own
family destroyed his domestic peace. He says their pride and narrow
notions poisoned--yes, that is the word--poisoned her mind against
him; and that was the reason he insisted on my being brought up here,
and kept from you all.'

'But I don't understand why he let you come straight home to us, and
live in Dynevor Terrace?'

'Then he was really sorry mamma was so ill; and--and for all that was
past; I am sure he felt it was the last parting, and only wished to
do anything that could make up to her. He freely gave her leave to
go wherever she pleased, and said not a word against Northwold. It
was one of her great comforts that he never seemed in the least vexed
at anything she had done since we went home. Besides, my aunt says
that he and Mr. Dynevor had some plans about James and me.'

'He will have that out of his head. He will come to reason. Fond of
you, and sorry for the past, he will listen. No wonder he was in a
passion; but just imagine what it would be to heed half Jem Frost
says when he is well worked up!'

'Papa is not like James,' said Mary; 'things go deeper with him. He
never forgets! I shall never forgive myself for not having spoken to
Robson! I know his manner, seeming to assent and never committing
himself, and I ought to have gone through anything rather than have
taken such an accusation for granted.'

To hinder his pleading against her self-conviction, she re-opened her
letter to prove the cruelty of the injustice. Mr. Ponsonby professed
to have been unwilling to enter so speedily on the new tie; but to
have been compelled, by the species of persecution which was
exercised on Rosita, in order to make her return to her nunnery. He
dwelt on her timid affection and simplicity, and her exceeding
mortification at the slur which Mary had been induced to cast upon
her; though, he said, her innocent mind could not comprehend the full
extent of the injury; since the step his daughter had taken would,
when known, seriously affect the lady's reception into society, in a
manner only to be repaired by Mary's immediately joining them at
Lima. He peremptorily indicated the ship and the escort--a
merchant's wife, well known to her and charged her, on her duty, as
the only proof of obedience or affection which could remedy the past,
to allow no influence nor consideration whatever to detain her. 'You
see?' said Mary.

'I see!' was the answer. 'Mary, you are right, you must go.'

The words restored her confiding look, and her face lost almost all
the restless wretchedness which had so transformed it. 'Thank you,'
she said, with a long breath; 'I knew you would see it so.'

'It will be a very pretty new style of wedding tour. Andes for Alps!
No, Mary, you need not suspect me of trifling now! I really mean it,
and, seriously, our going in that way would set this Rosita straight
with society much more handsomely and effectually. Don't doubt my
father--I will fetch him.'

'Stop, Louis! You forget! Did I not tell you that he expressly
warns me against you? He must have heard of what happened before: he
says I had prudence once to withstand, and he trusts to my spirit and
discretion to--' Mary stopped short of the phrase before her eyes--to
resist the interested solicitations of necessitous nobility, and the
allurements of a beggarly coronet. 'No,' she concluded; 'he says
that you are the last person whom he could think of allowing me to
accept.' She hid her face in her hands, and her voice died away.

'Happily that is done,' said Louis, not yet disconcerted; 'but if you
go, as I own you must, it shall be with a letter of mine, explaining
all. You will plead for me--I think you will, and when he is
satisfied that we are no rebels, then the first ship that sails for
Peru--Say that will do, Mary.'

'No, Louis, I know my father.' She roused herself and sat upright,
speaking resolutely, but not daring to look at him--'I made up my
mind last night. It was weak and selfish in me to enter into this
engagement, and it must be broken off. You must be left free--not
bound for years and years.'

'Oh, Mary! Mary! this is too much. I deserved distrust by my
wretched folly and fickleness last year, but I did not know what you
were to me then--my most precious one! Can you not trust me! Do you
not know how I would wait?'

'You would wait,' said poor Mary, striving with choking tears, 'and
be sorry you had waited.'

'Are you talking madness, Mary? I should live for the moment to
compensate for all.'

'You would waste your best years, and when the time came, you would
still be young, and I grown into an old careworn woman. You would
find you had waited for what was nothing worth!'

'How can you talk so!' cried Louis, wounded, 'when you know that to
cherish and make up to you would be my dearest, fondest wish! No,
don't shake your head! You know it is not a young rose and lily
beauty that I love,--it is the honest, earnest glance in my Mary's
eyes, the rest, and trust, and peace, whenever I do but come near
her. Time can't take that away!'

'Pray,' said Mary, feebly, 'don't let us discuss it now. I know it
is right. I was determined to say it to-day, that the worst might be
over, but I can't argue, nor bear your kindness now. Please let it
wait.'

'Yes, let it wait. It is depression. You will see it in a true
light when you have recovered the shock, and don't fancy all must be
given up together. Lie down and rest; I am sure you have been awake
all night.'

'I may rest now I have told you, and seen you not angry with poor
papa, nor with me. Oh! Louis--the gratitude to you, the weight off
my mind!'

'I don't think any one could help taking the same view,' said Louis.
'It seems to me one of the cases where the immediate duty is the more
clear because it is so very painful. Mary, I think that you are
committing your way unto the Lord, and you know 'He shall bring it to
pass.''

As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and Miss Ponsonby, stiffly
entering, said, 'Excuse my interruption, but I hope Lord Fitzjocelyn
will be considerate enough not to harass you any longer with
solicitations to act against your conscience.'

'He is not persuading me,' said Mary, turning towards her aunt a face
which, through all her dejection, proved her peace in his support and
approval, 'he is helping me.'

'Yes,' said Louis to the astonished aunt; 'since I have heard the
true state of the case, I have been convinced that there is no choice
for her but to go out, to repair the injustice so unfortunately done
to this poor lady. It is a noble resolution, and I perfectly concur
with her.'

'I am glad you think so properly, sir,' returned Miss Ponsonby.
'Lord Ormersfield seems quite of another opinion. He was desirous of
seeing you, Mary; but I have been telling him I could permit no more
interviews to-day.'

'Oh no,' said Mary, putting her hand to her head, as if it could bear
no more; 'not to-day! Louis, tell him how it is. Make him forgive
me; but do not let me see him yet.'

'You shall see no one,' said Louis, tenderly; 'you shall rest.
There--' and, as if he had the sole right to her, he arranged the
cushions, placed her on the sofa, and hung over her to chafe her
hands, and bathe her forehead with eau de Cologne; while, as he
detected signs of hasty preparations about the room, he added, 'Don't
trouble yourself with your arrangements; I will see about all I can
to help you. Only rest, and cure your head.'

'Say that one thing to me again,' whispered Mary, ere letting his
hand go.

Again he murmured the words, 'Commit thy way unto the Lord, and He
shall bring it to pass.'

Then Mary felt her hand pressed to his lips, but she would not
unclose her burning eyes; she would fain sleep beneath the impress of
that spell of patient confidence.

The gentle authority of his manner had deprived Miss Ponsonby of all
notion of interfering. This 'odious, frivolous young man of
fashion,' so entirely disconcerted her ideas of ardent lovers, or of
self-interested puppies, that she gazed at him, surprised and
softened; and when he looked at her anxiously, to judge whether Mary
would find in her a kind comforter, her eyes were full of tears, and
she said as they left the room, 'It must be a great relief to my poor
Mary that you see it so sensibly. She has been suffering much in
anticipation of this meeting.'

'Her unselfishness goes to one's heart!' said Louis, almost overcome.
'If she would but have spared herself yesterday!'

'Ah! she said she could not bear that you should be pained on your
friend's wedding-day. I am much comforted to find that you
appreciate the effort.'

This was not what Miss Ponsonby had intended to say, but there was
something about the young man that touched her exceedingly; even when
fresh from a very civil and decorous combat with his father, and a
ripping-up of all the ancient grievances of the married life of their
two relations, rendering wider than ever the breach between the
houses of Ponsonby and Fitzjocelyn.

Lord Ormersfield came forward to learn whether he might see Mary, and
was met by assurances that she must be kept as quiet as possible;
upon which he took leave, making a stately bend of the head, while
Louis shook Miss Ponsonby's hand, and said he should come to the door
to inquire before the day was over.

'I never saw her so broken down,' he said, in answer to his father's
compassionate but indignant exclamation as they walked home.
'Yesterday was a terrible strain on her.'

'I wish we had never brought her here,' said Lord Ormersfield. 'The
aunt is your enemy, as she always was that of Mary's mother. She
nearly avowed that she set her brother on making this premature
prohibition.'

'I do not think she is unkind to Mary,' said Louis; 'I could be
almost glad that the dear Aunt Kitty is spared all this worry. It
would make her so very miserable.'

'Her influence would be in your favour, whereas this woman is
perfectly unreasonable. She justifies her brother in everything, and
is actually working on that poor girl's scruples of conscience to
send her out by this ship.'

'Nay,' said Louis, 'after hearing her father's letter, I do not see
that it is possible for her to do otherwise.'

Lord Ormersfield hastily turned to look at his son's countenance,--it
was flushed and melancholy, but fully in earnest; nevertheless the
Earl would not believe his ears, and made a sound as if he had missed
the words.

'I am grieved enough to say so,' repeated Louis; 'but, as he puts it,
I do not see how Mary can refuse to obey him.'

'I declare, Fitzjocelyn,' exclaimed his father, with some anger, 'any
one who takes the trouble, may talk you into anything imaginable!'

'Not into believing her wrong.'

'I did not think you so weak!' continued his father. 'It is the very
case where a woman's exaggerated notions of right may be wrought on
to do her infinite harm! They become quite ridiculous without some
one to show that such things may be carried too far! I must say, I
did expect strength of mind and common sense for your own interest.
I esteem it a mere matter of duty to put an end to such nonsense.'

'My dear father,' said Louis, 'it was Mary and her mother who first
taught me my own obligations. I should never dare to interfere with
any one's filial duty--above all, where my own happiness is so deeply
concerned.'

'Yours! I am not talking of yours. What is to become of Mary with
such a man as that? and this Spanish woman, who, if she does not
deserve all that has been said of her, no doubt soon will?--no
education, no principles, breaking out of her convent! And you let
yourself be drawn into calling it Mary's duty to run into such
company as that! You are not fit to protect her.'

'From all I have heard of Mr. Ponsonby, I am convinced he has too
much regard for his daughter to summon her into any improper society.
I do not hear that he has been to blame as a father. I wish I could
see it as you do; but not only do I know that Mary could not have an
instant's peace under the sense of his displeasure, but it seems to
me that this is one of the express commands which could not be
disobeyed without setting aside the law of Heaven. If I gave my
voice against it, I should fear to bring on us a curse, and not a
blessing.'

'Fitzjocelyn, I always knew how it would be if you took to being one
of those very good people. Nothing is so weak, and yet so
unmanageable. Any rational being would look on it as a duty to
rescue her from such a man as that; but that is too ordinary a virtue
for you. You must go higher.'

Louis made no answer. Never had his father pained him so much, and
he could ill brook additional suffering.

'However,' said the Earl, recovering, 'I shall see her. I shall put
the matter in a just light. She is a sensible girl, and will
understand me when she has recovered the shock. On one head I shall
give warning. She must choose between us and her father. If she
persist in going out to join this establishment, I will have your
engagement given up.'

'Father! father! you would not be so cruel!'

'I know what I am saying. Am I to allow you to be encumbered all the
time she is on the other side of the world, waiting Ponsonby's
pleasure, to come home at last, in ten or fifteen years' time,
worried and fretted to death, like her poor mother? No, Louis, it
must be now or never.'

'You are only saying what I would not hear from her. She has been
insisting on breaking off, and all my hope was in you.'

'She has? That is like her! The only reasonable thing I have heard
yet.'

'Then you will not help me? You, who I thought loved her like your
own daughter, and wished for nothing so much!'

'So I might; but that is a different thing from allowing you to wear
out your life in a hopeless engagement. If she cast off her family,
nothing could be better, otherwise, I would never connect you with
them.'

It did not occur to his lordship that he was straining pretty hard
the filial duty of his own son, while he was arguing that Mary should
snap asunder the same towards her father.

The fresh discomfiture made poor Louis feel utterly dejected and
almost hopeless, but lest silence should seem to consent, he said,
'When you see Mary, you will be willing for me to do anything rather
than lose what is so dear and so noble.'

'Yes, I will see Mary. We will settle it between us, and have it
right yet; but we must give her to-day to think it over, and get over
the first shock. When she has had a little time for reflection, a
few cool arguments from me will bring her to reason.'

So it was all to be settled over Louis's passive head; and thus
satisfied, his father, who was exceedingly sorry for him, forgot his
anger, and offered to go home alone as Clara's escort, promising to
return on the Monday, to bring the full force of his remonstrances to
bear down Mary's scruples.

Lord Ormersfield believed Clara too much of a child to have any ideas
on what was passing; and had it depended on him, she must have gone
home in an agony of ignorance on the cause of her cousin's trouble,
but Louis came with them to the station, and contrived to say to her
while walking up and down the platform, 'Her father is bitter against
me. He has sent for her, and she is going!'

Clara looked mutely in his face, with a sort of inquiring dismay.

'You'll hear all about it when my father has told Aunt Kitty,' said
Louis. 'Clara,'--he paused, and spoke lower--'tell her I see what is
right now; tell her to--to pray for me, that I may not be talked into
tampering with my conscience or with hers. Don't let it dwell on you
or on my aunt,' he added, cheerfully. 'No, it won't; you will be
thinking of Jem and Isabel.' And as his father came up, his last
words were, in his own bright tone, 'Tell granny from me that
giraffes ought always to be seen by gaslight.'

Clara's countenance returned him a look of sorrowful reproach, for
thinking her capable of being amused when he was in distress; and
she sat in silent musings all the way home--pondering over his words,
speculating on his future, wondering what Mary felt, and becoming
blunt and almost angry, when her grave escort in the opposite corner
consulted civility by addressing some indifferent remark to her, as
if, she said to herself, 'she were no better than a stuffed giraffe,
and knew and cared nothing about anybody!'

He might have guessed that she understood something by the sudden way
in which she curtailed her grandmother's rapturous and affectionate
inquiries about the wedding, ran upstairs on the plea of taking off
her bonnet, and appeared no more till he had gone home; when, coming
down, she found granny, with tearful eyes, lamenting that Mr.
Ponsonby was so harsh and unkind, and fully possessed with the
rational view which her nephew had been impressing on her.

'Ha!' said Clara, 'that is what Louis meant. I'll tell you what,
granny, Lord Ormersfield never knew in his life what was right, half
as well as Louis does. I wish he would let him alone. If Mary is
good enough for him, she will go out and wait till her father comes
round. If she is not, she won't; and Lord Ormersfield has no
business to tease her.'

'Then you would like her to go out?' said Mrs. Frost.

'I like anything that makes Louis happy. I thought it would have
been delightful to have him married--one could be so much more at
Ormersfield, and Mary would be so nice; but as to their being over-
persuaded, and thinking themselves half wrong! why, they would never
be happy in their lives; and Louis would be always half-asleep or
half mad, to save himself the trouble of thinking. But he'll never
do it!'

On the Saturday morning Mary's healthy and vigorous spirit had quite
resumed its tone. The worst was over when she had inflicted the
stroke on Louis, and seen him ready to support instead of adding to
her distress. He found her pale and sorrowful, but calm, collected,
and ready for exertion. By tacit consent, they avoided all
discussion of the terms on which they were to stand. Greatly touched
by her consideration for him on the wedding-day, he would not torture
her with pleadings, and was only too grateful for every service that
he was allowed to render her without protest, as still her chief and
most natural dependence.

She did not scruple to allow him to assist her; she understood the
gratification to him, and it was only too sweet to her to be still
his object. She could trust him not to presume, his approval made
her almost happy; and yet it was hard that his very patience and
acquiescence should endear him so much as to render the parting so
much the more painful. The day was spent in business. He
facilitated much that would have been arduous for two solitary women,
and did little all day but go about for Mary, fulfilling the
commissions which her father had sent home; and though he did it with
a sore heart, it was still a privilege to be at work for Mary.

Rigid as Miss Ponsonby was, she began to be touched. There was a
doubt as to his admission when he came on Sunday morning--'Mistress
saw no one on Sunday,' but when his name was carried in, Miss
Ponsonby could not withstand Mary's face. She took care to tell him
her rule; but that, considering the circumstances, she had made an
exception in his favour, on the understanding that nothing was to
break in upon the observance of the Sabbath.

Louis bent his head, with the heartfelt answer that he was but too
glad to be permitted to go to church once more with Mary.

Aunt Melicent's Sunday was not quite their own Sunday, but all that
they could desire was to be quietly together, and restricted from all
those agitating topics and arrangements. It was a day of rest, and
they valued it accordingly. In fact, Miss Ponsonby found the young
Lord so good and inoffensive, that she broke her morning's
resolution, invited him to partake of the cold dinner, let him go to
church with them again in the evening, and remain to tea; and when he
took leave, she expressed such surprised admiration at his having
come and gone on his own feet, his church-going, and his conduct
generally, that Mary could not help suspecting that her good aunt had
supposed that he had never heard of the Fourth Commandment.

Miss Ponsonby was one of the many good women given to hard judgments
on slight grounds, and to sudden reactions still more violent; and
the sight of Lord Fitzjocelyn spending a quiet, respectable Sunday,
had such an effect on her, that she transgressed her own mandate, and
broached 'the distressing subject.'

'Mary, my dear, I suppose this young gentleman is an improved
character?'

'He is always improving,' said Mary.

'I mean, that an important change must have taken place since I
understood you to say you had refused him. I thought you acted most
properly then; and, as I see him now, I think you equally right in
accepting him.'

'He was very much what he is now,' said Mary.

'Then it was from no doubt of his being a serious character?'

'None whatever,' said Mary, emphatically.

'Well, my dear, I must confess his appearance, his family, and your
refusal, misled me. I fear I did him great injustice.'

A silence, and then Miss Ponsonby said, 'After all, my dear, though I
thought quite otherwise at first, I do believe that, considering what
the youth is, and how much attached he seems, you might safely
continue the engagement.'

Mary's heart glowed to her aunt for having been thus conquered by
Louis--she who, three nights back, had been so severely incredulous,
so deeply disappointed in her niece for having been deluded into
endurance of him. But her resolution was fixed. 'It would not be
right,' she said; 'his father would not allow it. There is so little
chance of papa's relenting, or of my coming home, that it would be
wrong to keep him in suspense. He had better turn his thoughts
elsewhere while he is young enough to begin again.'

'It might save him from marrying some mere fine lady.'

'That will never be, whatever woman he chooses will--' She could not
go on, but presently cleared her voice--'No; I should like to leave
him quite free. I was less his choice than his father's; and, though
I thought we should have been very happy, it does not seem to be the
leading of Heaven. I am so far his inferior in cleverness, and
everything attractive, and have been made so like his elder sister,
that it might not have been best for him. I want him to feel that,
in beginning afresh, he is doing me no injury; and then in time,
whenever I come home, it may be such a friendship as there was
between our elders. That is what I try to look forward to,--no, I
don't think I look forward to anything. Good night, Aunt Melicent
--I am so glad you like him!'

In this mind Mary met Lord Ormersfield. The delay had been an
advantage, for he was less irritated, and she had regained self-
possession. Her passage had been taken, and this was an argument
that told on the Earl, though he refused to call it irrevocable. He
found that there was no staggering her on the score of the life that
awaited her; she knew more on that subject than he did, had
confidence in her father, and no dread of Rosita; and she was too
much ashamed and grieved at the former effect of his persuasions to
attend to any more of a like description. He found her sense of duty
more stubborn than he had anticipated, and soon had no more to say.
She might carry it too far; but the principle was sound, and a father
could not well controvert it. He had designed the rupture with Louis
as a penalty to drive her into his measures; but he could not so
propound it, and was wondering how to bring it in, when Mary relieved
him by beginning herself, and stating the grounds with such sensible,
unselfish, almost motherly care of Louis's happiness, that he was
more unwilling than ever to let him resign her, and was on the point
of begging her to re-consider, and let Louis wait for ever rather
than lose her. But he knew they ought not to be bound, under such
uncertainties, and his conviction was too strong to give way to
emotion. He thanked her, and praised her with unwonted agitation,
and regretted more than ever; and so they closed the conference by
deciding that, unless Mr. Ponsonby should be induced to relent by his
daughter's representations on her arrival, Mary and Louis must
consider themselves as mutually released.

That loophole--forlorn, most forlorn hope, as they knew it to be--was
an infinite solace to the young people, by sparing them a formal
parting, and permitting them still to feel that they belonged to each
other. If he began declaring that nothing would ever make him feel
disconnected with Mary, he was told that it was not time to think of
that, and they must not waste their time. And once Mary reminded him
how much worse it would be if they had been separated by a quarrel.
'Anger might give one spirits,' he said, smiling mournfully.

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