Basil

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She never moved when she saw me. As I approached her, she dropped down
on her knees by the cage, sobbing with frightful violence, and pouring
forth a perfect torrent of ejaculations of vengeance against the cat.
Mrs. Sherwin came down; and by her total want of tact and presence of
mind, made matters worse. In brief, the scene ended by a fit of
hysterics.

To speak to Margaret on that day, as I wished to speak to her, was
impossible. To approach the subject of the canary's death afterwards,
was useless. If I only hinted in the gentlest way, and with the
strongest sympathy for the loss of the bird, at the distress and
astonishment she had caused me by the extremities to which she had
allowed her passion to hurry her, a burst of tears was sure to be her
only reply--just the reply, of all others, which was best calculated
to silence me. If I had been her husband in fact, as well as in name;
if I had been her father, her brother, or her friend, I should have
let her first emotions have their way, and then have expostulated with
her afterwards. But I was her lover still; and, to my eyes, Margaret's
tears made virtues even of Margaret's faults.

Such occurrences as these, happening but at rare intervals, formed the
only interruptions to the generally even and happy tenour of our
intercourse. Weeks and weeks glided away, and not a hasty or a hard
word passed between us. Neither, after one preliminary difference had
been adjusted, did any subsequent disagreement take place between Mr.
Sherwin and me. This last element in the domestic tranquillity of
North Villa was, however, less attributable to his forbearance, or to
mine, than to the private interference of Mr. Mannion.

For some days after my interview with the managing clerk, at his own
house, I had abstained from calling his offered services into
requisition. I was not conscious of any reason for this course of
conduct. All that had been said, all that had happened during the
night of the storm, had produced a powerful, though vague impression
on me. Strange as it may appear, I could not determine whether my
brief but extraordinary experience of my new friend had attracted me
towards him, or repelled me from him. I felt an unwillingness to lay
myself under an obligation to him, which was not the result of pride,
or false delicacy, or sullenness, or suspicion--it was an inexplicable
unwillingness, that sprang from the fear of encountering some heavy
responsibility; but of what nature I could not imagine. I delayed and
held back, by instinct; and, on his side, Mr. Mannion made no further
advances. He maintained the same manner, and continued the same
habits, during his intercourse with the family at North Villa, which I
had observed as characterising him before I took shelter from the
storm, in his house. He never referred again to the conversation of
that evening, when we now met.

Margaret's behaviour, when I mentioned to her Mr. Mannion's
willingness to be useful to us both, rather increased than diminished
the vague uncertainties which perplexed me, on the subject of
accepting or rejecting his overtures.

I could not induce her to show the smallest interest about him.
Neither his house, his personal appearance, his peculiar habits, or
his secrecy in relation to his early life--nothing, in short,
connected with him--appeared to excite her attention or curiosity in
the slightest degree. On the evening of his return from the continent,
she had certainly shown some symptoms of interest in his arrival at
North Villa, and some appearance of attention to him, when he joined
our party. Now, she seemed completely and incomprehensibly changed on
this point. Her manner became almost petulant, if I persisted long in
making Mr. Mannion a topic of conversation--it was as if she resented
his sharing my thoughts with her in the slightest degree. As to the
difficult question whether we should engage him in our interests or
not, that was a matter which she always seemed to think too trifling
to be discussed between us at all.

Ere long, however, circumstances decided me as to the course I should
take with Mr. Mannion.

A ball was given by one of Mr. Sherwin's rich commercial friends, to
which he announced his intention of taking Margaret. Besides the
jealousy which I felt--naturally enough, in my peculiar situation--at
the idea of my wife going out as Miss Sherwin, and dancing in the
character of a young unmarried lady with any young gentlemen who were
introduced to her, I had also the strongest possible desire to keep
Margaret out of the society of her own class, until my year's
probation was over, and I could hope to instal her permanently in the
society of my class. I had privately mentioned to her my ideas on this
subject, and found that she fully agreed with them. She was not
wanting in ambition to ascend to the highest degree in the social
scale; and had already begun to look with indifference on the society
which was offered to her by those in her own rank.

To Mr. Sherwin I could confide nothing of this. I could only object,
generally, to his taking Margaret out, when neither she nor I desired
it. He declared that she liked parties--that all girls did--that she
only pretended to dislike them, to please me--and that he had made no
engagement to keep her moping at home a whole year on my account. In
the case of the particular ball now under discussion, he was
determined to have his own way; and he bluntly told me as much.

Irritated by his obstinacy and gross want of consideration for my
defenceless position, I forgot all doubts and scruples; and privately
applied to Mr. Mannion to exert the influence which he had promised to
use, if I wished it, in my behalf.

The result was as immediate as it was conclusive. The very next
evening, Mr. Sherwin came to us with a note which he had just written,
and informed me that it was an excuse for Margaret's non-appearance at
the ball. He never mentioned Mr. Mannion's name, but sulkily and
shortly said, that he had reconsidered the matter, and had altered his
first decision for reasons of his own.

Having once taken a first step in the new direction, I soon followed
it up, without hesitation, by taking many others. Whenever I wished to
call oftener than once a-day at North Villa, I had but to tell Mr.
Mannion, and the next morning I found the permission immediately
accorded to me by the ruling power. The same secret machinery enabled
me to regulate Mr. Sherwin's incomings and outgoings, just as I chose,
when Margaret and I were together in the evening. I could feel almost
certain, now, of never having any one with us, but Mrs. Sherwin,
unless I desired it--which, as may be easily imagined, was seldom
enough.

My new ally's ready interference for my advantage was exerted quietly,
easily, and as a matter of course. I never knew how, or when, he
influenced his employer, and Mr. Sherwin on his part, never breathed a
word of that influence to me. He accorded any extra privilege I might
demand, as if he acted entirely under his own will, little suspecting
how well I knew what was the real motive power which directed him.

I was the more easily reconciled to employing the services of Mr.
Mannion, by the great delicacy with which he performed them. He did
not allow me to think--he did not appear to think himself--that he was
obliging me in the smallest degree. He affected no sudden intimacy
with me; his manners never altered; he still persisted in not joining
us in the evening, but at my express invitation; and if I referred in
any way to the advantages I derived from his devotion to my interests,
he always replied in his brief undemonstrative way, that he considered
himself the favoured person, in being permitted to make his services
of some use to Margaret and me.

I had told Mr. Mannion, when I was leaving him on the night of the
storm, that I would treat his offers as the offers of a friend; and I
had now made good my words, much sooner and much more unreservedly
than I had ever intended, when we parted at his own house-door.

V.

The autumn was now over; the winter--a cold, gloomy winter--had fairly
come. Five months had nearly elapsed since Clara and my father had
departed for the country. What communication did I hold with them,
during that interval?

No personal communication with either--written communication only with
my sister. Clara's letters to me were frequent. They studiously
avoided anything like a reproach for my long absence; and were
confined almost exclusively to such details of country life as the
writer thought likely to interest me. Their tone was as
affectionate--nay, more affectionate, if possible--than usual; but
Clara's gaiety and quiet humour, as a correspondent, were gone. My
conscience taught me only too easily and too plainly how to account
for this change--my conscience told me who had altered the tone of my
sister's letters, by altering all the favourite purposes and favourite
pleasures of her country life.

I was selfishly enough devoted to my own passions and my own
interests, at this period of my life; but I was not so totally dead to
every one of the influences which had guided me since childhood, as to
lose all thought of Clara and my father, and the ancient house that
was associated with my earliest and happiest recollections. Sometimes,
even in Margaret's beloved presence, a thought of Clara put away from
me all other thoughts. And, sometimes, in the lonely London house, I
dreamed--with the strangest sleeping oblivion of my marriage, and of
all the new interests which it had crowded into my life--of country
rides with my sister, and of quiet conversations in the old gothic
library at the Hall. Under such influences as these, I twice resolved
to make amends for my long absence, by joining my father and my sister
in the country, even though it were only for a few days--and, each
time, I failed in my resolution. On the second occasion, I had
actually mustered firmness enough to get as far as the railway
station; and only at the last moment faltered and hung back. The
struggle that it cost me to part for any length of time from Margaret,
I had overcome; but the apprehension, as vivid as it was vague, that
something--I knew not what--might happen to her in my absence, turned
my steps backward at starting. I felt heartily ashamed of my own
weakness; but I yielded to it nevertheless.

At last, a letter arrived from Clara, containing a summons to the
country, which I could not disobey.

"I have never asked you," she wrote, "to come and see us for my sake;
for I would not interfere with any of your interests or any of your
plans; but I now ask you to come here for your own sake--just for one
week, and no more, unless you like to remain longer. You remember papa
telling you, in your room in London, that he believed you kept some
secret from him. I am afraid this is preying on his mind: your long
absence is making him uneasy about you. He does not say so; but he
never sends any message, when I write; and if I speak about you, he
always changes the subject directly. Pray come here, and show yourself
for a few days--no questions will be asked, you may be sure. It will
do so much good; and will prevent--what I hope and pray may never
happen--a serious estrangement between papa and you. Recollect, Basil,
in a month or six weeks we shall come back to town; and then the
opportunity will be gone."

As I read these lines, I determined to start for the country at once,
while the effect of them was still fresh on my mind. Margaret, when I
took leave of her, only said that she should like to be going with
me--"it would be such a sight for her, to see a grand country house
like ours!" Mr. Sherwin laughed as coarsely as usual, at the
difficulties I made about only leaving his daughter for a week. Mrs.
Sherwin very earnestly, and very inaccountably as I then thought,
recommended me not to be away any longer than I had proposed. Mr.
Mannion privately assured me, that I might depend on him in my absence
from North Villa, exactly as I had always depended on him, during my
presence there. It was strange that his parting words should be the
only words which soothed and satisfied me on taking leave of London.

The winter afternoon was growing dim with the evening darkness, as I
drove up to the Hall. Snow on the ground, in the country, has always a
cheerful look to me. I could have wished to see it on the day of my
arrival at home; but there had been a thaw for the last week--mud and
water were all about me--a drizzling rain was falling--a raw, damp
wind was blowing--a fog was rising, as the evening stole on--and the
ancient leafless elms in the park avenue groaned and creaked above my
head drearily, as I approached the house.

My father received me with more ceremony than I liked. I had known,
from a boy, what it meant when he chose to be only polite to his own
son. What construction he had put on my long absence and my
persistence in keeping my secret from him, I could not tell; but it
was evident that I had lost my usual place in his estimation, and lost
it past regaining merely by a week's visit. The estrangement between
us, which my sister had feared, had begun already.

I had been chilled by the desolate aspect of nature, as I approached
the Hall; my father's reception of me, when I entered the house,
increased the comfortless and melancholy impressions produced on my
mind; it required all the affectionate warmth of Clara's welcome, all
the pleasure of hearing her whisper her thanks, as she kissed me, for
my readiness in following her advice, to restore my equanimity. But
even then, when the first hurry and excitement of meeting had passed
away, in spite of her kind words and looks, there was something in her
face which depressed me. She seemed thinner, and her constitutional
paleness was more marked than usual. Cares and anxieties had evidently
oppressed her--was I the cause of them?

The dinner that evening proceeded very heavily and gloomily. My father
only talked on general and commonplace topics, as if a mere
acquaintance had been present. When my sister left us, he too quitted
the room, to see some one who had arrived on business. I had no heart
for the company of the wine bottles, so I followed Clara.

At first, we only spoke of her occupations since she had been in the
country; I was unwilling, and she forbore, to touch on my long stay in
London, or on my father's evident displeasure at my protracted
absence. There was a little restraint between us, which neither had
the courage to break through. Before long, however, an accident,
trifling enough in itself, obliged me to be more candid; and enabled
her to speak unreservedly on the subject nearest to her heart.

I was seated opposite to Clara, at the fire-place, and was playing
with a favourite dog which had followed me into the room. While I was
stooping towards the animal, a locket containing some of Margaret's
hair, fell out of its place in my waistcoat, and swung towards my
sister by the string which attached it round my neck. I instantly hid
it again; but not before Clara, with a woman's quickness, had detected
the trinket as something new, and drawn the right inference, as to the
use to which I devoted it.

An expression of surprise and pleasure passed over her face; she rose,
and putting her hands on my shoulders, as if to keep me still in the
place I occupied, looked at me intently.

"Basil!" she exclaimed, "if that is all the secret you have been
keeping from us, how glad I am! When I see a new locket drop out of my
brother's waistcoat--" she continued, observing that I was too
confused to speak--"and when I find him colouring very deeply, and
hiding it again in a great hurry, I should be no true woman if I did
not make my own discoveries, and begin to talk about them directly."

I made an effort--a very poor one--to laugh the thing off. Her
expression grew serious and thoughtful, while she still fixed her eyes
on me. She took my hand gently, and whispered in my ear: "Are you
going to be married, Basil? Shall I love my new sister almost as much
as I love you?"

At that moment the servant came in with tea. The interruption gave me
a minute for consideration. Should I tell her all? Impulse answered,
yes--reflection, no. If I disclosed my real situation, I knew that I
must introduce Clara to Margaret. This would necessitate taking her
privately to Mr. Sherwin's house, and exposing to her the humiliating
terms of dependence and prohibition on which I lived with my own wife.
A strange medley of feelings, in which pride was uppermost, forbade me
to do that. Then again, to involve my sister in my secret, would be to
involve her with me in any consequences which might be produced by its
disclosure to my father. The mere idea of making her a partaker in
responsibilities which I alone ought to bear, was not to be
entertained for a moment. As soon as we were left together again, I
said to her:

"Will you not think the worse of me, Clara, if I leave you to draw
your own conclusions from what you have seen? only asking you to keep
strict silence on the subject to every one. I can't speak yet, love,
as I wish to speak: you will know why, some day, and say that my
reserve was right. In the meantime, can you be satisfied with the
assurance, that when the time comes for making my secret known, you
shall be the first to know it--the first I put trust in?"

"As you have not starved my curiosity altogether," said Clara,
smiling, "but have given it a little hope to feed on for the present,
I think, woman though I am, I can promise all you wish. Seriously,
Basil," she continued, "that telltale locket of yours has so
pleasantly brightened some very gloomy thoughts of mine about you,
that I can now live happily on expectation, without once mentioning
your secret again, till you give me leave to do so."

Here my father entered the room, and we said no more. His manner
towards me had not altered since dinner; and it remained the same
during the week of my stay at the Hall. One morning, when we were
alone, I took courage, and determined to try the dangerous ground a
little, with a view towards my guidance for the future; but I had no
sooner begun by some reference to my stay in London, and some apology
for it, than he stopped me at once.

"I told you," he said, gravely and coldly, "some months ago, that I
had too much faith in your honour to intrude on affairs which you
choose to keep private. Until you have perfect confidence in me, and
can speak with complete candour, I will hear nothing. You have not
that confidence now--you speak hesitatingly--your eyes do not meet
mine fairly and boldly. I tell you again, I will hear nothing which
begins with such common-place excuses as you have just addressed to
me. Excuses lead to prevarications, and prevarications to--what I will
not insult you by imagining possible in _your_ case. You are of age,
and must know your own responsibilities and mine. Choose at once,
between saying nothing, and saying all."

He waited a moment after he had spoken, and then quitted the room. If
he could only have known how I suffered, at that instant, under the
base necessities of concealment, I might have confessed everything;
and he must have pitied, though he might not have forgiven me.

This was my first and last attempt at venturing towards the revelation
of my secret to my father, by hints and half-admissions. As to boldly
confessing it, I persuaded myself into a sophistical conviction that
such a course could do no good, but might do much harm. When the
wedded happiness I had already waited for, and was to wait for still,
through so many months, came at last, was it not best to enjoy my
married life in convenient secrecy, as long as I could?--best, to
abstain from disclosing my secret to my father, until necessity
absolutely obliged, or circumstances absolutely invited me to do so?
My inclinations conveniently decided the question in the affirmative;
and a decision of any kind, right or wrong, was enough to tranquillise
me at that time.

So far as my father was concerned, my journey to the country did no
good. I might have returned to London the day after my arrival at the
Hall, without altering his opinion of me--but I stayed the whole week
nevertheless, for Clara's sake.

In spite of the pleasure afforded by my sister's society, my visit was
a painful one. The selfish longing to be back with Margaret, which I
could not wholly repress; my father's coldness; and the winter gloom
and rain which confined us almost incessantly within doors, all tended
in their different degrees to prevent my living at ease in the Hall.
But, besides these causes of embarrassment, I had the additional
mortification of feeling, for the first time, as a stranger in my own
home.

Nothing in the house looked to me what it used to look in former
years. The rooms, the old servants, the walks and views, the domestic
animals, all appeared to have altered, or to have lost something,
since I had seen them last. Particular rooms that I had once been fond
of occupying, were favourites no longer: particular habits that I had
hitherto always practised in the country, I could only succeed in
resuming by an effort which vexed and fretted me. It was as if my life
had run into a new channel since my last autumn and winter at the
Hall, and now refused to flow back at my bidding into its old course.
Home seemed home no longer, except in name.

As soon as the week was over, my father and I parted exactly as we had
met. When I took leave of Clara, she refrained from making any
allusion to the shortness of my stay; and merely said that we should
soon meet again in London. She evidently saw that my visit had weighed
a little on my spirits, and was determined to give to our short
farewell as happy and hopeful a character as possible. We now
thoroughly understood each other; and that was some consolation on
leaving her.

Immediately on my return to London I repaired to North Villa.

Nothing, I was told, had happened in my absence, but I remarked some
change in Margaret. She looked pale and nervous, and was more silent
than I had ever known her to be before, when we met. She accounted for
this, in answer to my inquiries, by saying that confinement to the
house, in consequence of the raw, wintry weather, had a little
affected her; and then changed the subject. In other directions,
household aspects had not deviated from their accustomed monotony. As
usual, Mrs. Sherwin was at her post in the drawing-room; and her
husband was reading the evening paper, over his renowned old port, in
the dining-room. After the first five minutes of my arrival, I adapted
myself again to my old way of life at Mr. Sherwin's, as easily as if I
had never interrupted it for a single day. Henceforth, wherever my
young wife was, there, and there only, would it be home for _me!_

Late in the evening, Mr. Mannion arrived with some business letters
for Mr. Sherwin's inspection. I sent for him into the hall to see me,
as I was going away. His hand was never a warm one; but as I now took
it, on greeting him, it was so deadly cold that it literally chilled
mine for the moment. He only congratulated me, in the usual terms, on
my safe return; and said that nothing had taken place in my
absence--but in his utterance of those few words, I discovered, for
the first time, a change in his voice: his tones were lower, and his
articulation quicker than usual. This, joined to the extraordinary
coldness of his hand, made me inquire whether he was unwell. Yes, he
too had been ill while I was away--harassed with hard work, he said.
Then apologising for leaving me abruptly, on account of the letters he
had brought with him, he returned to Mr. Sherwin, in the dining-room,
with a greater appearance of hurry in his manner than I had ever
remarked in it on any former occasion.

I had left Margaret and Mr. Mannion both well--I returned, and found
them both ill. Surely this was something that had taken place in my
absence, though they all said that nothing had happened. But trifling
illnesses seemed to be little regarded at North Villa--perhaps,
because serious illness was perpetually present there, in the person
of Mrs. Sherwin.

VI.

About six weeks after I had left the Hall, my father and Clara
returned to London for the season.

It is not my intention to delay over my life either at home or at
North Villa, during the spring and summer. This would be merely to
repeat much of what has been already related. It is better to proceed
at once to the closing period of my probation; to a period which it
taxes my resolution severely to write of at all. A few weeks more of
toil at my narrative, and the penance of this poor task-work will be
over.

* * * * * *

Imagine then, that the final day of my long year of expectation has
arrived; and that on the morrow, Margaret, for whose sake I have
sacrificed and suffered so much, is at last really to be mine.

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