Basil

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I kept myself concealed behind a pillar of the garden-gate; I looked,
hardly daring either to move or breathe; for I feared that if she saw
or heard me, she would leave the window. After a lapse of some
minutes, the canary touched the sugar with his beak.

"There, Minnie!" she cried laughingly, "you have caught the runaway
sugar, and now you shall keep it!"

For a moment more, she stood quietly looking at the cage; then raising
herself on tip-toe, pouted her lips caressingly to the bird, and
disappeared in the interior of the room.

The sun went down; the twilight shadows fell over the dreary square;
the gas lamps were lighted far and near; people who had been out for a
breath of fresh air in the fields, came straggling past me by ones and
twos, on their way home--and still I lingered near the house, hoping
she might come to the window again; but she did not re-appear. At
last, a servant brought candles into the room, and drew down the
Venetian blinds. Knowing it would be useless to stay longer, I left
the square.

I walked homeward joyfully. That second sight of her completed what
the first meeting had begun. The impressions left by it made me
insensible for the time to all boding reflections, careless of
exercising the smallest self-restraint. I gave myself up to the charm
that was at work on me. Prudence, duty, memories and prejudices of
home, were all absorbed and forgotten in love--love that I encouraged,
that I dwelt over in the first reckless luxury of a new sensation.

I entered our house, thinking of nothing but how to see her, how to
speak to her, on the morrow; murmuring her name to myself; even while
my hand was on the lock of my study door. The instant I was in the
room, I involuntarily shuddered and stopped speechless. Clara was
there! I was not merely startled; a cold, faint sensation came over
me. My first look at my sister made me feel as if I had been detected
in a crime.

She was standing at my writing-table, and had just finished stringing
together the loose pages of my manuscript, which had hitherto laid
disconnectedly in a drawer. There was a grand ball somewhere, to which
she was going that night. The dress she wore was of pale blue crape
(my father's favourite colour, on her). One white flower was placed in
her light brown hair. She stood within the soft steady light of my
lamp, looking up towards the door from the leaves she had just tied
together. Her slight figure appeared slighter than usual, in the
delicate material that now clothed it. Her complexion was at its
palest: her face looked almost statue-like in its purity and repose.
What a contrast to the other living picture which I had seen at
sunset!

The remembrance of the engagement that I had broken came back on me
avengingly, as she smiled, and held my manuscript up before me to look
at. With that remembrance there returned, too--darker than ever--the
ominous doubts which had depressed me but a few hours since. I tried
to steady my voice, and felt how I failed in the effort, as I spoke to
her:

"Will you forgive me, Clara, for having deprived you of your ride
to-day? I am afraid I have but a bad excuse--"

"Then don't make it, Basil; or wait till papa can arrange it for you,
in a proper parliamentary way, when he comes back from the House of
Commons to-night. See how I have been meddling with your papers; but
they were in such confusion I was really afraid some of these leaves
might have been lost."

"Neither the leaves nor the writer deserve half the pains you have
taken with them; but I am really sorry for breaking our engagement. I
met an old college friend--there was business too, in the morning--we
dined together--he would take no denial."

"Basil, how pale you look! Are you ill?"

"No; the heat has been a little too much for me--nothing more."

"Has anything happened? I only ask, because if I can be of any use--if
you want me to stay at home--"

"Certainly not, love. I wish you all success and pleasure at the
ball."

For a moment she did not speak; but fixed her clear, kind eyes on me
more gravely and anxiously than usual. Was she searching my heart, and
discovering the new love rising, an usurper already, in the place
where the love of her had reigned before?

Love! love for a shopkeeper's daughter! That thought came again, as
she looked at me! and, strangely mingled with it, a maxim I had often
heard my father repeat to Ralph-- "Never forget that your station is
not yours, to do as you like with. It belongs to us, and belongs to
your children. You must keep it for them, as I have kept it for you."

"I thought," resumed Clara, in rather lower tones than before, "that I
would just look into your room before I went to the ball, and see that
everything was properly arranged for you, in case you had any idea of
writing tonight; I had just time to do this while my aunt, who is
going with me, was upstairs altering her toilette. But perhaps you
don't feel inclined to write?"

"I will try at least."

"Can I do anything more? Would you like my nosegay left in the
room?--the flowers smell so fresh! I can easily get another. Look at
the roses, my favourite white roses, that always remind me of my own
garden at the dear old Park!"

"Thank you, Clara; but I think the nosegay is fitter for your hand
than my table."

"Good night, Basil."

"Good night."

She walked to the door, then turned round, and smiled as if she were
about to speak again; but checked herself, and merely looked at me for
an instant. In that instant, however, the smile left her face, and the
grave, anxious expression came again. She went out softly. A few
minutes afterwards the roll of the carriage which took her and her
companion to the ball, died away heavily on my ear. I was left alone
in the house--alone for the night.

VIII.

My manuscript lay before me, set in order by Clara's careful hand. I
slowly turned over the leaves one by one; but my eye only fell
mechanically on the writing. Yet one day since, and how much ambition,
how much hope, how many of my heart's dearest sensations and my mind's
highest thoughts dwelt in those poor paper leaves, in those little
crabbed marks of pen and ink! Now I could look on them
indifferently--almost as a stranger would have looked. The days of
calm study, of steady toil of thought, seemed departed for ever.
Stirring ideas; store of knowledge patiently heaped up; visions of
better sights than this world can show, falling freshly and sunnily
over the pages of my first book; all these were past and
gone--withered up by the hot breath of the senses--doomed by a paltry
fate, whose germ was the accident of an idle day!

I hastily put the manuscript aside. My unexpected interview with Clara
had calmed the turbulent sensations of the evening: but the fatal
influence of the dark beauty remained with me still. How could I
write?

I sat down at the open window. It was at the back of the house, and
looked out on a strip of garden--London garden--a close-shut dungeon
for nature, where stunted trees and drooping flowers seemed visibly
pining for the free air and sunlight of the country, in their sooty
atmosphere, amid their prison of high brick walls. But the place gave
room for the air to blow in it, and distanced the tumult of the busy
streets. The moon was up, shined round tenderly by a little
border-work of pale yellow light. Elsewhere, the awful void of night
was starless; the dark lustre of space shone without a cloud.

A presentiment arose within me, that in this still and solitary hour
would occur my decisive, my final struggle with myself. I felt that my
heart's life or death was set on the hazard of the night.

This new love that was in me; this giant sensation of a day's growth,
was first love. Hitherto, I had been heart-whole. I had known nothing
of the passion, which is the absorbing passion of humanity. No woman
had ever before stood between me and my ambitions, my occupations, my
amusements. No woman had ever before inspired me with the sensations
which I now felt.

In trying to realise my position, there was this one question to
consider; was I still strong enough to resist the temptation which
accident had thrown in my way? I had this one incentive to resistance:
the conviction that, if I succumbed, as far as my family prospects
were concerned, I should be a ruined man.

I knew my father's character well: I knew how far his affections and
his sympathies might prevail over his prejudices--even over his
principles--in some peculiar cases; and this very knowledge convinced
me that the consequences of a degrading marriage contracted by his son
(degrading in regard to rank), would be terrible: fatal to one,
perhaps to both. Every other irregularity--every other offence
even--he might sooner or later forgive. _This_ irregularity, _this_
offence, never--never, though his heart broke in the struggle. I was
as sure of it, as I was of my own existence at that moment.

I loved her! All that I felt, all that I knew, was summed up in those
few words! Deteriorating as my passion was in its effect on the
exercise of my mental powers, and on my candour and sense of duty in
my intercourse with home, it was a pure feeling towards _her._ This is
truth. If I lay on my death-bed, at the present moment, and knew that,
at the Judgment Day, I should be tried by the truth or falsehood of
the lines just written, I could say with my last breath: So be it; let
them remain.

But what mattered my love for her? However worthy of it she might be,
I had misplaced it, because chance--the same chance which might have
given her station and family--had placed her in a rank of life
far--too far--below mine. As the daughter of a "gentleman," my
father's welcome, my father's affection, would have been bestowed on
her, when I took her home as my wife. As the daughter of a tradesman,
my father's anger, my father's misery, my own ruin perhaps besides,
would be the fatal dower that a marriage would confer on her. What
made all this difference? A social prejudice. Yes: but a prejudice
which had been a principle--nay, more, a religion--in our house, since
my birth; and for centuries before it.

(How strange that foresight of love which precipitates the future into
the present! Here was I thinking of her as my wife, before, perhaps,
she had a suspicion of the passion with which she had inspired
me--vexing my heart, wearying my thoughts, before I had even spoken to
her, as if the perilous discovery of our marriage were already at
hand! I have thought since how unnatural I should have considered
this, if I had read it in a book.)

How could I best crush the desire to see her, to speak to her, on the
morrow? Should I leave London, leave England, fly from the temptation,
no matter where, or at what sacrifice? Or should I take refuge in my
books--the calm, changeless old friends of my earliest fireside hours?
Had I resolution enough to wear my heart out by hard, serious, slaving
study? If I left London on the morrow, could I feel secure, in my own
conscience, that I should not return the day after!

While, throughout the hours of the night, I was thus vainly striving
to hold calm counsel with myself; the base thought never occurred to
me, which might have occurred to some other men, in my position: Why
marry the girl, because I love her? Why, with my money, my station, my
opportunities, obstinately connect love and marriage as one idea; and
make a dilemma and a danger where neither need exist? Had such a
thought as this, in the faintest, the most shadowy form, crossed my
mind, I should have shrunk from it, have shrunk from my self; with
horror. Whatever fresh degradations may be yet in store for me, this
one consoling and sanctifying remembrance must still be mine. My love
for Margaret Sherwin was worthy to be offered to the purest and
perfectest woman that ever God created.

The night advanced--the noises faintly reaching me from the streets,
sank and ceased--my lamp flickered and went out--I heard the carriage
return with Clara from the ball--the first cold clouds of day rose and
hid the waning orb of the moon--the air was cooled with its morning
freshness: the earth was purified with its morning dew--and still I
sat by my open window, striving with my burning love-thoughts of
Margaret; striving to think collectedly and usefully--abandoned to a
struggle ever renewing, yet never changing; and always hour after
hour, a struggle in vain.

At last I began to think less and less distinctly--a few moments more,
and I sank into a restless, feverish slumber. Then began another, and
a more perilous ordeal for me--the ordeal of dreams. Thoughts and
sensations which had been more and more weakly restrained with each
succeeding hour of wakefulness, now rioted within me in perfect
liberation from all control.

This is what I dreamed:

I stood on a wide plain. On one side, it was bounded by thick woods,
whose dark secret depths looked unfathomable to the eye: on the other,
by hills, ever rising higher and higher yet, until they were lost in
bright, beautifully white clouds, gleaming in refulgent sunlight. On
the side above the woods, the sky was dark and vaporous. It seemed as
if some thick exhalation had arisen from beneath the trees, and
overspread the clear firmament throughout this portion of the scene.

As I still stood on the plain and looked around, I saw a woman coming
towards me from the wood. Her stature was tall; her black hair flowed
about her unconfined; her robe was of the dun hue of the vapour and
mist which hung above the trees, and fell to her feet in dark thick
folds. She came on towards me swiftly and softly, passing over the
ground like cloud-shadows over the ripe corn-field or the calm water.

I looked to the other side, towards the hills; and there was another
woman descending from their bright summits; and her robe was white,
and pure, and glistening. Her face was illumined with a light, like
the light of the harvest-moon; and her footsteps, as she descended the
hills, left a long track of brightness, that sparkled far behind her,
like the track of the stars when the winter night is clear and cold.
She came to the place where the hills and the plain were joined
together. Then she stopped, and I knew that she was watching me from
afar off.

Meanwhile, the woman from the dark wood still approached; never
pausing on her path, like the woman from the fair hills. And now I
could see her face plainly. Her eyes were lustrous and fascinating, as
the eyes of a serpent--large, dark and soft, as the eyes of the wild
doe. Her lips were parted with a languid smile; and she drew back the
long hair, which lay over her cheeks, her neck, her bosom, while I was
gazing on her.

Then, I felt as if a light were shining on me from the other side. I
turned to look, and there was the woman from the hills beckoning me
away to ascend with her towards the bright clouds above. Her arm, as
she held it forth, shone fair, even against the fair hills; and from
her outstretched hand came long thin rays of trembling light, which
penetrated to where I stood, cooling and calming wherever they touched
me.

But the woman from the woods still came nearer and nearer, until I
could feel her hot breath on my face. Her eyes looked into mine, and
fascinated them, as she held out her arms to embrace me. I touched her
hand, and in an instant the touch ran through me like fire, from head
to foot. Then, still looking intently on me with her wild bright eyes,
she clasped her supple arms round my neck, and drew me a few paces
away with her towards the wood.

I felt the rays of light that had touched me from the beckoning hand,
depart; and yet once more I looked towards the woman from the hills.
She was ascending again towards the bright clouds, and ever and anon
she stopped and turned round, wringing her hands and letting her head
droop, as if in bitter grief. The last time I saw her look towards me,
she was near the clouds. She covered her face with her robe, and knelt
down where she stood. After this I discerned no more of her. For now
the woman from the woods clasped me more closely than before, pressing
her warm lips on mine; and it was as if her long hair fell round us
both, spreading over my eyes like a veil, to hide from them the fair
hill-tops, and the woman who was walking onward to the bright clouds
above.

I was drawn along in the arms of the dark woman, with my blood burning
and my breath failing me, until we entered the secret recesses that
lay amid the unfathomable depths of trees. There, she encircled me in
the folds of her dusky robe, and laid her cheek close to mine, and
murmured a mysterious music in my ear, amid the midnight silence and
darkness of all around us. And I had no thought of returning to the
plain again; for I had forgotten the woman from the fair hills, and
had given myself up, heart, and soul, and body, to the woman from the
dark woods.

Here the dream ended, and I awoke.

It was broad daylight. The sun shone brilliantly, the sky was
cloudless. I looked at my watch; it had stopped. Shortly afterwards I
heard the hall clock strike six.

My dream was vividly impressed on my memory, especially the latter
part of it. Was it a warning of coming events, foreshadowed in the
wild visions of sleep? But to what purpose could this dream, or indeed
any dream, tend? Why had it remained incomplete, failing to show me
the visionary consequences of my visionary actions? What superstition
to ask! What a waste of attention to bestow it on such a trifle as a
dream!

Still, this trifle had produced one abiding result. I knew it not
then; but I know it now. As I looked out on the reviving, re-assuring
sunlight, it was easy enough for me to dismiss as ridiculous from my
mind, or rather from my conscience, the tendency to see in the two
shadowy forms of my dream, the types of two real living beings, whose
names almost trembled into utterance on my lips; but I could not also
dismiss from my heart the love-images which that dream had set up
there for the worship of the senses. Those results of the night still
remained within me, growing and strengthening with every minute.

If I had been told beforehand how the mere sight of the morning would
reanimate and embolden me, I should have scouted the prediction as too
outrageous for consideration; yet so it was. The moody and boding
reflections, the fear and struggle of the hours of darkness were gone
with the daylight. The love-thoughts of Margaret alone remained, and
now remained unquestioned and unopposed. Were my convictions of a few
hours since, like the night-mists that fade before returning sunshine?
I knew not. But I was young; and each new morning is as much the new
life of youth, as the new life of Nature.

So I left my study and went out. Consequences might come how they
would, and when they would; I thought of them no more. It seemed as if
I had cast off every melancholy thought, in leaving my room; as if my
heart had sprung up more elastic than ever, after the burden that had
been laid on it during the night. Enjoyment for the present, hope for
the future, and chance and fortune to trust in to the very last! This
was my creed, as I walked into the street, determined to see Margaret
again, and to tell her of my love before the day was out. In the
exhilaration of the fresh air and the gay sunshine, I turned my steps
towards Hollyoake Square, almost as light-hearted as a boy let loose
from school, joyously repeating Shakespeare's lines as I went:

"Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,
And manage it against despairing thoughts."

IX.

London was rousing everywhere into morning activity, as I passed
through the streets. The shutters were being removed from the windows
of public-houses: the drink-vampyres that suck the life of London,
were opening their eyes betimes to look abroad for the new day's prey!
Small tobacco and provision-shops in poor neighbourhoods; dirty little
eating-houses, exhaling greasy-smelling steam, and displaying a leaf
of yesterday's paper, stained and fly-blown, hanging in the
windows--were already plying, or making ready to ply, their daily
trade. Here, a labouring man, late for his work, hurried by; there, a
hale old gentleman started for his early walk before breakfast. Now a
market-cart, already unloaded, passed me on its way back to the
country; now, a cab, laden with luggage and carrying pale,
sleepy-looking people, rattled by, bound for the morning train or the
morning steamboat. I saw the mighty vitality of the great city
renewing itself in every direction; and I felt an unwonted interest in
the sight. It was as if all things, on all sides, were reflecting
before me the aspect of my own heart.

But the quiet and torpor of the night still hung over Hollyoake
Square. That dreary neighbourhood seemed to vindicate its dreariness
by being the last to awaken even to a semblance of activity and life.
Nothing was stirring as yet at North Villa. I walked on, beyond the
last houses, into the sooty London fields; and tried to think of the
course I ought to pursue in order to see Margaret, and speak to her,
before I turned homeward again. After the lapse of more than half an
hour, I returned to the square, without plan or project; but resolved,
nevertheless, to carry my point.

The garden-gate of North Villa was now open. One of the female
servants of the house was standing at it, to breathe the fresh air,
and look about her, before the duties of the day began. I advanced;
determined, if money and persuasion could do it, to secure her
services.

She was young (that was one chance in my favour!)--plump, florid, and
evidently not by any means careless about her personal appearance
(that gave me another!) As she saw me approaching her, she smiled; and
passed her apron hurriedly over her face--carefully polishing it for
my inspection, much as a broker polishes a piece of furniture when you
stop to look at it.

"Are you in Mr. Sherwin's service?"--I asked, as I got to the garden
gate.

"As plain cook, Sir," answered the girl, administering to her face a
final and furious rub of the apron.

"Should you be very much surprised if I asked you to do me a great
favour?"

"Well--really, Sir--you're quite a stranger to me--I'm _sure_ I don't
know!" She stopped, and transferred the apron-rubbing to her arms.

"I hope we shall not be strangers long. Suppose I begin our
acquaintance, by telling you that you would look prettier in brighter
cap-ribbons, and asking you to buy some, just to see whether I am not
right?"

"It's very kind of you to say so, Sir; and thank you. But cap and
ribbons are the last things I can buy while I'm in _this_ place.
Master's master and missus too, here; and drives us half wild with the
fuss he makes about our caps and ribbons. He's such an austerious man,
that he will have our caps as he likes 'em. It's bad enough when a
missus meddles with a poor servant's ribbons; but to have master come
down into the kitchen, and-- Well, it's no use telling _you_ of it,
Sir--and--and thank you, Sir, for what you've given me, all the same!"

"I hope this is not the last time I shall make you a present. And now
I must come to the favour I want to ask of you: can you keep a
secret?"

"That I can, Sir! I've kep' a many secrets since I've been out at
service."

"Well: I want you to find me an opportunity of speaking to your young
lady--"

"To Miss Margaret, Sir?"

"Yes. I want an opportunity of seeing Miss Margaret, and speaking to
her in private--and not a word must be said to her about it,
beforehand."

"Oh Lord, Sir! I couldn't dare to do it!"

"Come! come! Can't you guess why I want to see your young lady, and
what I want to say to her?"

The girl smiled, and shook her head archly. "Perhaps you're in love
with Miss Margaret, Sir!--But I couldn't do it! I couldn't dare to do
it!"

"Very well; but you can tell me at least, whether Miss Margaret ever
goes out to take a walk?"

"Oh, yes, Sir; mostly every day."

"Do you ever go out with her?--just to take care of her when no one
else can be spared?"

"Don't ask me--please, Sir, don't!" She crumpled her apron between her
fingers, with a very piteous and perplexed air. "I don't know you; and
Miss Margaret don't know you, I'm sure--I couldn't, Sir, I really
couldn't!"

"Take a good look at me! Do you think I am likely to do you or your
young lady any harm? Am I too dangerous a man to be trusted? Would you
believe me on my promise?"

"Yes, Sir, I'm sure I would!--being so kind and so civil to _me,_
too!" (a fresh arrangement of the cap followed this speech.)

"Then suppose I promised, in the first place, not to tell Miss
Margaret that I had spoken to you about her at all. And suppose I
promised, in the second place, that, if you told me when you and Miss
Margaret go out together, I would only speak to her while she was in
your sight, and would leave her the moment you wished me to go away.
Don't you think you could venture to help me, if I promised all that?"

"Well, Sir, that would make a difference, to be sure. But then, it's
master I'm so afraid of--couldn't you speak to master first, Sir?"

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