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,
which Maltravers learned from her own lips, to confirm and add to the
narrative of the curate, the purport of which is already known to the
reader.
It was many hours before Alice was sufficiently composed to remember the
object for which she had sought the curate. But she had laid the letter
which she had brought, and which explained all, on the table at the
vicarage; and when Maltravers, having at last induced Alice, who seemed
afraid to lose sight of him for an instant, to retire to her room, and
seek some short repose, returned towards the vicarage, he met Aubrey in
the garden. The old man had taken the friend's acknowledged license to
read the letter evidently meant for his eye; and, alarmed and anxious, he
now eagerly sought a consultation with Maltravers. The letter, written
in English, as familiar to the writer as her own tongue, was from Madame
de Ventadour. It had been evidently dictated by the kindest feelings.
After apologizing briefly for her interference, she stated that Lord
Vargrave's marriage with Miss Cameron was now a matter of public
notoriety; that it would take place in a few days; that it was observed
with suspicion that Miss Cameron appeared nowhere; that she seemed almost
a prisoner in her room; that certain expressions which had dropped from
Lady Doltimore had alarmed her greatly. According to these expressions,
it would seem that Lady Vargrave was not apprised of the approaching
event; that, considering Miss Cameron's recent engagement to Mr.
Maltravers suddenly (and, as Valerie thought, unaccountably) broken off
on the arrival of Lord Vargrave; considering her extreme youth, her
brilliant fortune; and, Madame de Ventadour delicately hinted,
considering also Lord Vargrave's character for unscrupulous determination
in the furtherance of any object on which he was bent,--considering all
this, Madame de Ventadour had ventured to address Miss Cameron's mother,
and to guard her against the possibility of design or deceit. Her best
apology for her intrusion must be her deep interest in Miss Cameron, and
her long friendship for one to whom Miss Cameron had been so lately
betrothed. If Lady Vargrave were aware of the new engagement, and had
sanctioned it, of course her intrusion was unseasonable and superfluous;
but if ascribed to its real motive, would not be the less forgiven.
It was easy for Maltravers to see in this letter how generous and zealous
had been that friendship for himself which could have induced the woman
of the world to undertake so officious a task. But of this he thought
not, as he hurried over the lines, and shuddered at Evelyn's urgent
danger.
"This intelligence," said Aubrey, "must be, indeed, a surprise to Lady
Vargrave. For we have not heard a word from Evelyn or Lord Vargrave to
announce such a marriage; and she (and myself till this day) believed
that the engagement between Evelyn and Mr. -----, I mean," said Aubrey
with confusion,--"I mean yourself, was still in force. Lord Vargrave's
villany is apparent; we must act immediately. What is to be done?"
"I will return to Paris to-morrow; I will defeat his machination, expose
his falsehood!"
"You may need a proxy for Lady Vargrave, an authority for Evelyn; one
whom Lord Vargrave knows to possess the secret of her birth, her rights:
I will go with you. We must speak to Lady Vargrave."
Maltravers turned sharply round. "And Alice knows not who I am; that
I--I am, or was, a few weeks ago, the suitor of another; and that other
the child she has reared as her own! Unhappy Alice! in the very hour of
her joy at my return, is she to writhe beneath this new affliction?"
"Shall I break it to her?" said Aubrey, pityingly.
"No, no; these lips must inflict the last wrong!" Maltravers walked away,
and the curate saw him no more till night.
In the interval, and late in the evening, Maltravers rejoined Alice.
The fire burned clear on the hearth, the curtains were drawn, the
pleasant but simple drawing-room of the cottage smiled its welcome as
Maltravers entered, and Alice sprang up to greet him! It was as if the
old days of the music-lesson and the meerschaum had come back.
"This is yours," said Alice, tenderly, as he looked round the apartment.
"Now--now I know what a blessed thing riches are! Ah, you are looking on
that picture; it is of her who supplied your daughter's place,--she is so
beautiful, so good, you will love her as a daughter. Oh, that
letter--that--that letter--I forgot it till now--it is at the vicarage--I
must go there immediately, and you will come too,--you will advise us."
"Alice, I have read the letter,--I know all. Alice, sit down and hear
me,--it is you who have to learn from me. In our young days I was
accustomed to tell you stories in winter nights like these,--stories of
love like our own, of sorrows which, at that time, we only knew by
hearsay. I have one now for your ear, truer and sadder than they were.
Two children, for they were then little more--children in ignorance of
the world, children in freshness of heart, children almost in years--were
thrown together by strange vicissitudes, more than eighteen years ago.
They were of different sexes,--they loved and they erred. But the error
was solely with the boy; for what was innocence in her was but passion in
him. He loved her dearly; but at that age her qualities were half
developed. He knew her beautiful, simple, tender; but he knew not all
the virtue, the faith, and the nobleness that Heaven had planted in her
soul. They parted,--they knew not each other's fate. He sought her
anxiously, but in vain; and sorrow and remorse long consumed him, and her
memory threw a shadow over his existence. But again--for his love had
not the exalted holiness of hers (_she_ was true!)--he sought to renew in
others the charm he had lost with her. In vain,--long, long in vain.
Alice, you know to whom the tale refers. Nay, listen yet. I have heard
from the old man yonder that you were witness to a scene many years ago
which deceived you into the belief that you beheld a rival. It was not
so: that lady yet lives,--then, as now, a friend to me; nothing more. I
grant that, at one time, my fancy allured me to her, but my heart was
still true to thee."
"Bless you for those words!" murmured Alice; and she crept more closely
to him.
He went on. "Circumstances, which at some calmer occasion you shall
hear, again nearly connected my fate by marriage to another. I had then
seen you at a distance, unseen by you,--seen you apparently surrounded by
respectability and opulence; and I blessed Heaven that your lot, at
least, was not that of penury and want." (Here Maltravers related where
he had caught that brief glimpse of Alice,*--how he had sought for her
again and again in vain.) "From that hour," he continued, "seeing you in
circumstances of which I could not have dared to dream, I felt more
reconciled to the past; yet, when on the verge of marriage with
another--beautiful, gifted, generous as she was--a thought, a memory half
acknowledged, dimly traced, chained back my sentiments; and admiration,
esteem, and gratitude were not love! Death--a death melancholy and
tragic--forbade this union; and I went forth in the world, a pilgrim and
a wanderer. Years rolled away, and I thought I had conquered the desire
for love,--a desire that had haunted me since I lost thee. But, suddenly
and recently, a being, beautiful as yourself--sweet, guileless, and young
as you were when we met--woke in me a new and a strange sentiment. I
will not conceal it from you: Alice, at last I loved another! Yet,
singular as it may seem to you, it was a certain resemblance to yourself,
not in feature, but in the tones of the voice, the nameless grace of
gesture and manner, the very music of your once happy laugh,--those
traits of resemblance which I can now account for, and which children
catch not from their parents only, but from those they most see, and,
loving most, most imitate in their tender years,--all these, I say, made
perhaps a chief attraction, that drew me towards--Alice, are you prepared
for it?--drew me towards Evelyn Cameron. Know me in my real character,
by my true name: I am that Maltravers to whom the hand of Evelyn was a
few weeks ago betrothed!"
* See "Ernest Maltravers," book v., p. 228.
He paused, and ventured to look up at Alice; she was exceedingly pale,
and her hands were tightly clasped together, but she neither wept nor
spoke. The worst was over; he continued more rapidly, and with less
constrained an effort: "By the art, the duplicity, the falsehood of Lord
Vargrave, I was taught in a sudden hour to believe that Evelyn was our
daughter, that you recoiled from the prospect of beholding once more the
author of so many miseries. I need not tell you, Alice, of the horror
that succeeded to love. I pass over the tortures I endured. By a train
of incidents to be related to you hereafter, I was led to suspect the
truth of Vargrave's tale. I came hither; I have learned all from Aubrey.
I regret no more the falsehood that so racked me for the time; I regret
no more the rupture of my bond with Evelyn; I regret nothing that brings
me at last free and unshackled to thy feet, and acquaints me with thy
sublime faith and ineffable love. Here then--here beneath your own
roof--here he, at once your earliest friend and foe, kneels to you for
pardon and for hope! He woos you as his wife, his companion to the
grave! Forget all his errors, and be to him, under a holier name, all
that you were to him of old!"
"And you are then Evelyn's suitor,--you are he whom she loves? I see it
all--all!" Alice rose, and, before he was even aware of her purpose, or
conscious of what she felt, she had vanished from the room.
Long, and with the bitterest feelings, he awaited her return; she came
not. At last he wrote a hurried note, imploring her to join him again,
to relieve his suspense; to believe his sincerity; to accept his vows.
He sent it to her own room, to which she had hastened to bury her
emotions. In a few minutes there came to him this answer, written in
pencil, blotted with tears.
"I thank you, I understand your heart; but forgive me--I cannot see you
yet. She is so beautiful and good, she is worthy of you. I shall soon
be reconciled. God bless you,--bless you both!"
The door of the vicarage was opened abruptly, and Maltravers entered with
a hasty but heavy tread.
"Go to her, go to that angel; go, I beseech you! Tell her that she
wrongs me, if she thinks I can ever wed another, ever have an object in
life, but to atone to, to merit her. Go, plead for me."
Aubrey, who soon gathered from Maltravers what had passed, departed to
the cottage. It was near midnight before he returned. Maltravers met
him in the churchyard, beside the yew-tree. "Well, well, what message do
you bring?"
"She wishes that we should both set off for Paris to-morrow. Not a day
is to be lost,--we must save Evelyn from this snare."
"Evelyn! Yes, Evelyn shall be saved; but the rest--the rest--why do you
turn away?"
"'You are not the poor artist, the wandering adventurer; you are the
high-born, the wealthy, the renowned Maltravers: Alice has nothing to
confer on you. You have won the love of Evelyn,--Alice cannot doom the
child confided to her care to hopeless affection; you love Evelyn,--Alice
cannot compare herself to the young and educated and beautiful creature,
whose love is a priceless treasure. Alice prays you not to grieve for
her; she will soon be content and happy in your happiness.' This is the
message."
"And what said you,--did you not tell her such words would break my
heart?"
"No matter what I said; I mistrust myself when I advise her. Her
feelings are truer than all our wisdom!"
Maltravers made no answer, and the curate saw him gliding rapidly away by
the starlit graves towards the village.
