CHAPTER THE LAST.
ARRIVED at last
Unto the wished haven.--SHAKSPEARE.
IN the August of that eventful year a bridal party were assembled at the
cottage of Lady Vargrave. The ceremony had just been performed, and
Ernest Maltravers had bestowed upon George Legard the hand of Evelyn
Templeton.
If upon the countenance of him who thus officiated as a father to her he
had once wooed as a bride an observant eye might have noted the trace of
mental struggles, it was the trace of struggles past; and the calm had
once more settled over the silent deeps. He saw from the casement the
carriage that was to bear away the bride to the home of another,--the gay
faces of the village group, whose intrusion was not forbidden, and to
whom that solemn ceremonial was but a joyous pageant; and when he turned
once more to those within the chamber, he felt his hand clasped in
Legard's.
"You have been the preserver of my life, you have been the dispenser of
my earthly happiness; all now left to me to wish for is, that you may
receive from Heaven the blessings you have given to others!"
"Legard, never let her know a sorrow that you can guard her from; and
believe that the husband of Evelyn will be dear to me as a brother!"
And as a brother blesses some younger and orphan sister bequeathed and
intrusted to a care that should replace a father's, so Maltravers laid
his hand lightly on Evelyn's golden tresses, and his lips moved in
prayer. He ceased; he pressed his last kiss upon her forehead, and
placed her hand in that of her young husband. There was silence; and
when to the ear of Maltravers it was broken, it was by the wheels of the
carriage that bore away the wife of George Legard!
The spell was dissolved forever. And there stood before the lonely man
the idol of his early youth, Alice,--still, perhaps, as fair, and once
young and passionate, as Evelyn; pale, changed, but lovelier than of old,
if heavenly patience and holy thought, and the trials that purify and
exalt, can shed over human features something more beautiful than bloom.
The good curate alone was present, besides these two survivors of the
error and the love that make the rapture and the misery of so many of our
kind; and the old man, after contemplating them a moment, stole
unperceived away.
"Alice," said Maltravers, and his voice trembled, "hitherto, from motives
too pure and too noble for the practical affections and ties of life, you
have rejected the hand of the lover of your youth. Here again I implore
you to be mine! Give to my conscience the balm of believing that I can
repair to you the evils and the sorrows I have brought upon you. Nay,
weep not; turn not away. Each of us stands alone; each of us needs the
other. In your heart is locked up all my fondest associations, my
brightest memories. In you I see the mirror of what I was when the world
was new, ere I had found how Pleasure palls upon us, and Ambition
deceives! And me, Alice--ah, you love me still! Time and absence have
but strengthened the chain that binds us. By the memory of our early
love, by the grave of our lost child that, had it lived, would have
united its parents, I implore you to be mine!"
"Too generous!" said Alice, almost sinking beneath the emotions that
shook that gentle spirit and fragile form, "how can I suffer your
_compassion_--for it is but compassion--to deceive yourself? You are of
another station than I believed you. How can you raise the child of
destitution and guilt to your own rank? And shall I--I--who, Heaven
knows! would save you from all regret--bring to you now, when years have
so changed and broken the little charm I could ever have possessed, this
blighted heart and weary spirit? Oh, no, no!" and Alice paused abruptly,
and the tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Be it as you will," said Maltravers, mournfully; "but, at least, ground
your refusal upon better motives. Say that now, independent in fortune,
and attached to the habits you have formed, you would not hazard your
happiness in my keeping,--perhaps you are right. To _my_ happiness you
would indeed contribute; your sweet voice might charm away many a memory
and many a thought of the baffled years that have intervened since we
parted; your image might dissipate the solitude which is closing round
the Future of a disappointed and anxious life. With you, and with you
alone, I might yet find a home, a comforter, a charitable and soothing
friend. This you could give to me; and with a heart and a form alike
faithful to a love that deserved not so enduring a devotion. But I--what
can I bestow on you? Your station is equal to my own; your fortune
satisfies your simple wants. 'Tis true the exchange is not equal, Alice.
Adieu!"
"Cruel!" said Alice, approaching him with timid steps. "If I could--I,
so untutored, so unworthy--if I could comfort you in a single care!"
She said no more, but she had said enough; and Maltravers, clasping her
to his bosom, felt once more that heart which never, even in thought, had
swerved from its early worship, beating against his own!
He drew her gently into the open air. The ripe and mellow noonday of the
last month of summer glowed upon the odorous flowers, and the broad sea,
that stretched beyond and afar, wore upon its solemn waves a golden and
happy smile.
"And ah," murmured Alice, softly, as she looked up from his breast, "I
ask not if you have loved others since we parted--man's faith is so
different from ours--I only ask if you love me now?"
"More! oh, immeasurably more, than in our youngest days!" cried
Maltravers, with fervent passion. "More fondly, more reverently, more
trustfully, than I ever loved living being!--even her, in whose youth and
innocence I adored the memory of thee! Here have I found that which
shames and bankrupts the Ideal! Here have I found a virtue, that, coming
at once from God and Nature, has been wiser than all my false philosophy
and firmer than all my pride! You, cradled by misfortune,--your
childhood reared amidst scenes of fear and vice, which, while they seared
back the intellect, had no pollution for the soul,--your very parent your
tempter and your foe; you, only not a miracle and an angel by the stain
of one soft and unconscious error,--you, alike through the equal trials
of poverty and wealth, have been destined to rise above all triumphant;
the example of the sublime moral that teaches us with what mysterious
beauty and immortal holiness the Creator has endowed our human nature
when hallowed by our human affections! You alone suffice to shatter into
dust the haughty creeds of the Misanthrope and Pharisee! And your
fidelity to my erring self has taught me ever to love, to serve, to
compassionate, to respect the community of God's creatures to
which--noble and elevated though you are--you yet belong!"
He ceased, overpowered with the rush of his own thoughts. And Alice was
too blessed for words. But in the murmur of the sunlit leaves, in the
breath of the summer air, in the song of the exulting birds, and the deep
and distant music of the heaven-surrounded seas, there went a melodious
voice that seemed as if Nature echoed to his words, and blest the reunion
of her children.
Maltravers once more entered upon the career so long suspended. He
entered with an energy more practical and steadfast than the fitful
enthusiasm of former years; and it was noticeable amongst those who knew
him well, that while the firmness of his mind was not impaired, the
haughtiness of his temper was subdued. No longer despising Man as he is,
and no longer exacting from all things the ideal of a visionary standard,
he was more fitted to mix in the living World, and to minister usefully
to the great objects that refine and elevate our race. His sentiments
were, perhaps, less lofty, but his actions were infinitely more
excellent, and his theories infinitely more wise.
Stage after stage we have proceeded with him through the MYSTERIES OF
LIFE. The Eleusinia are closed, and the crowning libation poured.
And Alice!--Will the world blame us if you are left happy at the last?
We are daily banishing from our law-books the statutes that disproportion
punishment to crime. Daily we preach the doctrine that we demoralize
wherever we strain justice into cruelty. It is time that we should apply
to the Social Code the Wisdom we recognize in Legislation! It is time
that we should do away with the punishment of death for inadequate
offences, even in books; it is time that we should allow the morality of
atonement, and permit to Error the right to hope, as the reward of
submission to its suffering. Nor let it be thought that the close to
Alice's career can offer temptation to the offence of its commencement.
Eighteen years of sadness, a youth consumed in silent sorrow over the
grave of Joy, have images that throw over these pages a dark and warning
shadow that will haunt the young long after they turn from the tale that
is about to close! If Alice had died of a broken heart, if her
punishment had been more than she could bear, _then_, as in real life,
you would have justly condemned my moral; and the human heart, in its
pity for the victim, would have lost all recollection of the error.--My
tale is done.
THE END.
