Anna St. Ives Part 53

Hear me, madam!--Yes ominous! I see no end to it, have every thing to fear from it, and nothing to hope--There is a thought--Ay, that verges to madness!--I have a rival--! But I will forget it--at least will try. Who can deny that it is excruciating?--But I am actuated at present by another and a n.o.bler motive. You know, madam, what you found me; and I hope you are not quite unconscious of what you have made me. You have taught me principles to which I mean to adhere, and truths I intend to a.s.sert; have opened views to me of immense magnitude! In your society I am secure. But habits are inveterate, and easily revived; and were I torn from you, I myself know not the degree of my own danger. Yes, madam, fain indeed would I forget there is such a person as Frank Henley! Yet how? By what effort, what artifice? Say!

Teach me! What though my heart reproaches me with its own foibles, who can prevent possibilities, mere possibilities, in a case like this, from being absolute torments? My soul pants and aches after certainty!

The moment I ask myself what doubt there can be of Anna St. Ives, I answer none, none! Yet the moment after, forgetting this question, alarms, probabilities, past scenes and intolerable suppositions swarm to a.s.sault me, without relaxation or mercy.

Clifton, you said you had a n.o.bler motive.

I merit the reproach, madam. These effusions burst from me, are unworthy of me, and I disclaim them. You have pardoned many of my strays and mistakes, and I am sure will pardon this. [For the love of fame, Fairfax, do not suffer the numerous master-strokes of this dialogue to escape you. I cannot stay to point them out.] Yes, madam, I have a n.o.bler motive! Yet, enlarged as your mind is, I know not how to prepare you calmly to listen to me, without alarm and without prevention. Strange as it may seem, I dread to speak truth even to you!

If truth it be, speak, and fear nothing. Propose but any adequate and worthy purpose, and there is no pain, no danger, no disgrace from which if I know myself I would shrink.

No disgrace, madam?

Your words and looks both doubt me--Put me to the proof. Propose I say an adequate and worthy purpose, and let your test be such as nature shudders at; then despise me and my principles if I recoil.

The union of marriage demands reciprocal, unequivocal, and unbounded confidence; for how can we pretend to love those whom we cannot trust?

The man who is unworthy this unbounded confidence is most unworthy to be a husband; and it were even better he should shew his bad qualities, by basely and dishonestly deserting her who had committed herself body and soul to his honour, than that such qualities should discover themselves after marriage. There is no disgrace can equal the torment of such an alliance.

I grant it.

You have attained that n.o.ble courage which dares to question the most received doctrines, and bring them to the test of truth. Who better than you can appreciate the falsehood and the force of the prejudices of opinion? Yet are you sure, madam, that even you are superior to them all?

Far otherwise. Would I were! I am much too ignorant for such high such enviable perfection.

But is it not possible that some of the most common, and if I dared I should say the most narrow, the most self-evident of these prejudices may sway and terrify you from the plain path of equity? Dare you look the world's unjust contumelies stedfastly in the face? Dare you answer for yourself that you will not shudder at the performance of what you cannot but acknowledge, nay have acknowledged to be an act of duty?

I confess your preparation is alarming, and makes me half suspect myself, half desirous to retract all I have thought, all I have a.s.serted! Yet I think I dare do whatever justice can require.

You think--?

Once more bring me to the proof. I feel a conscious [Again you make me a braggart.] a virtuous certainty.

In opposition to the whole world, its prepossessions, reproofs, revilings, persecutions, and contempt?

The picture is terrifying, but ought not to be, and I answer yes; in opposition to and in defiance of them all.

Then--You are my wife!

How?

Be firm! Start not from the truth! You are my wife! Ask yourself the meaning of the word. Can set forms and ceremonies unite mind to mind?

And if not they, what else? What but community of sentiments, similarity of principles, reciprocal sympathies, and an equal ardour for and love of truth? Can it be denied?

It cannot.

You are my wife, and I have a right to the privileges of a husband!

A right?

An absolute, an indefeasible right!

You go too fast!

They are your own principles: they are principles founded on avowed and indisputable truths. I claim justice from you!

Clifton!

Justice!

This is wrong!--Surely it is wrong!--This cannot be!

Instead of the chaste husband, such as better times and spirits of higher dignity have known, who comes with lips void of guile the rightful claimant of an innocent heart, in which suspicion never harboured, imagine me to be a traitorous wretch, who poorly seeks to gratify a momentary, a vile, a brutal pa.s.sion! Imagine me, I say, such a creature if you can! Once I should have feared it; but you have taught my thoughts to soar above such vulgar terrors. My appeal is not to your pa.s.sions, but your principles. Inspired by that refulgent ardour which animates you, with a n.o.ble enthusiasm you have yourself bid me put you to the proof. You cannot, will not, dare not be unjust!

And now, Fairfax, behold her in the very state I wished! Cowed, silenced, overawed! Her ideas deranged, her tongue motionless, wanting a reply, her eyes wandering in perplexity, her cheeks growing pale, her lips quivering, her body trembling, her bosom panting! Behold I say the wild disorder of her look! Then turn to me, and read secure triumph, concealed exultation, and bursting transport on my brow! While impetuous, fierce, and fearless desire is blazing in my heart, and mounting to my face! See me in the very act of fastening on her! And see--!

Curses!--Everlasting curses pursue and catch my perfidious evil genius!--See that old Incubus' Mrs. Clarke enter, with a letter in her hand that had arrived express, and was to be delivered instantly!--Our mutual perturbation did not escape the prying witch; my countenance red, hers pale--The word begone! maddened to break loose from my impatient tongue. My eyes however spoke plainly enough, and the hag was unwillingly retiring, when a faint--'Stay, Mrs. Clarke'--called her back!

As I foreboded, it was all over for this time! She opened the letter.

What its contents were I know not; and impossible as it is that they should relate to me, I yet wish I did. I am sure by her manner they were extraordinary. I could not ask while that old beldam was present [Had she been my grandmother, on this occasion I should have abused her.] and the eye of the young lady very plainly told me she wished me away. It was prudent to make the best retreat possible, and with the best grace: I therefore bowed and took my leave; very gravely telling her I hoped she would seriously consider what I had said, and again emphatically p.r.o.nounced the word _justice!_

You have now, Fairfax, been a spectator of the scene; and if its many niceties have escaped you, if you have not been hurried away, as I was, by the tide of pa.s.sion, and amazed at the successful sophistries which flowed from my tongue, sophistries that are indeed so like truth that I myself at a cooler moment should have hesitated to utter them; if I say the deep art with which the whole was conducted, and the high acting with which I personified the only possible Being that could subjugate Anna St. Ives do not excite your astonishment, why then you really are a dull fellow! But I know you too well, Fairfax, to do you such injustice as this supposes. Victory had declared for me. I read her thoughts. They were labouring for an answer, I own; but she was too much confounded. And would I have given her time to rally? No! I should then have merited defeat.

The grand difficulty however is vanquished: she will hear me the next time with less surprise, and the emotions of pa.s.sion, genuine honest mundane pa.s.sion, must take their turn; for not even she, Fairfax, can be wholly exempt from these emotions. I have not the least fear that my eloquence should fail me, and absolute victory excepted, I could not have wished for greater success.

I cannot forget this letter. It disturbs and pesters my imagination. I supposed it to be from Edward, who has been at Bath; but my valet has just informed me he is returned. Perhaps it is from my sister; and if so, by its coming express, my mother is dead! I really fear it bodes me harm--I am determined to rid myself of this painful suspense. I will therefore step to Grosvenor-street. I may as well face the worst at once. You shall hear more when I return.

Oh, Fairfax! I could curse most copiously, in all heathenish and christian tongues! She has shut herself up, and refuses to see me! This infernal fellow Frank Henley is returned too. He arrived two hours after the express. I suspect it came from him; nay I suspect--Flames and furies!--I must tell you!

I have seen Laura, though scarcely for two minutes. She is afraid she is watched. It is all uproar, confusion, and suspicion at Sir Arthur's.

But the great curse is my groom, the lad that I told you copied my letter to Abimelech, has been sent for and privately catechised by her and her paramour! And what confirms this most tormenting of all conjectures is the absence of the fellow: he has not been home since, nor at the stables, though he was always remarkably punctual, but has sent the key; so that he has certainly absconded.

Had I not been a stupid b.o.o.by, had I given Laura directions to keep out of the way of Anna, but in the way of taking messages for her, she might have received the express, and all might have been well. Such a blockheadly blunder well deserves castigation!

I'll deny the letter, Fairfax. They have no proof, and I'll swear through thick and thin rather than bring myself into this universal, this d.a.m.natory disgrace! I know indeed she will not believe me; and I likewise know that now it must be open war between us. For do not think that I will suffer myself to be thus shamefully beaten out of the field. No, by Lucifer and his Tophet! I will die a foaming maniac, fettered in straw, ere that shall happen! If not by persuasion, she shall be mine by chicanery, or even by force. I will perish, Fairfax, sooner than desist!

Oh for an agent, a coadjutor worthy of the cause! He must and shall be found.

The uncle and aunt must be courted: the father I expect will side with her. The brother too must be my partisan; for it will be necessary I should maintain an intercourse, and the shew of still wis.h.i.+ng for wedlock.

I am half frantic, Fairfax! To be baffled by such an impossible accident, after having acted my part with such supreme excellence, is insupportable! But the hag Vengeance shall not slip me! No! I have fangs to equal hers, ay and will fasten her yet! I have been injured, insulted, frustrated, and fiends seize me if I relent!

C. CLIFTON

LETTER XCVI

_Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton_

_London, Grosvenor Street_