Mary Seaham Volume Ii Part 4

Once, indeed, in a low and hurried tone, he breathed into her ear the notion of a clandestine marriage--a secret union--one to be kept concealed till such a time as the present necessity for secresy should be at an end; the idea probably suggested to his mind by pa.s.sing one of those dark, often magnificent, but almost unfrequented churches, so well suited, to all appearance, for the celebration of mysterious rites and secret ceremonies, which rear their heads in some of the close, dark streets of the city. But the firm, though gentle withdrawal of her hand, the look of almost cold astonishment which marked her reception of this desperate proposition, sufficed to convey to Eugene Trevor's mind the full conviction that with all her yielding tenderness, her feminine weakness of disposition, never must he hope to tempt his gentle, pure-hearted love from the right, straight road of principle and duty into any crooked path of deviating, or questionable proceeding.

"No, no, Eugene!" seemed to speak the sadly averted countenance. "No, no, Eugene; the grief, the sin, the shame, whatever it may be, that now stands between us, can never be set aside, be overstepped by such unworthy means as you suggest. I can suffer, I can wait, I can make every other sacrifice for your sake; but I cannot err--I cannot thus deceive."

But suddenly, during the dreary pause that succeeded, Mary's eye recognises some pa.s.sing object, calling forth a momentary interest in her mind, even in this moment of concentrated absorption of feeling.

She makes a quick forward movement of surprise; but when Eugene looked inquiringly, as if to discern the cause of her apparent interest, the momentary excitement died away, and she answered with melancholy composure:

"It was only that I saw Mr. Temple pa.s.s--he of whom, you know, I told you once."

"What--who--Eus--Temple I mean, did you say? Are you certain--quite certain?" he exclaimed, with anxious, eager excitement, far surpa.s.sing any which the recognition had excited in her own breast; "are you sure--quite sure that it was he?"

"Yes" with a sigh; "I do not think I could be mistaken, for he looked so earnestly into the carriage; but why--why, Eugene," looking at her lover with a faint, melancholy smile, and some expression of surprise, "why should it thus excite you?"

"My own dear love," Eugene now said, regaining possession of her hand, and trying also to a.s.sume a forced smile, as well as tone of careless unconcern, "I was not particularly excited, but you know I cannot help feeling a slight degree of interest in that man after what you told me.

And did he see us? you, dearest, I mean?" he continued, still with a degree of anxious solicitude in his tone.

"Yes, I think, I am almost sure, he did," she wearily replied, and then her exhausted feelings sunk her again into a state of hopeless, listless dejection.

And Eugene sat too, for a few minutes, plunged in anxious, thoughtful silence, from which he was aroused by a glance towards the windows, reminding him that they were approaching closely to Mary's destination.

Immediately, with an exclamation of despair, he pulls the check-string and the carriage stops; the servant is at the door. There was but a bewildered hasty parting. Trevor springs out into the street, turns upon Mary one expressive, eager glance, and he is gone! The carriage proceeds a little way, and then rolls within the Temple gates, and Mary is found by her brother, when he comes hurrying down to meet her, pale, trembling, nearly hysterical, from the effects of all her nerves and feelings had undergone.

CHAPTER VI.

Me, the still "London" not the restless "Town"

(The light plume fluttering o'er Cybele's crown,) Delights;--for there the grave romance hath shed Its hues, and air grows solemn with the dead.

THE NEW TIMON.

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

LONGFELLOW.

What was the matter?--what had happened?--was Arthur Seaham's anxious inquiry, when having for greater privacy entered the carriage, he had sat a few minutes by Mary's side, tenderly and soothingly holding her hand--till the first paroxysm of emotion, (which to his astonishment and dismay, greeted his first appearance) was in a degree subsided.

A few broken words, threw light upon the matter. She had seen--she had just parted from Eugene. Arthur pressed no further question at the moment, but proposed taking her up-stairs to his chambers, to give her wine to recruit the poor girl's agitated spirits; but this Mary declined. She only wanted air; she felt suffocated by the heat and confinement of the carriage. She would like to get out, and walk home.

But the brother would not agree to this. It would be much too far for her to walk just now. No, the carriage should wait, and they might take a few turns in the court and gardens. The students were all in Hall--they would be quite undisturbed. To the court then they accordingly proceeded, Mary leaning on her brother's arm, and the quiet refreshment of that quaint old spot, upon this mild spring evening; its fresh green gra.s.s plot, sparkling fountain and overhanging elms, just then putting forth their early shoots, and between which the venerable walls and b.u.t.tresses, of the Temple Hall, revealed their sober beauties; the sweet notes of a thrush sounding from the garden below. All these combined, affording as it did, so strong a contrast to the din, stir, and turmoil from without, as well as the bewildering disquiet and agitation through which her mind had lately pa.s.sed, did not fail to produce its soothing influence on poor Mary's nerves and spirits; and seated upon one of the benches of the court, she was able, with tolerable composure, to unburden the trouble of her heart to that dear, kind brother, till it became almost a soothing relief to dilate upon the distressing, and unsatisfactory nature of the late interview with her lover.

Arthur listened sorrowfully and compa.s.sionately to his sister's melancholy relation of the blight, which had fallen on the unalloyed happiness of which he had found her in such full enjoyment on his return to England. He remembered her bright and happy countenance then--and the change it now exhibited, so touched and saddened the young man's feelings at the time, that he only held Mary's hand, and sympathized, soothed, and cheered with words of encouragement--neither expressing blame, anger, or suspicion, against the originating source of all this woe.

But at length when Mary said: "And now, dear Arthur, I want you to a.s.sist me, I think something should be done--something ascertained--anything will be better than this miserable state of uncertainty and suspense," he looked up quickly with a sudden, impatient flash from his bright blue eye, and answered:

"Yes indeed, Mary. I think so too, something must, and shall be done."

"But listen to me dear Arthur," she continued mildly. "What I should wish to ascertain would be, whether, under the present circ.u.mstances of affairs--whatever they may be--Eugene's engagement to me, involves him in any unforseen trouble or annoyance; for," she added very sadly, "if I thought that were the case--"

"Would you give him up?" her brother quickly rejoined, with something of pleasurable hope lighting up his countenance, as he seized upon the idea suggested.

"Give him up! Oh, cruel words and easily spoken!" Mary averted her head, but with a deep drawn sigh, and forced calmness, continued: "I could never give Eugene up, unless," and again a sorrowful sigh, as she thought upon similar words spoken in a formerly recorded conversation, "unless Eugene himself desired it; or, that I discovered it was necessary or expedient, to his comfort or prosperity that I should do so. If it were really so; or, should it be more for his ease that some definite period, one of any length, or duration, should be agreed upon, for the postponement of our marriage, he need not fancy I should impatiently shrink from such an engagement. And it is this, that I should like to be conveyed to Eugene. I would write--but writing is so very painful, and unsatisfactory, under such circ.u.mstances; I can quite enter into poor Eugene's feelings on that point. I would ask you, dear Arthur, to go and speak to him--if," and she looked anxiously into her brother's face, "if I could be _quite certain_, if I could quite trust you in the matter--if I could be perfectly sure that you would not allow your jealous affection for myself, to outrun your kindness and consideration towards Eugene. Arthur, if you went to him could you promise. Oh, I am sure you will not take from me the stay, and comfort, I can in this emergency feel alone in you--you will promise that no harsh, reproachful, or uncourteous word shall escape your lips, on the subject of my concerns."

"Mary, dear," the young man replied with still somewhat of a knit and moody brow, "I will do anything to serve and please you; but I only want open and straight forward dealings in this affair. It is all this equivocating, tantalizing mystery that I can neither abide or understand. But," he continued, as Mary again droopingly listened to his words, "I am not so selfish as to let any impatient temper of my own, stand in the way of your comfort or gratification; I will do all that you desire. I will go to Trevor, and _on this occasion_, act and speak, as from your own trusting, loving, self."

Mary's spirit was again calmed and revived by this promise of her brother's, and after a little more anxious conversation on the subject, Arthur Seaham sought further to compose her spirits and divert her mind, before leaving the cla.s.sic spot in which they found themselves. He conducted her down the Italian descent into the garden with the broad river gliding sluggishly below that parterre, which in the summer months from its trees and flowers, is so deserving of the name, but which a poet's hand has made to bloom with "roses above the real."

He strove also to excite and amuse her intelligent fancy by pointing out, and particularizing some of the princ.i.p.al points and buildings of this ancient and interesting seat of learning, ran over the names of those, who from "the great of old," to more modern, but none the less eminent instances, had either in connection with law, literature, or wit, graced or sanctified its precincts by their presence and abode. And he playfully a.s.serted that, amongst those, he, Arthur Seaham, intended most surely one day to rank.

"Bye the bye, talking of great men, Mary," the young man suddenly exclaimed, "from whom do you think I have had a visit, to-day? From Mr.

Temple."

"Indeed!" answered Mary, with no slight display of interest, "then I was right, it really was him who pa.s.sed us just now."

"Yes, no doubt it was, for he had scarcely left me a quarter of an hour, before you arrived; he is on the eve of leaving England for the continent, and came, I fancy, to carry away the latest intelligence concerning you, Mary; for he made anxious enquiry with regard to your marriage, the report of which, it seems, reached his ears; though it appears he left Wales some months ago, and has since been living, in great seclusion, in some quiet, antiquated nook, in this very neighbourhood. Mary, what can be the history of that man? What a superior being does his countenance, his whole bearing, bespeak him to be, and yet--that some blight has fallen upon his existence, is but too evident. He gives one the idea of some being led forth from a higher sphere,

"'To act some other spirit's destiny, Not allowed to hit the scope At which their nature aims-- Who pa.s.s away,'"

continued the young man, in the words of the suggested quotation:

"'Having in themselves A better destiny all unfulfilled, A holier, milder being, unenvolved!'

"But, dear Mary, he is much altered since I saw him last. He was then like one in whom suffering had been n.o.bly subdued, a holy calm seemed to have settled on his soul, a strength, not his own, to have been vouchsafed him. To-day he looked ill in body, and worn in mind. I cannot but think that since that time he has suffered, and is still suffering, from some newly arisen source of pain, or disquietude; and my dear sister," Arthur added, with a smile of playful accusation, "I cannot help suspecting that you have something to do with the distress, now weighing on the mind of this remarkable, but most mysterious man. The agitation of his voice and manner when he spoke of you, Mary, was not to be concealed."

"Oh, Arthur, do not say so!" Mary exclaimed, with sorrowful earnestness, shrinking from the idea of herself being the cause of sufferings, such as she now so well could understand, but especially to that good, great, and almost venerated man. "And what did you tell him about my engagement?" she faintly enquired.

"All I knew, Mary; with him I felt reserve to be both useless and unnecessary. He listened to my intelligence with the greatest interest and attention, but in silence, and almost immediately after, arose to take his leave. I ventured to add, that I was sure it would have given you pleasure to have seen him. He shook his head with a sad smile, and said, 'he had seen _you_ more than once since you came to London.' Dear Mary, you seem as if doomed to mystery in your lovers; and shall I tell you something more singular still? I was much struck by something in Temple which strongly reminded me of Trevor. Not exactly feature, and not at all expression, but a something I cannot well define."

Mary sadly shook her head. There had been at times some vague impression of the same kind made upon her own mind; but at present fancy was too languid to realise the suggestion.

They returned to the carriage, for though the early dinner-hour of their kind, old-fas.h.i.+oned relations had been deferred expressly for their nephew's convenience, they almost feared that they should even now have trespa.s.sed on the good old people's consideration.

But Mary regretfully parted from the calm and silent spot, over which the shades of evening were now fast gathering, imparting a still greater air of solemn tranquillity to the scene. And often in days to come, when the poignant anguish then and there so softened and a.s.suaged, had again died away, never to be recalled by the powers of memory--the place, and the hour, would float back upon her recollection--like the oasis amidst the parching sterility of the desert, to the grateful traveller--divested of all but their vague soothing and pleasurable a.s.sociations.

On their way back to Arthur's chamber door, they fell in with several of his fellow students, just coming out of Hall.

They all respectfully stepped aside, and made way for "Seaham and his sister."

Arthur had already rendered himself not only a most popular and general favourite, but much respected, member of the Temple community, by his sociable, engaging--yet at the same time, steady, gentlemanly, and superior conduct and deportment.

CHAPTER VII.

Oh, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal!