Miles Tremenhere Volume I Part 16

"That's my key, master!" exclaimed Mrs. Gillett.

"I beg your pardon, Gillett, I put it out of my hand when I came in,"

and he pocketed it; and, a little better than the last one, which had hung in the orifice, and thus fell out--Mrs. Gillett felt more reconciled now the window was fastened; so leaving her light, and following Juvenal, she quitted the room, locking the door carefully after her, and withdrawing the key. As she did so, the cupboard door opened, and Miles and his terrified companion stepped out.

"Minnie," he said "reckon to me to-night all the degradation I have felt; obliged to hide, for your sake, and that good woman's, like a thief. I am indeed thankful to Heaven that he did not find me--it would have crushed my heart."

"I will weigh it against my affection, dear Miles," she said, "and you will forget it."

"What could he mean," he asked, suddenly, "by speaking of your journey to Lancas.h.i.+re? Surely no such project is in view?"

"I have not heard of it, Miles; it must be one of my uncle's sudden fancies. He is always starting some unformed idea--oh! that could never be intended!" and involuntarily she clung to him with dread.

"May his good angel keep him from such thoughts, Minnie, dearest; for if he should seriously intend, then I will answer for no good resolution of mine resisting against so much wrong."

"What do you mean, Miles? Don't look so stern--you terrify me."

"Poor child!" he said tenderly, drawing her to a seat, "how you tremble.

In truth, Minnie, our love has been set in sorrow--grown in care; well, it will be the stronger for it. Flowers are soon uprooted, weeds tenacious, and difficult to tear from the earth. Minnie, have you thought what we should do, if all gentle measures failed?"

"I have not dared to do so," she whispered.

"Neither have I until the last half-hour. Those words of your uncle distract my mind, and excite thoughts. What, Minnie, if they should thus seek to part us--what if force and tyranny be used? There would not always be a Mrs. Gillett, perhaps, to help us--what should we do?"

"Do not let us think of it, dear Miles, they never--my uncle would never act so towards me."

"Not of himself, perhaps; but he is in the hands of as dark-hearted a man as ever lived, Marmaduke Burton. Promise me one thing to-night, dear child--swear to me, that no power shall ever make you marry another."

"Miles, it needs no oath; even the thought is as little tangible as falling snow, which melts in the outstretched hand. I cannot even imagine the possibility of losing you."

"Thanks, darling--thanks, dear Minnie, for that a.s.surance. Now will I wait patiently; work heart and soul to win the favour of your friends; defy fate and my worthless enemy; and, above all, be patient, and wait."

How often do we make excellent resolutions, which we think nothing can overthrow, and some mocking devil has already crumbled the rock on which we built them, to sand! A step was heard in the pa.s.sage; they rose hastily, when Mrs. Gillett coughed, in signal of safety, as she turned the key outside. As Miles arose, his foot struck against something on the floor; he stooped, 'twas a key. A sudden thought, an impulse, urged him to conceal it, unseen even by Minnie. At that moment the housekeeper entered alone, and closing the door cautiously, locked it.

"Now," she cried, as she did so, "never again--no, never, will I have any thing to do with this affair; there's twice I have been nearly caught. No, never again!" and she dropped, really exhausted from emotion, into a chair.

"My dear Gillett," coaxed Minnie, putting a hand on her shoulder, "don't be angry; was it our fault that uncle came down? What shall we do without you?"

"You do not mean it--do you, Mrs. Gillett?" asked Miles, drawing a chair near her, and trying to catch the hand she drew pettishly away.

"Yes, but I do, though," she crossly answered; "and as for you, I really don't think you have behaved so well to me; you deceived me about Lady Dora, you----"

"You deceived yourself, dear Mrs. Gillett. Come, be just."

"Well, you didn't contradict me? No; I've been deceived, and n.o.body cares for me. Who would have thought of master coming sneaking down at this hour? drat his green tea!" and, as she spoke, she rose and began searching every where, in her pockets, and on the table, chairs, sofa--every place. Poor Minnie, half in despair, whispered Miles--"Don't say any more to-night; she is cross: I know her humour. Leave her to herself; it will be all right to-morrow."

"What are you whispering about, Miss Minnie?" cried the crabbed woman, turning towards where they stood, his hand clasping both hers. "Ugh!"

she continued, twisting away again, "it's all very pleasant, love-making, I daresay. You don't care for me, or any thing else. I want to know where's the key?"

"What key?" asked the really innocent Minnie.

"What key? why, the one of your door, to be sure. Musn't I lock you up?

and how are you to get in without the key?"

Miles bit his lip to conceal a smile; he was quite resolved, unless in a case of absolute necessity, to keep it--why? he had not asked himself.

Neither he nor Minnie felt the least alarm; they were again like two children their trouble over, all smiles.

"Can't you help me to search for it?" cried the almost crying Mrs.

Gillett; "it must be here somewheres."

A silent search commenced; Miles enjoyed it, scarcely answering to himself wherefore he felt so light-hearted. We often feel thus before care and grief. All at once Mrs. Gillett uttered a cry between a groan and a scream. "I have it--I have it!" she exclaimed, in agony. "It was mine master took off the table! Oh, marciful! what am I to do now?

You're lost, Miss Minnie, if they find out that you have left your room; they'll send you off before next week to Lancas.h.i.+re! We're all lost--all of us! How are you to get in? you can't creep through the keyhole," and she flung herself on the sofa in complete prostration of all power of thought.

"Tell me," said Miles, pale as death, and now the serious, anxious man again, "is what you say true? Are they really going to send Minnie away _there_?"

"Well, there's no use disguising it. I thought I wouldn't tell you yet; sorrow comes soon enough. Yes it is all settled," and Mrs. Gillett was again her kind self. Poor Minnie began crying bitterly. Miles had been on the point of giving up the key; when he heard this, he again restored it to his pocket. He felt he might find friendly aid through it.

"Minnie, dearest," he said, enclosing the crying girl in his arms, "don't weep _yet_, we have time before us. Trust to me, and my love neither will desert nor fail you. You shall never go there. This is a time _now_ to act, to meet force with the strength my great love for you gives me. Come, Minnie, cheer up; don't let me leave you in tears."

"Don't leave me!" she cried, clinging to him. "I have so strong a fear upon me."

He was trembling himself, and nearly overcome. By a great effort he recovered himself; for, had he followed his heart's promptings, she would have quitted all for him that night. He knew, he felt his power over her, and trembled for his own resolution.

"Oblige me, darling," he whispered, with quivering lips. "Return to your room, confide in my unsleeping watchfulness over you; _you never shall go to Lancas.h.i.+re_. In the last extremity, rely upon my being there to save--_now_ I cannot, _will_ not; I should say, to do so, I should have to reproach myself." She looked up, not knowing his meaning, in answer to what her prayer had seemed to implore, namely, flight. She did not know what she uttered, in her terror at the idea of separation.

"It is all very well bidding her go to her room," chimed in Mrs.

Gillett; "but tell me how is it to be done?"

"Search," he answered, now perfectly calm, though pale. "You must have many keys--search, you will find one."

In a moment, the woman shook bunch after bunch out of basket, pocket, and cupboard. After a long and anxious examination, she selected three as "likely ones," and, armed with these, crept up-stairs alone, to try them first.

"Dearest," whispered he hurriedly, after she left the room, "there are things we must trust no one with--never name my visit to your room. I might, possibly, come again thus, but I will not; I would not have your fame endangered--oh, not even if by those visits I could win you! But do this: look from your window at eleven to-morrow night, and I will devise some means of communicating safely with you. I fear Gillett will serve us no more; the poor woman is alarmed at possible consequences."

"Hus.h.!.+ here she comes," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Minnie; and, as she spoke, the woman came hastily in: there was joy on her countenance.

"Come," she said, in a low tone, "I've found one; and, if they catch me at these tricks again, they may leave me in the lurch!" She was evidently addressing her thoughts to some invisible Fates. No entreaties could move her obdurate determination--she was firm.

Embarra.s.sments chill the old heart, and quicken the young. The two parted, as such a parting would naturally be, in the uncertainty of soon meeting. Miles was turned out unceremoniously, first; and then the tearful Minnie was taken up to her prison; and Mrs. Gillett promised "to think it over, and see what could be done." And thus she left her to her reflections, which were any thing but cheering. Poor girl! had her mother lived, and been a good, sensible woman, the child would have been like a lovely parterre, rich in beautiful flowers, from among which the weeds had been judiciously eradicated. As it was, full of warm and generous affections, they had been badly directed by contrary interests.

Her aunts and uncle all conceived, and justly, that they had an equal right to her regard, duty, and obedience. Most unfortunately, all pulled different ways. Juvenal and Sylvia wore her spirit by bad, peevish tempers; only Dorcas could have supplied a mother's place, and her power was almost neutralized by the other two. Thus, Minnie had grown up with an independence of mind not often met with at her age. She loved Dorcas dearly; but her keen perception made her perfectly alive to all the absurdity of Juvenal and Sylvia. Her heart had nursed up almost all its warmth of love, to cast the whole of it on one die--Tremenhere's faith and love. She had, fortunately, chosen a worthy object, and yet one unfitting herself in many ways.

He was impa.s.sioned, impetuous, jealous: one to exact all from her; and even then, when her soul lay bare before him, suspect that a warmer affection might be found there, if he but knew the talisman which would unlock the secret recesses of it. He had a want of confidence in himself, which would cause him many a bitter hour. Had she loved and married Skaife, her life would have been one of the most complete happiness this earth could have afforded. As it was, her whole soul was given to Tremenhere--he absorbed all. In the confidence of her young, childish heart, she could conceal no part of it from him: she loved like a slave, ready to obey him blindly in all things, unquestioning, undoubting. He was her master, before whom she crouched in perfect contempt of self, and hugged her chains. And this was the man they threatened to separate her from! Though the mortal woman wept at her oppression, the immortal soul laughed them to scorn!--they _could not_ make her forget him!

The day following these events, Miles had a long interview with Skaife, to whom he had become deeply indebted in grat.i.tude for his efforts in his favour. A sincere friends.h.i.+p had sprung up between them, yet not without some bitterness to Skaife, who could not yet eradicate Minnie's thought from his heart. Though graven there in bitterness, he sincerely wished to make her happy, and felt she would, in all human probability, be so with Tremenhere--loving him, and so well beloved. But even this desire of promoting her happiness, made him conscientiously refuse to accede to a solicitation of Tremenhere's, namely, to perform a private marriage between them. It will be seen this latter's resolutions were fading away before the probable trouble before them--thus it occurred.

On leaving Minnie the evening they met, as we have seen, he walked homeward in deep thought; the more he reflected upon her threatened removal, the more he trembled for the result. He did not know her sufficiently well--he deemed that, like most girls, though all affection then, once removed--persecuted, threatened, coerced--her spirit would give way, and she, perhaps, become the wife of his cousin--Minnie, his Minnie! It was a spiritualized madness the thought; for he felt it would haunt him even in the grave--that nothing could throw a veil of oblivion over it. He had never spoken _half_ his pa.s.sionate love to her--he feared lest, in giving vent to it, it might master and carry him away to some deed he afterwards should bitterly regret--such, for instance, as eloping with her. His ideas of women, were more than ordinarily rigid, in young men. He had thought and suffered so much on his mother's account, in whose case, though he did not for an instant suspect her virtue, still, he feared there had been some imprudence--some laxity in necessary caution, to have created this long, and as yet unavailing, search for proof of her marriage. He fancied it had been private, or by some minister not of legal ordination--he scarcely knew what to imagine. And yet, in the face of all this--driven by the fear of losing Minnie, he implored Skaife to marry them privately.

"I have yet one more effort to make," he said, "to gain her uncle's consent--if that fail me, then there will only be ourselves to rely upon."

"Knowing you as I do, even in this short s.p.a.ce of time," answered Skaife, "let me implore you _never_ to lead her, however slightly, from the path of duty. I know--I am sure--it would rise in your heart against her, some day."