Alicia's Diary
I. — SHE MISSES HER SISTER
July 7. — I wander about the house in a
mood of unutterable sadness, for my dear sister Caroline has left home to-day
with my mother, and I shall not see them again for several weeks. They have
accepted a long-standing invitation to visit some old friends of ours, the
Marlets, who live at Versailles for cheapness — my mother thinking that it will
be for the good of Caroline to see a little of France and Paris. But I don't
quite like her going. I fear she may lose some of that childlike simplicity and
gentleness which so characterize her, and have been nourished by the seclusion
of our life here. Her solicitude about her pony before starting was quite
touching, and she made me promise to visit it daily, and see that it came to no
harm.
Caroline gone abroad, and I left here! It
is the reverse of an ordinary situation, for good or ill-luck has mostly
ordained that I should be the absent one. Mother will be quite tired out by the
young enthusiasm of Caroline. She will demand to be taken everywhere — to Paris
continually, of course; to all the stock shrines of history's devotees; to
palaces and prisons; to kings' tombs and queens' tombs; to cemeteries and
picture-galleries, and royal hunting forests. My poor mother, having gone over
most of this ground many times before, will perhaps not find the perambulation
so exhilarating as will Caroline herself. I wish I could have gone with them. I
would not have minded having my legs walked off to please Caroline. But this
regret is absurd: I could not, of course, leave my father with not a soul in
the house to attend to the calls of the parishioners or to pour out his tea.
July 15. — A letter from Caroline to-day. It is very strange that she tells me nothing
which I expected her to tell — only trivial details. She seems dazzled by the
brilliancy of Paris — which no doubt appears still more brilliant to her from
the fact of her only being able to obtain occasional glimpses of it. She would
see that Paris, too, has a seamy side if you live there. I was not aware that
the Marlets knew so many people. If, as mother has said, they went to reside at
Versailles for reasons of economy, they will not effect much in that direction
while they make a practice of entertaining all the acquaintances who happen to
be in their neighbourhood. They do not confine their hospitalities to English
people, either. I wonder who this M. de la Feste is, in whom Caroline says my
mother is so much interested.
July 18. — Another letter from Caroline. I
have learnt from this epistle that M. Charles de la Feste is 'only one of the
many friends of the Marlets'; that though a Frenchman by birth, and now again
temporarily at Versailles, he has lived in England many many years; that he is
a talented landscape and marine painter, and has exhibited at the Salon, and I
think in London. His style and subjects are considered somewhat peculiar in
Paris — rather English than Continental. I have not as yet learnt his age, or
his condition, married or single. From the tone and nature of her remarks about
him he sometimes seems to be a middle-aged family man, sometimes quite the
reverse. From his nomadic habits I should say the latter is the most likely. He
has travelled and seen a great deal, she tells me, and knows more about English
literature than she knows herself.
July 21. — Letter from Caroline. Query: Is
'a friend of ours and the Marlets,' of whom she now anonymously and
mysteriously speaks, the same personage as the 'M. de la Feste' of her former
letters? He must be the same, I think, from his pursuits. If so, whence this
sudden change of tone ? . . . I have been lost in thought for at least a
quarter of an hour since writing the preceding sentence. Suppose my dear sister
is falling in love with this young man — there is no longer any doubt about his
age; what a very awkward, risky thing for her! I do hope that my mother has an
eye on these proceedings. But, then, poor mother never sees the drift of anything:
she is in truth less of a mother to Caroline than I am. If I were there, how
jealously I would watch him, and ascertain his designs! I am of a stronger
nature than Caroline. How I have supported her in the past through her little
troubles and great griefs! Is she agitated at the presence of this, to her, new
and strange feeling? But I am assuming her to be desperately in love, when I
have no proof of anything of the kind. He may be merely a casual friend, of
whom I shall hear no more.
July 24 — Then he is a bachelor, as I
suspected. 'If M. de la Feste ever marries he will,' etc. So she writes. They
are getting into close quarters, obviously. Also, 'Something to keep my hair
smooth, which M. de la Feste told me he had found useful for the tips of his moustache.'
Very naively related this; and with how much unconsciousness of the intimacy
between them that the remark reveals! But my mother - what can she be doing?
Does she know of this? And if so, why does she not allude to it in her letters
to my father? . . . I have been to look at Caroline's pony, in obedience to her
reiterated request that I would not miss a day in seeing that she was well
cared for. Anxious as Caroline was about this pony of hers before starting, she
now never mentioned the poor animal once in her letters. The image of her pet
suffers from displacement.
August 3. — Caroline's forgetfulness of her
pony has naturally enough extended to me, her sister. It is ten days since she
last wrote, and but for a note from my mother I should not know if she were
dead or alive.
II. - NEWS INTERESTING AND SERIOUS
August 5. — A cloud of letters. A letter
from Caroline, another from mother; also one from each to my father.
The probability to which all the
intelligence from my sister has pointed of late turns out to be a fact. There
is an engagement, or almost an engagement, announced between my dear Caroline
and M. de la Feste — to Caroline's sublime happiness, and my mother's entire
satisfaction; as well as to that of the Marlets. They and my mother seem to
know all about the young man - which is more than I do, though a little
extended information about him, considering that I am Caroline's elder sister,
would not have been amiss. I half feel with my father, who is much surprised,
and, I am sure, not altogether satisfied, that he should not have been
consulted at all before matters reached such a definite stage, though he is too
amiable to say so openly. I don't quite say that a good thing should have been
hindered for the sake of our opinion, if it is a good thing; but the
announcement comes very suddenly. It must have been foreseen by my mother for
some time that this upshot was probable, and Caroline might have told me more
distinctly that M. de la Feste was her lover, instead of alluding so mysteriously
to him as only a friend of the Marlets, and lately dropping his name
altogether. My father, without exactly objecting to him as a Frenchman, 'wishes
he were of English or some other reasonable nationality for one's son-in-law,'
but I tell him that the demarcations of races, kingdoms, and creeds, are
wearing down every day, that patriotism is a sort of vice, and that the
character of the individual is all we need think about in this case. I wonder
if, in the event of their marriage, he will continue to live at Versailles, or
if he will come to England.
August 7. — A supplemental letter from
Caroline, answering, by anticipation, some of the aforesaid queries. She tells
me that 'Charles,' though he makes Versailles his present home, is by no means
bound by his profession to continue there; that he will live just where she
wishes, provided it be not too far from some center of thought, art, and
civilization. My mother and herself both think that the marriage should not
take place till next year. He exhibits landscapes and canal scenery every year,
she says; so I suppose he is popular, and that his income is sufficient to keep
them in comfort. If not, I do not see why my father could not settle something
more on them than he had intended, and diminish by a little what he had
proposed for me, whilst it was imagined that I should be the first to stand in
need of such.
'Of engaging manner, attractive appearance,
and virtuous character,' is the reply I receive from her in answer to my
request for a personal description. That is vague enough, and I would rather
have had one definite fact of complexion, voice, deed, or opinion. But of
course she has no eye now for material qualities; she cannot see him as he is.
She sees him irradiated with glories such as never appertained and never will
appertain to any man, foreign, English, or Colonial. To think that Caroline,
two years my junior, and so childlike as to be five years my junior in nature,
should be engaged to be married before me. But that is what happens in families
more often than we are apt to remember.
August 16. — Interesting news to-day.
Charles, she says, has pleaded that their marriage may just as well be this
year as next; and he seems to have nearly converted my mother to the same way
of thinking. I do not myself see any reason for delay, beyond the standing one
of my father having as yet had no opportunity of forming an opinion upon the
man, the time, or anything. However, he takes his lot very quietly, and they
are coming home to talk the question over with us; Caroline having decided not
to make any positive arrangements for this change of state till she has seen
me. Subject to my own and my father's approval, she says, they are inclined to
settle the date of the wedding for November, three months from the present
time, that it shall take place here in the village, that I, of course, shall be
bridesmaid, and many other particulars. She draws an artless picture of the
probable effect upon the minds of the villagers of this romantic performance in
the chancel of our old church, in which she is to be chief actor — the foreign
gentleman dropping down like a god from the skies, picking her up, and
triumphantly carrying her off. Her only grief will be separation from me, but
this is to be assuaged by my going and staying with her for long months at a
time. This simple prattle is very sweet to me, my dear sister, but I cannot
help feeling sad at the occasion of it. In the nature of things it is obvious
that I shall never be to you again what I hitherto have been: your guide,
counsellor, and most familiar friend.
M. de la Feste does certainly seem to be
all that one could desire as protector to a sensitive fragile child like
Caroline, and for that I am thankful. Still, I must remember that I see him as
yet only through her eyes. For her sake I am intensely anxious to meet him, and
scrutinize him through and through, and learn what the man is really made of
who is to have such a treasure in his keeping. The engagement has certainly
been formed a little precipitately; I quite agree with my father in that:
still, good and happy marriages have been made in a hurry before now, and
mother seems well satisfied.
August 20. — A terrible announcement came
this morning; and we are in deep trouble. I have been quite unable to steady my
thoughts on anything to-day till now — half-past eleven at night - and I only
attempt writing these notes because I am too restless to remain idle, and there
is nothing but waiting and waiting left for me to do. Mother has been taken
dangerously ill at Versailles: they were within a day or two of starting; but
all thought of leaving must now be postponed, for she cannot possibly be moved
in her present state. I don't like the sound of hemorrhage at all in a woman of
her full habit, and Caroline and the Marlets have not exaggerated their
accounts I am certain. On the receipt of the letter my father instantly decided
to go to her, and I have been occupied all day in getting him off, for, as he
calculates on being absent several days, there have been many matters for him
to arrange before setting out - the chief being to find some one who will do
duty for him next Sunday — a quest of no small difficulty at such short notice;
but at last poor old feeble Mr. Dugdale has agreed to attempt it, with Mr.
Highman, the Scripture reader, to assist him in the lessons.
I fain would have gone with my father to
escape the irksome anxiety of awaiting her; but somebody had to stay, and I
could best be spared. George has driven him to the station to meet the last
train by which he will catch the midnight boat, and reach Havre some time in
the morning. He hates the sea, and a night passage in particular. I hope he
will get there without mishap of any kind; but I feel anxious for him,
stay-at-home as he is, and unable to cope with any difficulty. Such an errand,
too; the journey will be sad enough at best. I almost think I ought to have
been the one to go to her.
August 21. — I nearly fell asleep of
heaviness of spirit last night over my writing. My father must have reached Paris
by this time; and now here comes a letter. . . .
Later. — The letter was to express an
earnest hope that my father had set out. My poor mother is sulking, they fear.
What will become of Caroline? O' how I wish I could see mother; why could not
both have gone ?
Later. — I get up from my chair, and walk
from window to window, and then come and write a line. I cannot even divine how
poor Caroline's marriage is to be carried out if mother dies. I pray that
father may have got there in time to talk to her and receive some directions
from her about Caroline and M. de la Feste — a man whom neither my father nor I
have seen. I, who might be useful in this emergency, am doomed to stay here,
waiting in suspense.
August 23. — A letter from my father
containing the sad news that my mother's spirit has flown. Poor little Caroline
is heart-broken - she was always more my mother's pet than I was. It is some
comfort to know that my father arrived in time to hear from her own lips her
strongly expressed wish that Caroline's marriage should be solemnized as soon
as possible. M. de la Feste seems to have been a great favourite of my dear
mother's; and I suppose it now becomes almost a sacred duty of my father to
accept him as a son-in-law without criticism.
III. — HER GLOOM LIGHTENS A LITTLE
September 10. — I have inserted nothing in
my diary for more than a fortnight. Events have been altogether too sad for me
to have the spirit to put them on paper. And yet there comes a time when the
act of recording one's trouble is recognized as a welcome method of dwelling
upon it. . . .
My dear mother has been brought home and
buried here in the parish. It was not so much her own wish that this should be
done as my father's, who particularly desired that she should lie in the family
vault beside his first wife. I saw them side by side before the vault was
closed ——two women beloved by one man. As I stood, and Caroline by my side, I
fell into a sort of dream, and had an odd fancy that Caroline and I might be
also beloved of one, and lie like these together — an impossibility, of course,
being sisters. When I awoke from my reverie Caroline took my hand and said it
was time to leave.
September 14. — The wedding is indefinitely
postponed. Caroline is like a girl awakening in the middle of a somnambulistic
experience, and does not realize where she is, or how she stands. She walks
about silently, and I cannot tell her thoughts, as I used to do. It was her own
doing to write to M. de la Feste and tell him that the wedding could not
possibly take place this autumn as originally planned. There is something
depressing in this long postponement if she is to marry him at all; and yet I
do not see how it could be avoided.
October 20. — I have had so much to occupy
me in consoling Caroline that I have been continually overlooking my diary. Her
life was much nearer to my mother's than mine was. She has never, as I, lived
away from home long enough to become self-dependent, and hence in her first
loss, and all that it involved, she drooped like a rain-beaten lily. But she is
of a nature whose wounds soon heal, even though they may be deep, and the
supreme poignancy of her sorrow has already passed.
My father is of opinion that the wedding
should not be delayed too long. While at Versailles he made the acquaintance of
M. de la Feste, and though they had but a short and hurried communion with each
other, he was much impressed by M. de la Feste's disposition and conduct, and
is strongly in favour of his suit. It is odd that Caroline's betrothed should
influence in his favour all who come near him. His portrait, which dear
Caroline has shown me, exhibits him to be of a physique that partly accounts
for this; but there must be something more than mere appearance, and it is
probably some sort of glamour or fascinating power — the quality which
prevented Caroline from describing him to me with any accuracy of detail. At
the same time, I see from the photograph that his face and head are remarkably
well formed; and though the contours of his mouth are hidden by his moustache,
his arched brows show well the romantic disposition of a true lover and painter
of Nature. I think that the owner of such a face as this must be tender and
sympathetic and true.
October 30. — As my sister's grief for her
mother becomes more and more calmed, her love for M. de la Feste begins to
reassume its former absorbing command of her. She thinks of him incessantly,
and writes whole treatises to him by way of letters. Her blank disappointment
at his announcement of his inability to pay us a visit quite so soon as he had
promised was quite tragic. I, too, am disappointed, for I wanted to see and
estimate him. But having arranged to go to Holland to seize some aerial effects
for his pictures, which are only to be obtained at this time of the autumn, he
is obliged to postpone his journey this way, which is now to be made early in
the new year. I think myself that he ought to have come at all sacrifices,
considering Caroline's recent loss, the sad postponement of what she was
looking forward to, and her single-minded affection for him. Still, who knows;
his professional success is important. Moreover, she is cheerful, and hopeful,
and the delay will soon be overpast.
IV. — SHE BEHOLDS THE ATTRACTIVE STRANGER
February 16. — We have had such a dull life
here all the winter that I have found nothing important enough to set down, and
broke off my journal accordingly. I resume it now to make an entry on the
subject of dear Caroline's future. It seems that she was too grieved,
immediately after the loss of our mother, to answer definitely the question of
M. de la Feste how long the postponement was to be; then, afterwards, it was
agreed that the matter should be discussed on his autumn visit; but as he did
not come, it has remained in abeyance till this week, when Caroline, with the
greatest simplicity and confidence, has written to him without any further
pressure on his part, and told him that she is quite ready to fix the time, and
will do so as soon as he arrives to see her. She is a little frightened now,
lest it should seem forward in her to have revived the subject of her own
accord; but she may assume that his question has been waiting on for an answer
ever since, and that she has, therefore, acted only within her promise. In
truth, the secret at the bottom of it all is that she is somewhat saddened
because he has not latterly reminded her of the pause in their affairs — that,
in short, his original impatience to possess her is not now found to animate
him so obviously. I suppose that he loves her as much as ever; indeed, I am
sure he must do so, seeing how lovable she is. It is mostly thus with all men
when women are out of their sight; they grow negligent. Caroline must have
patience, and remember that a man of his genius has many and important calls
upon his time. In justice to her I must add that she does remember it fairly
well, and has as much patience as any girl ever had in the circumstances. He
hopes to come at the beginning of April at latest. Well, when he comes we shall
see him.
April 5. — I think that what M. de la Feste
writes is reasonable enough, though Caroline looks heart-sick about it. It is
hardly worth while for him to cross all the way to England and back just now,
while the sea is so turbulent, seeing that he will be obliged, in any event, to
come in May, when he has to be in London for professional purposes, at which
time he can take us easily on his way both coming and going. When Caroline
becomes his wife she will be more practical, no doubt; but she is such a child
as yet that there is no contenting her with reasons. However, the time will
pass quickly, there being so much to do in preparing a trousseau for her, which
must now be put in hand in order that we may have plenty of leisure to get it
ready. On no account must Caroline; be married in half-mourning; I am sure that
mother, could she know, would not wish it, and it is odd that Caroline should
be so intractably persistent on this point, when she is usually so yielding.
April 30. — This month has flown on
swallow's wings. We are in a great state of excitement — I as much as she — I
cannot quite tell why. He is really coming in ten days, he says.
May 9. Four p.m. — I am so agitated I can
scarcely write, and yet am particularly impelled to do so before leaving my
room. It is the unexpected shape of an expected event which has caused my
absurd excitement, which proves me almost as much a school-girl as Caroline.
M. de la Feste was not, as we understood,
to have come till to-morrow; but he is here — just arrived. All household
directions have devolved upon me, for my father, not thinking M. de la Feste
would appear before us for another four-and-twenty hours, left home before post
time to attend a distant consecration; and hence Caroline and I were in no
small excitement when Charles's letter was opened, and we read that he had been
unexpectedly favoured in the dispatch of his studio work, and would follow his
letter in a few hours. We sent the covered carriage to meet the train
indicated, and waited like two newly strung harps for the first sound of the
returning wheels. At last we heard them on the gravel; and the question arose
who was to receive him. It was, strictly speaking, my duty; but I felt timid; I
could not help shirking it, and insisted that Caroline should go down. She did
not, however, go near the door as she usually does when anybody is expected,
but waited palpitating in the drawing-room. He little thought when he saw the
silent hall, and the apparently deserted house, how that house was at the very
same moment alive and throbbing with interest under the surface. I stood at the
back of the upper landing, where nobody could see me from downstairs, and heard
him walk across the hall — a lighter step than my father's — and heard him then
go into the drawing-room, and the servant shut the door behind him and go away.
What a pretty lovers' meeting they must
have had in there all to themselves! Caroline's sweet face looking up from her
black gown - how it must have touched him. I know she wept very much, for I
heard her; and her eyes will be red afterwards, and no wonder, poor dear,
though she is no doubt happy. I can imagine what she is telling him while I
write this - her fears lest anything should have happened to prevent his coming
after all - gentle, smiling reproaches for his long delay; and things of that
sort. His two portmanteaus are at this moment crossing the landing on the way
to his room. I wonder if I ought to go down.
A little later. — I have seen him! It was
not at all in the way that I intended to encounter him, and I am vexed. Just
after his portmanteaus were brought up I went out from my room to descend,
when, at the moment of stepping towards the first stair, my eyes were caught by
an object in the hall below, and I paused for an instant, till I saw that it
was a bundle of canvas and sticks, composing a sketching tent and easel. At the
same nick of time the drawing-room door opened and the affianced pair came out.
They were saying they would go into the garden; and he waited a moment while
she put on her hat. My idea was to let them pass on without seeing me, since
they seemed not to want my company, but I had got too far on the landing to
retreat; he looked up, and stood staring at me — engrossed to a dream-like
fixity. There upon I, too, instead of advancing as I ought to have done, stood
moonstruck and awkward, and before I could gather my weak senses sufficiently
to descend, she had called him, and they went out by the garden door together.
I then thought of following them, but have changed my mind, and come here to
jot down these few lines. It is all I am fit for. . . . He is even more
handsome than I expected. I was right in feeling he must have an attraction
beyond that of form: it appeared even in that momentary glance. How happy
Caroline ought to be. But I must, of course, go down to be ready with tea in
the drawing-room by the time they come indoors.
11 p.m. — I have made the acquaintance of
M. de la Feste; and I seem to be another woman from the effect of it. I cannot
describe why this should be so, but conversation with him seems to expand the
view, and open the heart, and raise one as upon stilts to wider prospects. He
has a good intellectual forehead, perfect eyebrows, dark hair and eyes, an
animated manner, and a persuasive voice. His voice is soft in quality — too
soft for a man, perhaps; and yet on second thoughts I would not have it less
so. We have been talking of his art: I had no notion that art demanded such
sacrifices or such tender devotion; or that there were two roads for choice
within its precincts, the road of vulgar money-making, and the road of high
aims and consequent in appreciation for many long years by the public. That he
has adopted the latter need not be said to those who understand him. It is a
blessing for Caroline that she has been chosen by such a man, and she ought not
to lament at postponements and delays, since they have arisen unavoidably.
Whether he finds hers a sufficiently rich nature, intellectually and
emotionally, for his own, I know not, but he seems occasionally to be
disappointed at her simple views of things. Does he really feel such love for
her at this moment as he no doubt believes himself to be feeling, and as he no
doubt hopes to feel for the remainder of his life towards her?
It was a curious thing he told me when we
were left for a few minutes alone; that Caroline had alluded so slightly to me
in her conversation and letters that he had not realized my presence in the
house here at all. But, of course, it was only natural that she should write
and talk most about herself. I suppose it was on account of the fact of his
being taken in some measure unawares that I caught him on two or three
occasions regarding me fixedly in a way that disquieted me somewhat, having
been lately in so little society; till my glance aroused him from his reverie,
and he looked elsewhere in some confusion. It was fortunate that he did so, and
thus failed to notice my own. It shows that he, too, is not particularly a
society person.
May 10. — Have had another interesting
conversation with M. de la Feste on schools of landscape painting in the
drawing-room after dinner this evening my father having fallen asleep, and left
nobody but Caroline and myself for Charles to talk to. I did not mean to say so
much to him, and had taken a volume of Modern Painters from the bookcase to
occupy myself with, while leaving the two lovers to themselves; but he would
include me in his audience, and I was obliged to lay the book aside. However, I
insisted on keeping Caroline in the conversation, though her views on pictorial
art were only too charmingly crude and primitive.
To-morrow, if fine, we are all three going
to Wherryborne Wood, where Charles will give us practical illustrations of the
principles of colouring that he has enumerated to-night. I am determined not to
occupy his attention to the exclusion of Caroline, and my plan is that when we
are in the dense part of the wood I will lag behind, and slip away, and leave
them to return by themselves. I suppose the reason of his attentiveness to me
lies in his simply wishing to win the good opinion of one who is so closely
united to Caroline, and so likely to influence her good opinion of him.
May 11. Late. — I cannot sleep, and in
desperation have lit my candle and taken up my pen. My restlessness is
occasioned by what has occurred to-day, which at first I did not mean to write
down, or trust to any heart but my own. We went to Wherryborne Wood — Caroline,
Charles and I, as we had intended - and walked all three along the green track
through the midst, Charles in the middle between Caroline and myself. Presently
I found that, as usual, he and I were the only talkers, Caroline amusing
herself by observing birds and squirrels as she walked docilely alongside her
betrothed. Having noticed this I dropped behind at the first opportunity and
slipped among the trees, in a direction in which I knew I should find another
path that would take me home. Upon this track I by and by emerged, and walked
along it in silent thought till, at a bend, I suddenly encountered M. de la
Feste standing stock still and smiling thoughtfully at me.
'Where is Caroline?' said I.
'Only a little way off,' says he. 'When we
missed you from behind us we thought you might have mistaken the direction we
had followed, so she has gone one way to find you and I have come this way.'
We then went back to find Caroline, but
could not discover her anywhere, and the upshot was that he and I were
wandering about the woods alone for more than an hour. On reaching home we
found she had given us up after searching a little while, and arrived there
some time before. I should not be so disturbed by the incident if I had not
perceived that, during her absence from us, he did not make any earnest effort
to rediscover her; and in answer to my repeated expressions of wonder as to
whither she could have wandered he only said, 'Oh, she's quite safe; she told
me she knew the way home from any part of this wood. Let us go on with our
talk. I assure you I value this privilege of being with one I so much admire
more than you imagine;' and other things of that kind. I was so foolish as to
show a little perturbation - I cannot tell why I did not control myself; and I
think he noticed that I was not cool. Caroline has, with her simple good faith,
thought nothing of the occurrence; yet altogether I am not satisfied.
V. — HER SITUATION IS A TRYING ONE
May 15. — The more I think of it day after
day, the more convinced I am that my suspicions are true. He is too interested
in me — well, in plain words, loves me; or, not to degrade that phrase, has a
wild passion for me; and his affection for Caroline is that towards a sister
only. That is the distressing truth; how it has come about I cannot tell, and
it wears upon me.
A hundred little circumstances have
revealed this to me, and the longer I dwell upon it the more agitating does the
consideration become. Heaven only can help me out of the terrible difficulty in
which this places me. I have done nothing to encourage him to be faithless to her.
I have studiously kept out of his way; have persistently refused to be a third
in their interviews. Yet all to no purpose. Some fatality has seemed to rule,
ever since he came to the house, that this disastrous inversion of things
should arise. If I had only foreseen the possibility of it before he arrived,
how gladly would I have departed on some visit or other to the meanest friend
to hinder such an apparent treachery. But I blindly welcomed him — indeed, made
myself particularly agreeable to him for her sake.
There is no possibility of my suspicions
being wrong; not until they have reached absolute certainty have I dared even
to admit the truth to myself. His conduct to-day would have proved them true
had I entertained no previous apprehensions. Some photographs of myself came
for me by post, and they were handed round at the breakfast table and
criticised. I put them temporarily on a side table, and did not remember them
until an hour afterwards when I was in my own room. On going to fetch them I discovered
him standing at the table with his back towards the door bending over the
photographs, one of which he raised to his lips.
The witnessing this act so frightened me
that I crept away to escape observation. It was the climax to a series of
slight and significant actions all tending to the same conclusion. The question
for me now is, what am I to do? To go away is what first occurs to me, but what
reason can I give Caroline and my father for such a step ? Besides, it might
precipitate some sort of catastrophe by driving Charles to desperation. For the
present, therefore, I have decided that I can only wait, though his contiguity
is strangely disturbing to me now, and I hardly retain strength of mind to
encounter him. How will the distressing complication end ?
May 19. — And so it has come! My mere
avoidance of him has precipitated the worst issue — a declaration. I had
occasion to go into the kitchen garden to gather some of the double
ragged-robins which grew in a corner there. Almost as soon as I had entered I
heard footsteps without. The door opened and shut, and I turned to behold him
just inside it. As the garden is closed by four walls and the gardener was
absent, the spot ensured absolute privacy. He came along the path by the
asparagus-bed, and overtook me.
'You know why I come, Alicia?' said he, in
a tremulous voice.
I said nothing, and hung my head, for by
his tone I did know.
'Yes,' he went on, 'it is you I love; my
sentiment towards your sister is one of affection too, but protective, tutelary
affection - no more. Say what you will I cannot help it. I mistook my feeling
for her, and I know how much I am to blame for my want of self-knowledge. I
have fought against this discovery night and day; but it cannot be concealed.
Why did I ever see you, since I could not see you till I had committed myself?
At the moment my eyes beheld you on that day of my arrival, I said, "This
is the woman for whom my manhood has waited." Ever since an unaccountable
fascination has riveted my heart to you. Answer one word!'
'O, M. de la Feste!' I burst out. What I
said more I cannot remember, but I suppose that the misery I was in showed
pretty plainly, for he said, 'Something must be done to let her know; perhaps I
have mistaken her affection, too; but all depends upon what you feel.'
'I cannot tell what I feel,' said I,
'except that this seems terrible treachery; and every moment that I stay with
you here makes it worse! . . . Try to keep faith with her — her young heart is
tender; believe me there is no mistake in the quality of her love for you.
Would there were! This would kill her if she knew it!'
He sighed heavily. 'She ought never to be
my wife,' he said. 'Leaving my own happiness out of the question, it would be a
cruelty to her to unite her to me.'
I said I could not hear such words from
him, and begged him in tears to go away; he obeyed, and I heard the garden door
shut behind him. What is to be the end of the announcement, and the fate of
Caroline ?
May 20. — I put a good deal on paper
yesterday, and yet not all. I was, in truth, hoping against hope, against
conviction, against too conscious self-judgment. I scarcely dare own the truth
now, yet it relieves my aching heart to set it down. Yes, I love him - that is
the dreadful fact, and I can no longer parry, evade, or deny it to myself,
though to the rest of the world it can never be owned. I love Caroline's
betrothed, and he loves me. It is no yesterday's passion, cultivated by our
converse; it came at first sight, independently of my will; and my talk with him
yesterday made rather against it than for it, but, alas, did not quench it. God
forgive us both for this terrible treachery.
May 25. — All is vague; our courses
shapeless. He comes and goes, being occupied, ostensibly at least, with
sketching in his tent in the wood. Whether he and she see each other privately
I cannot tell, but I rather think they do not; that she sadly awaits him, and
he does not appear. Not a sign from him that my repulse has done him any good,
or that he will endeavour to keep faith with her. O, if I only had the
compulsion of a god, and the self-sacrifice of a martyr!
May 31. — It has all ended - or rather this
act of the sad drama has ended - in nothing. He has left us. No day for the
fulfilment of the engagement with Caroline is named, my father not being the
man to press any one on such a matter, or, indeed, to interfere in any way. We
two girls are, in fact, quite defenceless in a case of this kind; lovers may
come when they choose, and desert when they choose; poor father is too urbane
to utter a word of remonstrance or inquiry. Moreover, as the approved of my
dead mother, M. de la Feste has a sort of autocratic power with my father, who
holds it unkind to her memory to have an opinion about him. I, feeling it my
duty, asked M. de la Feste at the last moment about the engagement, in a voice
I could not keep firm.
'Since the death of your mother all has been
indefinite - all!' he said gloomily. That was the whole. Possibly, Wherryborne
Rectory may see him no more.
June 7. — M. de la Feste has written — one
letter to her, one to me. Hers could not have been very warm, for she did not
brighten on reading it. Mine was an ordinary note of friendship, filling an
ordinary sheet of paper, which I handed over to Caroline when I had finished
looking it through. But there was a scrap of paper in the bottom of the
envelope, which I dared not show any one. This scrap is his real letter: I
scanned it alone in my room, trembling, hot and cold by turns. He tells me he
is very wretched; that he deplores what has happened, but was helpless. Why did
I let him see me, if only to make him faithless. Alas, alas!
June 21. — My dear Caroline has lost
appetite, spirits, health. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. His letters to
her grow colder — if indeed he has written more than one. He has refrained from
writing again to me - he knows it is no use. Altogether the situation that he
and she and I are in is melancholy in the extreme. Why are human hearts so
perverse?
VI. - HER INGENUITY INSTIGATES HER
September 19. — Three months of anxious
care - till at length I have taken the extreme step of writing to him. Our
chief distress has been caused by the state of poor Caroline, who, after
sinking by degrees into such extreme weakness as to make it doubtful if she can
ever recover full vigour, has to-day been taken much worse. Her position is
very critical. The doctor says plainly that she is dying of a broken heart -
and that even the removal of the cause may not now restore her. Ought I to have
written to Charles sooner? But how could I when she forbade me? It was her
pride only which instigated her, and I should not have obeyed.
Sept. 26. — Charles has arrived and has
seen her. He is shocked, conscience-stricken, remorseful. I have told him that
he can do no good beyond cheering her by his presence. I do not know what he
thinks of proposing to her if she gets better, but he says little to her at
present: indeed he dares not: his words agitate her dangerously.
Sept. 28. — After a struggle between duty
and selfishness, such as I pray to Heaven I may never have to undergo again, I
have asked him for pity's sake to make her his wife, here and now, as she lies.
I said to him that the poor child would not trouble him long; and such a
solemnization would soothe her last hours as nothing else could do. He said
that he would willingly do so, and had thought of it himself; but for one
forbidding reason: in the event of her death as his wife he can never marry me,
her sister, according to our laws. I started at his words. He went on: 'On the
other hand, if I were sure that immediate marriage with me would save her life,
I would not refuse, for possibly I might after a while, and out of sight of
you, make myself fairly content with one of so sweet a disposition as hers; but
if, as is probable, neither my marrying her nor any other act can avail to save
her life, by so doing I lose both her and you.' I could not answer him.
Sept. 29. — He continued firm in his
reasons for refusal till this morning, and then I became possessed with an
idea, which I at once propounded to him. It was that he should at least consent
to a form of marriage with Caroline, in consideration of her love; a form which
need not be a legal union, but one which would satisfy her sick and enfeebled
soul. Such things have been done, and the sentiment of feeling herself his
would inexpressibly comfort her mind, I am sure. Then, if she is taken from us,
I should not have lost the power of becoming his lawful wife at some future
day, if it indeed should be deemed expedient; if, on the other hand, she lives,
he can on her recovery inform her of the incompleteness of their marriage
contract, the ceremony can be repeated, and I can, and I am sure willingly
would, avoid troubling them with my presence till grey hairs and wrinkles make
his unfortunate passion for me a thing of the past. I put all this before him
but he demurred.
Sept. 30. — I have urged him again. He says
he will consider. It is no time to mince matters, and as a further inducement I
have offered to enter into a solemn engagement to marry him myself a year after
her death.
Sept. 30 Later. — An agitating interview.
He says he will agree to whatever I propose, the three possibilities and our
contingent acts being recorded as follows: First, in the event of dear Caroline
being taken from us, I marry him on the expiration of a year: Second, in the
forlorn chance of her recovery I take upon myself the responsibility of
explaining to Caroline the true nature of the ceremony he has gone through with
her, that it was done at my suggestion to make her happy at once, before a
special licence could be obtained, and that a public ceremony at church is
awaiting her: Third, in the unlikely event of her cooling, and refusing to
repeat the ceremony with him, I leave England, join him abroad, and there wed
him, agreeing not to live in England again till Caroline has either married
another or regards her attachment to Charles as a bygone matter. I have thought
over these conditions, and have agreed to them all as they stand.
11 p.m. — I do not much like this scheme,
after all. For one thing, I have just sounded my father on it before parting
with him for the night, my impression having been that he would see no
objection. But he says he could on no account countenance any such unreal
proceeding; however good our intentions, and even though the poor girl were
dying, it would not be right. So I sadly seek my pillow.
October 1. — I am sure my father is wrong
in his view. Why is it not right, if it would be balm to Caroline's wounded
soul, and if a real ceremony is absolutely refused by Charles — moreover is
hardly practicable in the difficulty of getting a special licence, if he were
agreed? My father does not know, or will not believe, that Caroline's
attachment has been the cause of her hopeless condition. But that it is so, and
that the form of words would give her inexpressible happiness, I know well; for
I whispered tentatively in her ear on such marriages, and the effect was great.
Henceforth my father cannot be taken into confidence on the subject of
Caroline. He does not understand her.
12 o'clock noon. — I have taken advantage
of my father's absence to-day to confide my secret notion to a thoughtful young
man, who called here this morning to speak to my father. He is the Mr.
Theophilus Higham, of whom I have already had occasion to speak - a Scripture
reader in the next town, and is soon going to be ordained. I told him the
pitiable case, and my remedy. He says ardently that he will assist me — would
do anything for me (he is, in truth, an admirer of mine); he sees no wrong in
such an act of charity. He is coming again to the house this after-noon before my
father returns, to carry out the idea. I have spoken to Charles, who promises
to be ready. I must now break the news to Caroline.
11 o'clock p.m. — I have been in too much
excitement till now to set down the result. We have accomplished our plan; and
though I feel like a guilty sinner, I am glad. My father, of course, is not to
be informed as yet. Caroline has had a seraphic expression upon her wasted,
transparent face ever since. I should hardly be surprised if it really saved
her life even now, and rendered a legitimate union necessary between them. In
that case my father can be informed of the whole proceeding, and in the face of
such wonderful success cannot disapprove. Meanwhile poor Charles has not lost
the possibility of taking unworthy me to fill her place should she —. But I
cannot contemplate that alternative unmoved, and will not write it. Charles
left for the South of Europe immediately after the ceremony. He was in a
high-strung, throbbing, almost wild state of mind at first, but grew calmer under
my exhortations. I had to pay the penalty of receiving a farewell kiss from
him, which I much regret, considering its meaning; but he took me so
unexpectedly, and in a moment was gone.
Oct. 6. — She certainly is better, and even
when she found that Charles had been suddenly obliged to leave, she received
the news quite cheerfully. The doctor says that her apparent improvement may be
delusive; but I think our impressing upon her the necessity of keeping what has
occurred a secret from papa, and everybody, helps to revive her a zest for
life.
Oct. 8. — She is still mending. I am glad
to have saved her — my only sister — if I have done so; though I shall now
never become Charles's wife.
VII. — A SURPRISE AWAITS HER
Feb. 5. — Writing has been absolutely impossible
for a long while; but I now reach a stage at which it seems possible to jot
down a line. Caroline's recovery, extending over four months, has been very
engrossing; at first slow, latterly rapid. But a fearful complication of
affairs attends it!
O what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!
Charles has written reproachfully to me
from Venice, where he is. He says how can he fulfil in the real what he has
enacted in the counterfeit, while he still loves me? Yet how, on the other hand,
can he leave it unfulfilled? All this time I have not told her, and up to this
minute she believes that he has indeed taken her for better, for worse, till
death them do part. It is a harassing position for me, and all three. In the
awful approach of death, one's judgment loses its balance, and we do anything
to meet the exigencies of the moment, with a single eye to the one who excites
our sympathy, and from whom we seem on the brink of being separated for ever.
Had he really married her at that time all
would be settled now. But he took too much thought; she might have died, and
then he had his reason. If indeed it had turned out so, I should now be perhaps
a sad woman; but not a tempest-tossed one. . . . The possibility of his
claiming me after all is what lies at the root of my agitation. Everything
hangs by a thread. Suppose I tell her the marriage was a mockery; suppose she
is indignant with me and with him for the deception - and then? Otherwise,
suppose she is not indignant but forgives all; he is bound to marry her; and
honour constrains me to urge him thereto, in spite of what he protests, and to
smooth the way to this issue by my method of informing her. I have meant to
tell her the last month - ever since she has been strong enough to bear such
tidings; but I have been without the power — the moral force. Surely I must
write, and get him to come and assist me.
March 14. — She continually wonders why he
does not come, the five months of his enforced absence having expired; and
still more she wonders why he does not write oftener. His last letter was cold,
she says, and she fears he regrets his marriage, which he may only have
celebrated with her for pity's sake, thinking she was sure to die. It makes
one's heart bleed to hear her hovering thus so near the truth, and yet never
discerning its actual shape.
A minor trouble besets me, too, in the
person of the young Scripture reader, whose conscience pricks him for the part
he played. Surely I am punished, if ever woman were, for a too ingenious perversion
of her better judgment!
April 2. — She is practically well. The
faint pink revives in her cheek, though it is not quite so full as heretofore.
But she still wonders what she can have done to offend 'her dear husband,' and
I have been obliged to tell the smallest part of the truth — an unimportant
fragment of the whole, in fact, I said that I feared for the moment he might
regret the precipitancy of the act, which her illness caused, his affairs not
having been quite sufficiently advanced for marriage just then, though he will
doubtless come to her as soon as he has a home ready. Meanwhile I have written
to him, peremptorily, to come and relieve me in this awful dilemma. He will
find no note of love in that.
April 10. — To my alarm the letter I lately
addressed to him at Venice, where he is staying, as well as the last one she
sent him, have received no reply. She thinks he is ill. I do not quite think
that, but I wish we could hear from him. Perhaps the peremptoriness of my words
had offended him; it grieves me to think it possible. I offend him! But too
much of this. I must tell her the truth, or she may in her ignorance commit
herself to some course or other that may be ruinously compromising. She said
plaintively just now that if he could see her, and know how occupied with him
and him alone is her every waking hour, she is sure he would forgive her the
wicked presumption of becoming his wife. Very sweet all that, and touching. I
could not conceal my tears.
April 15. — The house is in confusion; my father
is angry and distressed, and I am distracted. Caroline has disappeared — gone
away secretly. I cannot help thinking that I know where she is gone to. How
guilty I seem, and how innocent she! O that I had told her before now!
1 o'clock. — No trace of her as yet. We
find also that the little waiting-maid we have here in training has disappeared
with Caroline, and there is not much doubt that Caroline, fearing to travel
alone, has induced this girl to go with her as companion. I am almost sure she
has started in desperation to find him, and that Venice is her goal. Why should
she run away, if not to join her husband, as she thinks him? Now that I
consider, there have been indications of this wish in her for days, as in birds
of passage there lurk signs of their incipient intention; and yet I did not
think she would have taken such an extreme step, unaided, and without
consulting me. I can only jot down the bare facts — I have no time for
reflections. But fancy Caroline travelling across the continent of Europe with
a chit of a girl, who will be more of a charge than an assistance! They will be
a mark for every marauder who encounters them.
Evening 8 o'clock. — Yes, it is as I
surmised. She has gone to join him. A note posted by her in Budmouth-Regis at
daybreak has reached me this afternoon — thanks to the fortunate chance of one
of the servants calling for letters in town to-day, or I should not have got it
until to-morrow. She merely asserts her determination of going to him, and has
started privately, that nothing may hinder her; stating nothing about her
route. That such a gentle thing should suddenly become so calmly resolute quite
surprises me. Alas, he may have left Venice — she may not find him for weeks —
may not at all.
My father, on learning the facts, bade me
at once have everything ready by nine this evening, in time to drive to the
train that meets the night steam-boat. This I have done, and there being an
hour to spare before we start, I relieve the suspense of waiting by taking up
my pen. He says overtake her we must, and calls Charles the hardest of names.
He believes, of course, that she is merely an infatuated girl rushing off to
meet her lover; and how can the wretched I tell him that she is more, and in a
sense better than that - yet not sufficiently more and better to make this
flight to Charles anything but a still greater danger to her than a mere
lover's impulse. We shall go by way of Paris, and we think we may overtake her
there. I hear my father walking restlessly up and down the hall, and can write
no more.
VIII. — SHE TRAVELS IN PURSUIT
April 16. Evening, Paris, Hotel ____. —
There is no overtaking her at this place; but she has been here, as I thought,
no other hotel in Paris being known to her. We go on to-morrow morning.
April 18. Venice. - A morning of adventures
and emotions which leave me sick and weary, and yet unable to sleep, though I
have lain down on the sofa of my room for more than an hour in the attempt. I
therefore make up my diary to date in a hurried fashion, for the sake of the
riddance it affords to ideas which otherwise remain suspended hotly in the
brain.
We arrived here this morning in broad
sunlight, which lit up the sea-girt buildings as we approached so that they
seemed like a city of cork floating raft-like on the smooth, blue deep. But I
only glanced from the carriage window at the lovely scene, and we were soon
across the intervening water and inside the railway station. When we got to the
front steps the row of black gondolas and the shouts of the gondoliers so
bewildered my father that he was understood to require two gondolas instead of
one with two oars, and so I found him in one and myself in another. We got this
righted after a while, and were rowed at once to the hotel on the Riva degli
Schiavoni where M. de la Feste had been staying when we last heard from him,
the way being down the Grand Canal for some distance, under the Rialto, and
then by narrow canals which eventually brought us under the Bridge of Sighs —
harmonious to our moods! — and out again into open water. The scene was purity
itself as to colour, but it was cruel that I should behold it for the first
time under such circumstances.
As soon as we entered the hotel, which is
an old-fashioned place, like most places here, where people are taken en
pension as well as the ordinary way, I rushed to the framed list of visitors
hanging in the hall, and in a moment I saw Charles's name upon it among the
rest. But she was our chief thought. I turned to the hall porter, and — knowing
that she would have travelled as 'Madame de la Feste' — I asked for her under
that name, without my father hearing. (He, poor soul, was making confused
inquiries outside the door about 'an English lady,' as if there were not a
score of English ladies at hand.)
'She has just come,' said the porter.
'Madame came by the very early train this morning, when Monsieur was asleep,
and she requested us not to disturb him. She is now in her room.'
Whether Caroline had seen us from the
window, or overheard me, I do not know, but at that moment I heard footsteps on
the bare marble stairs, and she appeared in person descending.
'Caroline!' I exclaimed, 'why have you done
this?' and rushed up to her.
She did not answer; but looked down to hide
emotion, which she conquered after the lapse of a few seconds, putting on a
practical tone that belied her.
'I am just going to my husband,' she said.
'I have not yet seen him. I have not been here long.' She condescended to give
no further reason for her movements, and made as if to move on. I implored her
to come into a private room where I could speak to her in confidence, but she
objected. However, the dining-room, close at hand, was quite empty at this
hour, and I got her inside and closed the door. I do not know how I began my
explanation, or how I ended it, but I told her briefly and brokenly enough that
the marriage was not real.
'Not real?' she said vacantly.
'It is not,' said I. 'You will find that it
is all as I say.'
She could not believe my meaning even then.
'Not his wife?' she cried. 'It is impossible. What am I, then?'
I added more details, and reiterated the
reason for my conduct as well as I could; but Heaven knows how very difficult I
found it to feel a jot more justification for it in my own mind than she did in
hers.
The revulsion of feeling, as soon as she
really comprehended all, was most distressing. After her grief had in some
measure spent itself she turned against both him and me.
'Why should have I been deceived like
this?' she demanded, with a bitter haughtiness of which I had not deemed such a
tractable creature capable, 'Do you suppose that anything could justify such an
imposition?
What, O what a snare you have spread for
me!'
I murmured, 'Your life seemed to require
it,' but she did not hear me.
She sank down in a chair, covered her face,
and then my father came in. 'O, here you are!' he said. 'I could not find you!
And Caroline!'
'And were you, papa, a party to this
strange deed of kindness ?
'To what?' said he.
Then out it all came, and for the first
time he was made acquainted with the fact that the scheme for soothing her
illness, which I had sounded him upon, had been really carried out. In a moment
he sided with Caroline. My repeated assurance that my motive was good availed
less than nothing. In a minute or two Caroline arose and went abruptly out of
the room, my father followed her, leaving me alone to my reflections.
I was so bent upon finding Charles
immediately that I did not notice whither they went. The servants told me that
M. de la Feste was just outside smoking, and one of them went to look for him,
I following; but before we had gone many steps he came out of the hotel behind
me. I expected him to be amazed; but he showed no surprise at seeing me, though
he showed another kind of feeling to an extent which dismayed me. I may have
revealed something similar; but I struggled hard against all emotion, and as
soon as I could I told him she had come. He simply said 'Yes' in a low voice.
'You know it, Charles?' said I.
'I have just learnt it,' he said.
'O, Charles,' I went on, 'having delayed
completing your marriage with her till now, I fear — it has become a serious
position for us. Why did you not reply to our letters?'
'I was purposing to reply in person: I did
not know how to address her on the point — how to address you. But what has
become of her?'
'She has gone off with my father,' said I;
'indignant with you, and scorning me.'
He was silent: and I suggested that we should
follow them, pointing out the direction which I fancied their gondola had
taken. As the one we got into was doubly manned we soon came in view of their
two figures ahead of us, while they were not likely to observe us, our boat
having the 'felze' on, while theirs was uncovered. They shot into a narrow
canal just beyond the Giardino Reale, and by the time we were floating up
between its slimy walls we saw them getting out of their gondola at the steps
which lead up near the end of the Via 22 Marzo. When we reached the same spot
they were walking up and down the Via in consultation. Getting out he stood on
the lower steps watching them. I watched him. He seemed to fall into a reverie.
'Will you not go and speak to her?' said I
at length.
He assented, and went forward. Still he did
not hasten to join them, but, screened by a projecting window, observed their
musing converse. At last he looked back at me; whereupon I pointed forward, and
he in obedience stepped out, and met them face to face. Caroline flushed hot,
bowed haughtily to him, turned away, and taking my father's arm violently, led
him off before he had had time to use his own judgment. They disappeared into a
narrow calle, or alley, leading to the back of the buildings on the Grand
Canal.
M. de la Feste came slowly back; as he
stepped in beside me I realized my position so vividly that my heart might
almost have been heard to beat. The third condition had arisen - the least
expected by either of us. She had refused him; he was free to claim me.
We returned in the boat together. He seemed
quite absorbed till we had turned the angle into the Grand Canal, when he broke
the silence. 'She spoke very bitterly to you in the salle-a'-manger,' he said.
'I do not think she was quite warranted in speaking so to you, who had nursed
her so tenderly.'
'O, but I think she was,' I answered. It
was there I told her what had been done; she did not know till then.'
'She was very dignified - very striking,'
he murmured. 'You were more.'
'But how do you know what passed between
us?' said I. He then told me that he had seen and heard all. The dining-room
was divided by folding-doors from an inner portion, and he had been sitting in
the latter part when we entered the outer, so that our words were distinctly
audible.
'But, dear Alicia,' he went on, 'I was more
impressed by the affection of your apology to her than by anything else. And do
you know that now the conditions have arisen which give me liberty to consider
you my affianced?' I had been expecting this, but yet was not prepared. I
stammered out that we would not discuss it then.
'Why not?' said he. 'Do you know that we
may marry here and now? She has cast off both you and me.'
'It cannot be,' said I firmly. 'She has not
been fairly asked to be your wife in fact — to repeat the service lawfully; and
until that has been done it would be grievous sin in me to accept you.'
I had not noticed where the gondoliers were
rowing us. I suppose he had given them some direction unheard by me, for as I
resigned myself in despairing indolence to the motion of the gondola, I
perceived that it was taking us up the Canal, and, turning into a side opening
near the Palazzo Grimani, drew up at some steps near the end of a large church.
'Where are we?' said I.
'It is the Church of the Frari,' he
replied. 'We might be married there.
At any rate, let us go inside, and grow
calm, and decide what to do.'
When we had entered I found that whether a
place to marry in or not, it was one to depress. The word which Venice speaks
most constantly - decay - was in a sense accentuated here. The whole large
fabric itself seemed sinking into an earth which was not solid enough to bear
it. Cobwebbed cracks zigzagged the walls, and similar webs clouded the
windowpanes. A sickly-sweet smell pervaded the aisles. After walking about with
him a little while in embarrassing silences, divided only by his cursory
explanations of the monuments and other objects, and almost fearing he might
produce a marriage licence, I went to a door in the south transept which opened
into the sacristy.
I glanced through it, towards the small
altar at the upper end. The place was empty save of one figure; and she was
kneeling here in front of the beautiful altarpiece by Bellini. Beautiful though
it was she seemed not to see it. She was weeping and praying as though her
heart was broken. She was my sister Caroline. I beckoned to Charles, and he
came to my side, and looked through the door with me.
'Speak to her,' said I. 'She will forgive
you.'
I gently pushed him through the doorway,
and went back into the transept, down the nave, and onward to the west door.
There I saw my father, to whom I spoke. He answered severely that, having first
obtained comfortable quarters in a pension on the Grand Canal, he had gone back
to the hotel on the Riva degli Schiavoni to find me; but that I was not there.
He was now waiting for Caroline, to accompany her back to the pension, at which
she had requested to be left to herself as much as possible till she could
regain some composure.
I told him that it was useless to dwell on
what was past, that I no doubt had erred, that the remedy lay in the future and
their marriage. In this he quite agreed with me, and on my informing him that
M. de la Feste was at that moment with Caroline in the sacristy, he assented to
my proposal that we should leave them to themselves, and return together to
await them at the pension, where he had also engaged a room for me. This we
did, and going up to the chamber he had chosen for me, which overlooked the
Canal, I leant from the window to watch for the gondola that should contain
Charles and my sister.
They were not long in coming. I recognized
them by the colour of her sunshade as soon as they turned the bend on my right
hand. They were side by side of necessity, but there was no conversation
between them, and I thought that she looked flushed and he pale. When they were
rowed in to the steps of our house he handed her up. I fancied she might have
refused his assistance, but she did not. Soon I heard her pass my door, and wishing
to know the result of their interview I went downstairs, seeing that the
gondola had not put off with him. He was turning from the door, but not towards
the water, intending apparently to walk home by way of the calls which led into
the Via 22 Marzo.
'Has she forgiven you?' said I.
'I have not asked her,' he said.
'But you are bound to do so,' I told him.
He paused, and then said, 'Alicia, let us
understand each other. Do you mean to tell me, once for all, that if your
sister is willing to become my wife you absolutely make way for her, and will
not entertain any thought of what I suggested to you any more ?'
'I do tell you so, said I with dry lips.
'You belong to her - how can I do otherwise?'
'Yes; it is so; it is purely a question of
honour,' he returned. 'Very well then, honour shall be my word, and not my
love. I will put the question to her frankly; if she says yes, the marriage
shall be. But not here. It shall be at your own house in England.'
'When?' said I.
'I will accompany her there,' he replied,
'and it shall be within a week of her return. I have nothing to gain by delay.
But I will not answer for the consequences.'
'What do you mean?' said I. He made no
reply, went away, and I came back to my room.
IX. — SHE WITNESSES THE END
April 20. Milan, 10:30 p.m. - We are thus
far on our way homeward. I, being decidedly de trop, travel apart from the rest
as much as I can. Having dined at the hotel here, I went out by myself,
regardless of the proprieties, for I could not stay in. I walked at a leisurely
pace along the Via Allesandro Manzoni till my eye was caught by the grand
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, and I entered under the high glass arcades till I
reached the central octagon, where I sat down on one of a group of chairs
placed there. Becoming accustomed to the stream of promenaders, I soon
observed, seated on the chairs opposite, Caroline and Charles. This was the
first occasion on which I had seen them en tete a tete since my conversation
with him. She soon caught sight of me; averted her eyes; then, apparently
abandoning herself to an impulse, she jumped up from her seat and came across
to me. We had not spoken to each other since the meeting in Venice.
'Alicia,' she said, sitting down by my
side, 'Charles asks me to forgive you, and I do forgive you.'
I pressed her hand, with tears in my eyes,
and said, 'And do you forgive him?'
'Yes,' said she shyly.
'And what's the result?' said I.
'We are to be married directly we reach
home.'
This was almost the whole of our
conversation; she walked home with me, Charles following a little way behind,
though she kept turning her head, as if anxious that he should overtake us.
'Honour and not love' seemed to ring in my ears. So matters stand. Caroline is
again happy.
April 25. — We have reached home, Charles
with us. Events are now moving in silent speed, almost with velocity, indeed;
and I sometimes feel oppressed by the strange and preternatural ease which
seems to accompany their flow. Charles is staying at the neighbouring town; he
is only waiting for the marriage licence; when obtained he is to come here, be
quietly married to her, and carry her off. It is rather resignation than
content which sits on his face; but he has not spoken a word more to me on the
burning subject or deviated one hair's breadth from the course he laid down.
They may be happy in time to come: I hope so. But I cannot shake off
depression.
May 6. — Eve of the wedding. Caroline is
serenely happy, though not blithe. But there is nothing to excite anxiety about
her. I wish I could say the same of him. He comes and goes like a ghost, and
yet nobody seems to observe this strangeness in his mien. I could not help
being here for the ceremony; but my absence would have resulted in less
disquiet on his part, I believe. However, I may be wrong in attributing causes:
my father simply says that Charles and Caroline have as good a chance of being
happy as other people. Well, to-morrow settles all.
May 7. — They are married: we have just
returned from church. Charles looked so pale this morning that my father asked
him if he was ill. He said, 'No: only a slight headache;' and we started for
the church. There was no hitch or hindrance; and the thing is done.
4 p.m. — They ought to have set out on
their journey by this time; but there is an unaccountable delay. Charles went
out half-an-hour ago, and has not yet returned. Caroline is waiting in the
hall; but I am dreadfully afraid they will miss the train. I suppose the
trifling hindrance is of no account; and yet I am full of misgivings. . . .
Sept. 14. — Four months have passed; only
four months! It seems like years. Can it be that only seventeen weeks ago I set
on this paper the fact of their marriage? I am now an aged woman by comparison!
On that never to be forgotten day we waited
and waited, and Charles did not return. At six o'clock, when poor little
Caroline had gone back to her room in a state of suspense impossible to
describe, a man who worked in the water-meadows came to the house and asked for
my father. He had an interview with him in the study. My father then rang his
bell, and sent for me. I went down; and I then learnt the fatal news. Charles
was no more. The waterman had been going to shut down the hatches of a weir in
the meads when he saw a hat on the edge of the pool below, floating round and
round in the eddy, and looking into the pool saw something strange at the
bottom. He knew what it meant, and lowering the hatches so that the water was
still, could distinctly see the body. It is needless to write particulars that
were in the newspapers at the time. Charles was brought to the house, but he
was dead.
We all feared for Caroline; and she
suffered much; but strange to say, her suffering was purely of the nature of
deep grief which found relief in sobbing and tears. It came out at the inquest
that Charles had been accustomed to cross the meads to give an occasional
half-crown to an old man who lived on the opposite hill, who had once been a
landscape painter in an humble way till he lost his eyesight; and it was
assumed that he had gone thither for the same purpose to-day, and to bid him
farewell. On this information the coroner's jury found that his death had been
caused by misadventure; and everybody believes to this hour that he was drowned
while crossing the weir to relieve the old man. Except one: she believes in no
accident. After the stunning effect of the first news, I thought it strange
that he should have chosen to go on such an errand at the last moment, and to
go personally, when there was so little time to spare, since any gift could
have been so easily sent by another hand. Further reflection has convinced me
that this step out of life was as much a part of the day's plan as was the
wedding in the church hard by. They were the two halves of his complete
intention when he gave me on the Grand Canal that assurance which I shall never
forget: 'Very well, then; honour shall be my word, not love. If she says
"Yes," the marriage shall be.'
I do not know why I should have made this
entry at this particular time; but it has occurred to me to do it — to
complete, in a measure, that part of my desultory chronicle which relates to
the love-story of my sister and Charles. She lives on meekly in her grief, and
will probably outlive it; while I — but never mind me.
X. — SHE ADDS A NOTE LONG AFTER
Five years later. — I have lighted upon
this old diary, which it has interested me to look over, containing, as it
does, records of the time when life shone in more warmly in my eye than it does
now. I am impelled to add one sentence to round off its record of the past.
About a year ago my sister Caroline, after a persistent wooing, accepted the
hand and heart of Theophilus Higham, once the blushing young Scripture reader
who assisted at the substitute for a marriage I planned, and now the
fully-ordained curate of the next parish. His penitence for the part he played
ended in love. We have all now made atonement for our sins against her: may she
be deceived no more.
1887.