Volume Iii Part 5 (1/2)
”Nor did I say anything of the sort. _I_ am not at all in the custom of a.s.serting grave charges against a person, without certain proof. I only saw as much into 'the secrets of the prison-house' at Montrevor as would make me very sorry to have had anything further to do with its interior.”
Poor Mary! She asked no more questions, she had heard quite enough to give new and dark impressions to her mind. She saw everything in a still more bewildering and uncertain light--yet felt a vague, indefinite dread of further revelation.
Her sister's carriage being speedily announced, she bade adieu to her cousins, who were leaving London the next day, and
”Went like one that hath been stunned, And is of sense forlorn,”
bearing in her secret soul restless doubts and blind misgivings, she shrank even from confiding to her most beloved Arthur.
CHAPTER IV.
I knew that in thy bosom dwelt A silent grief, a hidden fear, A sting which could be only felt By spirits to their G.o.d most dear, Which yet thou felt'st from year to year, Unsoftened, nay, embitter'd still; And many a secret sigh and tear Heaved thy sad heart, thine eyes did fill, And anxious thoughts thou hadst presaging direst ill.
MOULTRIE.
The sequel only brought forth for our heroine further disturbance and discomfort.
The newly-risen impediment to the marriage was of necessity the subject of correspondence. He again threw the blame upon his father, urging his increasing infirmities of mind and body as the excuse.
But the plea appeared to Mary's friends evasive and ambiguous, and greatly indeed was the strength and stability of her affection tried by the urgent solicitations of those so dear to her, that she would consent to break off entirely this ill-starred--and as they the more and more considered it--objectionable engagement.
But no, there was yet one still more dear to her; and to him, through good and evil report, her spirit yet must cling--
”And stand as stands a lonely tree, That still unbroke, though gently bent, Still waves with fond fidelity Its boughs above a monument.”
By letter too--for there was one crisis of affairs during which the lovers corresponded on the anxious subject, Eugene failed not to urge the maintenance of an engagement which on his part he declared he would never consent to be the first to relinquish.
Then, how could Mary cast aside an attachment, a hope which had become so linked with the happiness of her existence, that to contemplate its extinction, was to see before her extended
”Dreary and vast and silent the desert of life.”
No, rather was she content in doubt, darkness and uncertainty to wait and wander, her hope still fixed upon the distant light in the hazy future.
A position, such as that in which Mary found herself placed--an ill-defined and ambiguous matrimonial engagement--is to a young woman ever, more or less, a misfortune and a trial: something there is in her life
”Incomplete, imperfect, and unfinished,”
comprising also as it must do, much of uncertainty and restless doubt.
The circ.u.mstances of Mary's case, rendered hers more peculiarly a subject for such influences. Removed from the sphere in which her lover moved, even their correspondence, after the time just mentioned, entirely ceased; and she heard of him only at intervals--by chance and vague report.
She had longed to have those doubts and repellant ideas, Mr. de Burgh's conversation had insinuated into her mind, cleared away, as she believed they might, by Eugene's own word of mouth. But this had been denied her.
She had indeed alluded to the report respecting his brother, which Mr.
de Burgh had heard; but Eugene had merely said in reply, that he was taking every measure to ascertain its accuracy; and she heard nothing further on that point.