Part 10 (1/2)
Paradise itself could hardly hold an hour of purer and more perfect bliss than when those two young creatures stood holding each other's hands and confessing their mutual love.
To Nea it was happiness, the happiness for which she had secretly longed. To Maurice it was a dazzling dream, a madness, an unreality, from which he must wake up to doubt his own sanity--to tremble and disbelieve.
And that awakening came all too soon.
Through the long hours of the night he lay and pondered, till with the silence and darkness a thousand uneasy thoughts arose that cooled the fever in his veins and made him chill with the foreboding of evil.
What had he done? Was he mad? Had it been all his fault that he had betrayed his love? Had he not been sorely tempted? and yet, would not a more honorable man have left her without saying a word?
How could he go to Mr. Huntingdon and acknowledge what he had done?
that he, a mere clerk, a poor curate's son, had dared to aspire to his daughter, to become the rival of Lord Bertie Gower--for Nea had confided to him her father's ambition. Would he not think him mad?
groaned Maurice, or would he turn with that hard, dark look on his face that he knew so well, and give him a curt dismissal?
Maurice remembered George Anderson and trembled, as well he might; and then as the whole hopelessness of the case rushed upon him, he thought that he would tell his darling that he had been mad--dishonorable, but that he would give her up; that he loved her better than himself, and that for her own sweet sake he must give her up.
And so through the long, dark hours Maurice lay and fought out his first fierce battle of life, and morning found him the victor.
The victor, but not for long; for at the first hint, the first whispered word that he must tell her father, or that he must leave her forever, Nea clung to him in a perfect pa.s.sion of tears.
The self-willed, undisciplined child had grown into the wayward, undisciplined girl. No one but her father had ever thwarted Nea, and now even his will had ceased to govern her; she could not and would not give up the only man whom she loved; nothing on earth should induce her now to marry Lord Bertie--she would rather die first; if he left her she should break her heart, but he loved her too well to leave her.
Poor Maurice! An honorable man would have nerved himself to bear her loving reproaches; would have turned sadly and firmly from her confused, girlish sophistries, and reproved them with a word. He would have told her that he loved her, but that he loved honor more; that he would neither sin himself nor suffer her to tempt him from his sense of right. But Maurice did none of these things; he was young and weak; the temptation was too powerful; he stayed, listened and was lost. Ah!
the angels must have wept that day over Maurice's fall, and Nea's victory.
She told him what he knew already, that Mr. Huntingdon would turn him out of his office; that he would oppress her cruelly; that he would probably take her abroad or condemn her to solitude, until she had promised to give him up and marry Lord Bertie.
Could he leave her to her father's tender mercies, or abandon her to that other lover? and she wept so pa.s.sionately as she said this that a stronger man than Maurice must have felt his strength waver.
And so Nea had the victory, and the days flew by on golden wings, and the stolen moments became sweeter and more precious to the young lovers until the end came.
Mr. Huntingdon was better--he could leave his room and walk up and down the corridor leaning on Sister Teresa's arm.
There was less pain and fewer relapses; and when Dr. Ainslie proposed that his patient should spend the rest of the spring in the south of France, Mr. Huntingdon consented without a demur.
They were to be away some months, Mr. Huntingdon informed Nea, and extend their tour to Switzerland and the Italian Tyrol. Lord Bertie had promised to join them at Pau in a month or so, and here her father looked at her with a smile. They could get the trousseau in Paris. Nea must make up her mind to accept him before they started; there must be no more delay or s.h.i.+lly-shallying; the thing had already hung fire too long. Lord Bertie had been complaining that he was not fairly treated, and more to the same purpose.
Nea listened in perfect silence, but it was well that her father could not see her face. Presently she rose and said that he was tired and must talk no more, for Mr. Trafford would be here directly; and then she made some pretext for leaving the room.
Maurice found her waiting for him when he came downstairs. As he took her in his arms and asked her why she looked so pale and strange, she clung to him almost convulsively and implored him to save her. Maurice was as pale as she, long before she had finished; the crisis had come, and he must either lose her or tempt his fate.
Again he tried to reason with her, to be true to himself and her; but Nea would not give him up or let him tell her father. She would marry Maurice at once if he wished it; yes, perhaps that would be the wisest plan. Her father would never give his consent, but when it was too late to prevent it he might be induced to forgive their marriage. It was very wrong, she knew, but it would be the only way to free her from Lord Bertie. Her father would be terribly angry, but his anger would not last; she was his only child, and he had never denied her anything.
Poor Nea! there was something pathetic in her blindness and perfect faith in her father; even Maurice felt his misgivings silenced as he listened to her innocent talk; and again the angels wept over Maurice's deeper fall, and Nea's unholy victory.
They had planned it all; in three weeks' time they were to be married.
Mr. Huntingdon could not leave before then. On the day before that fixed for the journey the bond was to be sealed and signed between them, so that no power of man could part them. Mr. Huntingdon might storm ever so loudly, his anger would break against an adamantine fate. ”Those whom G.o.d has joined together no man can put asunder”--words of sacred terror and responsibility.