Part 17 (1/2)
To say that no tears were shed during the composition of this letter would be to overstrain fort.i.tude beyond natural bounds. With difficulty Alicia checked the effusions of her pen. She wished to have said much more, and to have soothed the agony of renunciation by painting with warmth her tenderness and her regret; but reason urged that, in exciting his feelings and displaying her own, she would defeat the chief purpose of her letter. She hastily closed and directed it, with a feeling almost akin to despair.
The necessary arrangements for the journey having been hastily made, the ladies set out two days after Sir Edmund had so hastily quitted them.
The uncomplaining Alicia buried her woes in her own bosom; and neither murmurs on the one hand, nor reproaches on the other, were heard.
At the end of four days the travellers entered Scotland; and when they stopped for the night, Alicia, fatigued and dispirited, retired immediately to her apartment.
She had been there but a few minutes when the chambermaid knocked at the door, and informed her that she was wanted below.
Supposing that Lady Audley had sent for her, she followed the girl without observing that she was conducted in an opposite direction; when, upon entering an apartment, what was her astonishment at finding herself, not in the presence of Lady Audley, but in the arms of Sir Edmund! In the utmost agitation, she sought to disengage herself from his almost frantic embrace; while he poured forth a torrent of rapturous exclamations, and swore that no human power should ever divide them again.
”I have followed your steps, dearest Alicia, from the moment I received your letter. We are now in Scotland-in this blessed land of liberty.
Everything is arranged; the clergyman is now in waiting; and in five minutes you shall be my own beyond the power of fate to sever us.”
Too much agitated to reply, Alicia wept in silence; and in the delight of once more beholding him she had thought never more to behold, forgot, for a moment, the duty she had imposed upon herself. But the native energy of her character returned. She raised her head, and attempted to withdraw from the encircling arms of her cousin.
”Never until you have vowed to be mine! The clergyman--the carriage--everything is in readiness. Speak but the word, dearest.” And he knelt at her feet.
At this juncture the door opened, and, pale with rage, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng fire, Lady Audley stood before them. A dreadful scene now ensued. Sir Edmund disdained to enter into any justification of his conduct, or even to reply to the invectives of his mother, but lavished the most tender a.s.siduities on Alicia; who, overcome more by the conflicts of her own heart than with alarm at Lady Audley's violence, sat the pale and silent image of consternation.
Baffled by her son's indignant disregard, Lady Audley turned all her fury on her niece; and, in the most opprobrious terms that rage could invent, upbraided her with deceit and treachery--accusing her of making her pretended submission instrumental to the more speedy accomplishment of her marriage. Too much incensed to reply, Sir Edmund seized his cousin's hand, and was leading her from the room.
”Go, then--go, marry her; but first hear me swear, solemnly swear”-- and she raised her hand and eyes to heaven--”that my malediction shall be your portion! Speak but the word, and no power shall make me withhold it!”
”Dear Edmund!” exclaimed Alicia, distractedly, ”never ought I to have allowed time for the terrifying words that have fallen from Lady Audley's lips; never for me shall your mother's malediction fall on you.
Farewell for ever!” and, with the strength of desperation, she rushed past him, and quitted the room. Sir Edmund madly followed, but in vain.
Alicia's feelings were too highly wrought at that moment to be touched even by the man she loved; and, without an additional pang, she saw him throw himself into the carriage which he had destined for so different a purpose, and quit for ever the woman he adored.
It may easily be conceived of how painful a nature must have been the future intercourse betwixt Lady Audley and her niece. The former seemed to regard her victim with that haughty distance which the unrelenting oppressor never fails to entertain towards the object of his tyranny; while even the gentle Alicia, on her part, shrank, with ill-concealed abhorrence, from the presence of that being whose stern decree had blasted all the fairest blossoms of her happiness.
Alicia was received with affection by her grandfather; and she laboured to drive away the heavy despondency which pressed on her spirits by studying his taste and humours, and striving to contribute to his comfort and amus.e.m.e.nt.
Sir Duncan had chosen the time of Alicia's arrival to transact some business; and instead of returning immediately to the Highlands, he determined to remain some weeks in Edinburgh for her amus.e.m.e.nt.
But, little attractive as dissipation had been, it was now absolutely repugnant to Alicia. She loathed the idea of mixing in scenes of amus.e.m.e.nt with a heart incapable of joy, a spirit indifferent to every object that surrounded her; and in solitude alone she expected gradually to regain her peace of mind.
In the amus.e.m.e.nts of the gay season of Edinburgh, Alicia expected to find all the vanity, emptiness, and frivolity of London dissipation, without its varied brilliancy and elegant luxury; yet, so much was it the habit of her mind to look to the fairest side of things, and to extract some advantage from every situation in which she was placed, that pensive and thoughtful as was her disposition, the discriminating only perceived her deep dejection, while all admired her benevolence of manner and unaffected desire to please.
By degrees Alicia found that in some points she had been inaccurate in her idea of the style of living of those who form the best society of Edinburgh. The circle is so confined that its members are almost universally known to each other; and those various gradations of gentility, from the city's snug party to the d.u.c.h.ess's most crowded a.s.sembly, all totally distinct and separate, which are to be met with in London, have no prototype in Edinburgh. There the ranks and fortunes being more on an equality, no one is able greatly to exceed his neighbour in luxury and extravagance. Great magnificence, and the consequent gratification produced by the envy of others being out of the question, the object for which a reunion of individuals was originally invented becomes less of a secondary consideration. Private parties for the actual purpose of society and conversation are frequent, and answer the destined end; and in the societies of professed amus.e.m.e.nt are to be met the learned, the studious, and the rational; not presented as shows to the company by the host and hostess, but professedly seeking their own gratification.
Still the lack of beauty, fas.h.i.+on, and elegance disappoint the stranger accustomed to their brilliant combination in a London world. But Alicia had long since sickened in the metropolis at the frivolity of beauty, the heartlessness of fas.h.i.+on, and the insipidity of elegance; and it was a relief to her to turn to the variety of character she found beneath the cloak of simple, eccentric, and sometimes coa.r.s.e manners.
We are never long so totally abstracted by our own feelings as to be unconscious of the attempts of others to please us. In Alicia, to be conscious of it and to be grateful was the same movement. Yet she was sensible that so many persons could not in that short period have become seriously interested in her. The observation did not escape her how much an English stranger is looked up to for fas.h.i.+on and taste in Edinburgh, though possessing little merit save that of being English; yet she felt gratified and thankful for the kindness and attention that greeted her appearance on all sides.
Amongst the many who expressed goodwill towards Alicia there were a few whose kindness and real affection failed not to meet with a return from her; and others whose rich and varied powers of mind for the first time afforded her a true specimen of the exalting enjoyment produced by a communion of intellect. She felt the powers of her understanding enlarge in proportion; and, with this mental activity, she sought to solace the languor of her heart and save it from the listlessness of despair.
Alicia had been about six weeks in Edinburgh when she received a letter from Lady Audley. No allusions were made to the past; she wrote upon general topics, in the cold manner that might be used to a common acquaintance; and slightly named her son as having set out upon a tour to the Continent.
Alicia's heart was heavy as she read the heartless letter of the woman whose cruelty ad not been able to eradicate wholly from her breast he strong durable affection of early habit.