Book: My Novel, Volume 11.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> My Novel, Volume 11.




Then Nora's anger burst forth. She believe such a stain on Audley's
honour!

"But where was the honour when he betrayed his friend? Did you not know
that he was entrusted by Lord L'Estrange to plead for him. How did he
fulfil the trust?"

"Plead for L'Estrange!" Nora had not been exactly aware of this,--in the
sudden love preceding those sudden nuptials, so little touching Harley
(beyond Audley's first timid allusions to his suit, and her calin and
cold reply) had been spoken by either.

Levy resumed. He dwelt fully on the trust and the breach of it, and then
said: "In Egerton's world, man holds it far more dishonour to betray a
man than to dupe a woman; and if Egerton could do the one, why doubt that
he would do the other? But do not look at me with those indignant eyes.
Put himself to the test; write to him to say that the suspicions amidst
which you live have become intolerable, that they infect even yourself,
despite your reason, that the secrecy of your nuptials, his prolonged
absence, his brief refusal, on unsatisfactory grounds, to proclaim your
tie, all distract you with a terrible doubt. Ask him, at least (if he
will not yet declare your marriage), to satisfy you that the rites were
legal."

"I will go to him," cried Nora, impetuously.

"Go to him!--in his own house! What a scene, what a scandal! Could he
ever forgive you?"

"At least, then, I will implore him to come here. I can not write such
horrible words; I cannot! I cannot! Go, go!" Levy left her, and
hastened to two or three of Audley's most pressing creditors,--men, in
fact, who went entirely by Levy's own advice. He bade them instantly
surround Audley's country residence with bailiffs. Before Egerton could
reach Nora, he would thus be lodged in a jail. These preparations made,
Levy himself went down to Audley, and arrived, as usual, an hour or two
before the delivery of the post.

And Nora's letter came; and never was Audley's grave brow more dark than
when he read it. Still, with his usual decision, he resolved to obey her
wish,--rang the bell, and ordered his servant to put up a change of
dress, and send for post-horses.

Levy then took him aside, and led him to the window. "Look under yon
trees. Do you see those men? They are bailiffs. This is the true
reason why I come to you to-day. You cannot leave this house."

Egerton recoiled. "And this frantic, foolish letter at such a time!" he
muttered, striking the open page, full of love in the midst of terror,
with his clenched hand. O Woman, Woman! if thy heart be deep, and its
chords tender, beware how thou lovest the man with whom all that plucks
him from the hard cares of the workday world is frenzy or a folly! He
will break thy heart, he will shatter its chords, he will trample out
from its delicate framework every sound that now makes musical the common
air, and swells into unison with the harps of angels.

"She has before written to me," continued Audley, pacing the room with
angry, disordered strides, "asking me when our marriage can be
proclaimed, and I thought my replies would have satisfied any reasonable
woman. But now, now this is worse, immeasurably worse,--she actually
doubts my honour! I, who have made such sacrifices,--actually doubts
whether I, Audley Egerton, an English gentleman, could have been base
enough to--"

"What?" interrupted Levy, "to deceive your friend L'Estrange? Did not
she know that?"

"Sir!" exclaimed Egerton, turning white.

"Don't be angry,--all's fair in love as in war; and L'Estrange will live
yet to thank you for saving him from such a misalliance. But you are
seriously angry: pray, forgive me."

With some difficulty and much fawning, the usurer appeased the storm he
had raised in Audley's conscience. And he then heard, as if with
surprise, the true purport of Nora's letter.

"It is beneath me to answer, much less to satisfy, such a doubt," said
Audley. "I could have seen her, and a look of reproach would have
sufficed; but to put my hand to paper, and condescend to write, 'I am not
a villain, and I will give you the proofs that I am not'--never!"

"You are quite right; but let us see if we cannot reconcile matters
between your pride and her feelings. Write simply this: 'All that you
ask me to say or to explain, I have instructed Levy, as my solicitor, to
say and explain for me; and you may believe him as you would myself.'"

"Well, the poor fool, she deserves to be punished; and I suppose that
answer will punish her more than a lengthier rebuke.--My mind is so
distracted, I cannot judge of these trumpery woman-fears and whims;
there, I have written as you suggest. Give her all the proof she needs,
and tell her that in six months at furthest, come what will, she shall
bear the name of Egerton, as henceforth she must share his fate."

"Why say six months?"

"Parliament must be dissolved, and there must be a general election
before then. I shall either obtain a seat, be secure from a jail, have
won field for my energies, or--"

"Or what?"

"I shall renounce ambition altogether, ask my brother to assist me
towards whatever debts remain when all my property is fairly sold--they
cannot be much. He has a living in his gift; the incumbent is old, and,
I hear, very ill. I can take orders."

"Sink into a country parson!"

"And learn content. I have tasted it already. She was then by my side.
Explain all to her. This letter, I fear, is too unkind--But to doubt me
thus!"

Levy hastily placed the letter in his pocketbook; and, for fear it should
be withdrawn, took his leave.

And of that letter he made such use, that the day after he had given it
to Nora, she had left the house, the neighbourhood; fled, and not a
trace! Of all the agonies in life, that which is most poignant and
harrowing, that which for the time most annihilates reason, and leaves
our whole organization one lacerated, mangled heart, is the conviction
that we have been deceived where we placed all the trust of love. The
moment the anchor snaps, the storm comes on, the stars vanish behind the
cloud.

When Levy returned, filled with the infamous hope which had stimulated
his revenge,--the hope that if he could succeed in changing into scorn
and indignation Nora's love for Audley, he might succeed also in
replacing that broken and degraded idol,--his amaze and dismay were great
on hearing of her departure. For several days he sought her traces in
vain. He went to Lady Jane Horton's,--Nora had not been there. He
trembled to go back to Egerton. Surely Nora would have written to her
husband, and in spite of her promise, revealed his own falsehood; but as
days passed, and not a clew was found, he had no option but to repair to
Egerton Hall, taking care that the bailiffs still surrounded it. Audley
had received no line from Nora. The young husband was surprised,
perplexed, uneasy, but had no suspicion of the truth.

At length Levy was forced to break to Audley the intelligence of Nora's
flight. He gave his own colour to it. Doubtless she had gone to seek
her own relations, and, by their advice, take steps to make her marriage
publicly known. This idea changed Audley's first shock into deep and
stern resentment. His mind so little comprehended Nora's, and was ever
so disposed to what is called the common-sense view of things, that he
saw no other mode to account for her flight and her silence. Odious to
Egerton as such a proceeding would be, he was far too proud to take any
steps to guard against it. "Let her do her worst," said he, coldly,
masking emotion with his usual self-command; "it will be but a nine
days' wonder to the world, a fiercer rush of my creditors on their
hunted prey"

"And a challenge from Lord L'Estrange."

"So be it," answered Egerton, suddenly placing his hand at his heart.

"What is the matter? Are you ill?"

"A strange sensation here. My father died of a complaint of the heart,
and I myself was once told to guard, through life, against excess of
emotion. I smiled at such a warning then. Let us sit down to business."

But when Levy had gone, and solitude reclosed round that Man of the Iron
Mask, there grew upon him more and more the sense of a mighty loss.
Nora's sweet loving face started from the shadows of the forlorn walls.
Her docile, yielding temper, her generous, self-immolating spirit, came
back to his memory, to refute the idea that wronged her. His love, that
had been suspended for awhile by busy cares, but which, if without much
refining sentiment, was still the master passion of his soul, flowed back
into all his thoughts,--circumfused the very atmosphere with a fearful,
softening charm. He escaped under cover of the night from the watch of
the bailiffs. He arrived in London. He himself sought everywhere he
could think of for his missing bride. Lady Jane Horton was confined to
her bed, dying fast, incapable even to receive and reply to his letter.
He secretly sent down to Lansmere to ascertain if Nora had gone to her
parents. She was not there. The Avenels believed her still with Lady
Jane Horton.

He now grew most seriously alarmed; and in the midst of that alarm, Levy
secretly contrived that he should be arrested for debt; but he was not
detained in confinement many days. Before the disgrace got wind, the
writs were discharged, Levy baffled. He was free. Lord L'Estrange had
learned from Audley's servant what Audley would have concealed from him
out of all the world. And the generous boy, who, besides the munificent
allowance he received from the earl, was heir to an independent and
considerable fortune of his own, when he should attain his majority,
hastened to borrow the money and discharge all the obligations of his
friend. The benefit was conferred before Audley knew of it, or could
prevent. Then a new emotion, and perhaps scarce less stinging than the
loss of Nora, tortured the man who had smiled at the warning of science;
and the strange sensation at the heart was felt again and again.

And Harley, too, was still in search of Nora,--would talk of nothing but
her, and looked so haggard and grief-worn. The bloom of the boy's youth
was gone. Could Audley then have said, "She you seek is another's; your
love is razed out of your life; and, for consolation, learn that your
friend has betrayed you"? Could Audley say this? He did not dare.
Which of the two suffered the most?

And these two friends, of characters so different, were so singularly
attached to each other,--inseparable at school, thrown together in the
world, with a wealth of frank confidences between them, accumulated since
childhood. And now, in the midst of all his own anxious sorrow, Harley
still thought and planned for Egerton. And self-accusing remorse, and
all the sense of painful gratitude, deepened Audley's affection for
Harley into a devotion as to a superior, while softening it into a
reverential pity that yearned to relieve, to atone; but how,--oh, how?

A general election was now at hand, still no news of Nora. Levy kept
aloof from Audley, pursuing his own silent search. A seat for the
borough of Lansmere was pressed upon Audley, not only by Harley, but his
parents, especially by the countess, who tacitly ascribed to Audley's
wise counsels Nora's mysterious disappearance.

Egerton at first resisted the thought of a new obligation to his injured
friend; but he burned to have it, some day, in his power to repay at
least his pecuniary debt: the sense of that debt humbled him more than
all else. Parliamentary success might at last obtain for him some
lucrative situation abroad, and thus enable him gradually to remove this
load from his heart and his honour. No other chance of repayment
appeared open to him. He accepted the offer, and went down to Lansmere.
His brother, lately married, was asked to meet him; and there also was
Miss Leslie the heiress, whom Lady Lansmere secretly hoped her son Harley
would admire, but who had long since, no less secretly, given her heart
to the unconscious Egerton.

Meanwhile, the miserable Nora--deceived by the arts and representations
of Levy, acting on the natural impulse of a heart so susceptible to
shame, flying from a home which she deemed dishonoured, flying from a
lover whose power over her she knew to be so great that she dreaded lest
he might reconcile her to dishonour itself--had no thought save to hide
herself forever from Audley's eye. She would not go to her relations,
to Lady Jane; that were to give the clew, and invite the pursuit. An
Italian lady of high rank had visited at Lady Jane's,--taken a great
fancy to Nora; and the lady's husband, having been obliged to precede her
return to Italy, had suggested the notion of engaging some companion; the
lady had spoken of this to Nora and to Lady Jane Horton, who had urged
Nora to accept the offer, elude Harley's pursuit, and go abroad for a
time. Nora then had refused; for she then had seen Audley Egerton.

To this Italian lady she now went, and the offer was renewed with the
most winning kindness, and grasped at in the passion of despair. But the
Italian had accepted invitations to English country-houses before she
finally departed for the Continent. Meanwhile Nora took refuge in a
quiet lodging in a sequestered suburb, which an English servant in the
em ployment of the fair foreigner recommended. Thus had she first come
to the cottage in which Burley died. Shortly afterwards she left England
with her new companion, unknown to all,--to Lady Jane as to her parents.

All this time the poor girl was under a moral delirium, a confused fever,
haunted by dreams from which she sought to fly. Sound physiologists
agree that madness is rarest amongst persons of the finest imagination.
But those persons are, of all others, liable to a temporary state of mind
in which judgment sleeps,--imagination alone prevails with a dire and
awful tyranny. A single idea gains ascendancy, expels all others,
presents itself everywhere with an intolerable blinding glare. Nora was
at that time under the dread one idea, to fly from shame!

But when the seas rolled, and the dreary leagues interposed between her
and her lover; when new images presented themselves; when the fever
slaked, and reason returned,--doubt broke upon the previous despair. Had
she not been too credulous, too hasty? Fool, fool! Audley have been so
poor a traitor! How guilty was she, if she had wronged him! And in the
midst of this revulsion of feeling, there stirred within her another
life. She was destined to become a mother. At that thought her high
nature bowed; the last struggle of pride gave way; she would return to
England, see Audley, learn from his lips the truth, and even if the truth
were what she had been taught to believe, plead not for herself, but for
the false one's child.

Some delay occurred in the then warlike state of affairs on the Continent
before she could put this purpose into execution; and on her journey
back, various obstructions lengthened the way. But she returned at last,
and resought the suburban cottage in which she had last lodged before
quitting England. At night, she went to Audley's London house; there was
only a woman in charge of it. Mr. Egerton was absent, electioneering
somewhere; Mr. Levy, his lawyer, called every day for any letters to be
forwarded to him. Nora shrank from seeing Levy, shrank from writing even
a letter that would pass through his bands. If she had been deceived, it
had been by him, and wilfully. But parliament was already dissolved; the
election would soon be over. Mr. Egerton was expected to return to town
within a week. Nora went back to Mrs. Goodyer's and resolved to wait,
devouring her own heart in silence. But the newspapers might inform her
where Audley really was; the newspapers were sent for and conned daily.

And one morning this paragraph met her eye:--

The Earl and Countess of Lansmere are receiving a distinguished
party at their country seat. Among the guests is Miss Leslie, whose
wealth and beauty have excited such sensation in the fashionable
world. To the disappointment of numerous aspirants amongst our
aristocracy, we hear that this lady has, however, made her
distinguished choice in Mr. Audley Egerton. That gentleman is now a
candidate for the borough of Lansmere, as a supporter of the
Government; his success is considered certain, and, according to the
report of a large circle of friends, few new members will prove so
valuable an addition to the ministerial ranks. A great career may
indeed be predicted for a young man so esteemed for talent and
character, aided by a fortune so immense as that which he will
shortly receive with the hand of the accomplished heiress.

Again the anchor snapped, again the storm descended, again the stars
vanished. Nora was now once more under the dominion of a single thought,
as she had been when she fled from her bridal home. Then, it was to
escape from her lover,--now, it was to see him. As the victim stretched
on the rack implores to be led at once to death, so there are moments
when the anuihilation of hope seems more merciful than the torment of
suspense.




CHAPTER XVII.

When the scenes in some long diorama pass solemnly before us, there is
sometimes one solitary object, contrasting, perhaps, the view of stately
cities or the march of a mighty river, that halts on the eye for a
moment, and then glides away, leaving on the mind a strange, comfortless,
undefined impression.

Why was the object presented to us? In itself it seemed comparatively
insignificant. It may have been but a broken column, a lonely pool with
a star-beam on its quiet surface,--yet it awes us. We remember it when
phantasmal pictures of bright Damascus, or of colossal pyramids, of
bazaars in Stamboul, or lengthened caravans that defile slow amidst the
sands of Araby, have sated the wondering gaze. Why were we detained in
the shadowy procession by a thing that would have been so commonplace had
it not been so lone? Some latent interest must attach to it. Was it
there that a vision of woe had lifted the wild hair of a Prophet; there
where some Hagar had stilled the wail of her child on her indignant
breast? We would fain call back the pageantry procession, fain see again
the solitary thing that seemed so little worth the hand of the artist,
and ask, "Why art thou here, and wherefore dost thou haunt us?"

Rise up,--rise up once more, by the broad great thoroughfare that
stretches onward and onward to the remorseless London! Rise up, rise up,
O solitary tree with the green leaves on thy bough, and the deep rents in
thy heart; and the ravens, dark birds of omen and sorrow, that build
their nest amidst the leaves of the bough, and drop with noiseless plumes
down through the hollow rents of the heart, or are heard, it may be in
the growing shadows of twilight, calling out to their young.

Under the old pollard-tree, by the side of John Avenel's house, there
cowered, breathless and listening, John Avenel's daughter Nora. Now,
when that fatal newspaper paragraph, which lied so like truth, met her
eyes, she obeyed the first impulse of her passionate heart,--she tore the
wedding ring from her finger, she enclosed it, with the paragraph itself,
in a letter to Audley,--a letter that she designed to convey scorn and
pride--alas! it expressed only jealousy and love. She could not rest
till she had put this letter into the post with her own hand, addressed
to, Audley at Lord Lansmere's. Scarce had it left her ere she repented.
What had she done,--resigned the birth-right of the child she was so soon
to bring into the world, resigned her last hope in her lover's honour,
given up her life of life--and from belief in what?--a report in a
newspaper! No, no; she would go herself to Lansmere; to her father's
home,--she could contrive to see Audley before that letter reached his
hand. The thought was scarcely conceived before obeyed. She found a
vacant place in a coach that started from London some hours before the
mail, and went within a few miles of Lansmere; those last miles she
travelled on foot. Exhausted, fainting, she gained at last the sight of
home, and there halted, for in the little garden in front she saw her
parents seated. She heard the murmur of their voices, and suddenly she
remembered her altered shape, her terrible secret. How answer the
question,

"Daughter, where and who is thy husband?" Her heart failed her; she
crept under the old pollard-tree, to gather up resolve, to watch, and to
listen. She saw the rigid face of the thrifty, prudent mother, with the
deep lines that told of the cares of an anxious life, and the chafe of
excitable temper and warm affections against the restraint of decorous
sanctimony and resolute pride. The dear stern face never seemed to her
more dear and more stern. She saw the comely, easy, indolent, good-
humoured father; not then the poor, paralytic sufferer, who could yet
recognize Nora's eyes under the lids of Leonard, but stalwart and
jovial,--first bat in the Cricket Club, first voice in the Glee Society,
the most popular canvasser of the Lansmere Constitutional True Blue
Party, and the pride and idol of the Calvinistical prim wife; never from
those pinched lips of hers had come forth even one pious rebuke to the
careless, social man. As he sat, one hand in his vest, his profile
turned to the road, the light smoke curling playfully up from the pipe,
over which lips, accustomed to bland smile and hearty laughter, closed as
if reluctant to be closed at all, he was the very model of the
respectable retired trader in easy circumstances, and released from the
toil of making money while life could yet enjoy the delight of spending
it.

"Well, old woman," said John Avenel, "I must be off presently to see to
those three shaky voters in Fish Lane; they will have done their work
soon, and I shall catch 'em at home. They do say as how we may have an
opposition; and I know that old Smikes has gone to Lonnon in search of a
candidate. We can't have the Lansmere Constitutional Blues beat by a
Lonnoner! Ha, ha, ha!"

"But you will be home before Jane and her husband Mark come? How ever
she could marry a common carpenter!"

"Yes," said John, "he is a carpenter; but he has a vote, and that
strengthens the family interest. If Dick was not gone to Amerikay, there
would be three on us. But Mark is a real good Blue! A Lonnoner, indeed!
a Yellow from Lonnon beat my Lord and the Blues! Ha, ha!"

"But, John, this Mr. Egerton is a Lonnoner!"

"You don't understand things, talking such nonsense. Mr. Egerton is the
Blue candidate, and the Blues are the Country Party; therefore how can he
be a Lonnoner? An uncommon clever, well-grown, handsome young man, eh!
and my young Lord's particular friend."

Mrs. Avenel sighed.

"What are you sighing and shaking your head for?"

"I was thinking of our poor, dear, dear Nora!"

"God bless her!" cried John, heartily.

There was a rustle under the boughs of the old hollow-hearted pollard-
tree.

"Ha, ha! Hark! I said that so loud that I have startled the ravens!"

"How he did love her!" said Mrs. Avenel, thoughtfully. "I am sure he
did; and no wonder, for she looks every inch a lady; and why should not
she be my lady, after all?"

"He? Who? Oh, that foolish fancy of yours about my young Lord? A
prudent woman like you!--stuff! I am glad my little beauty is gone to
Lonnon, out of harm's way."

"John, John, John! No harm could ever come to my Nora. She 's too pure
and too good, and has too proper a pride in her, to--"

"To listen to any young lords, I hope," said John; "though," he added,
after a pause, "she might well be a lady too. My Lord, the young one,
took me by the hand so kindly the other day, and said, 'Have not you
heard from her--I mean Miss Avenel--lately?' and those bright eyes of his
were as full of tears as--as--as yours are now."

"Well, John, well; go on."

"That is all. My Lady came up, and took me away to talk about the
election; and just as I was going, she whispered, 'Don't let my wild boy
talk to you about that sweet girl of yours. We must both see that she
does not come to disgrace.' 'Disgrace!' that word made me very angry for
the moment. But my Lady has such a way with her that she soon put me
right again. Yet, I do think Nora must have loved my young Lord, only
she was too good to show it. What do you say?" And the father's voice
was thoughtful.

"I hope she'll never love any man till she's married to him; it is not
proper, John," said Mrs. Avenel, somewhat starchly, though very mildly.

"Ha, ha!" laughed John, chucking his prim wife under the chin, "you did
not say that to me when I stole your first kiss under that very pollard-
tree--no house near it then!"

"Hush, John, hush!" and the prim wife blushed like a girl.

"Pooh," continued John, merrily, "I don't see why we plain folk should
pretend to be more saintly and prudish-like than our betters. There's
that handsome Miss Leslie, who is to marry Mr. Egerton--easy enough to
see how much she is in love with him,--could not keep her eyes off from
him even in church, old girl! Ha, ha! What the deuce is the matter with
the ravens?"

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