Sword and Gown Part 13

"Let me go on my way alone, while there is time. It is hard to touch pitch and keep undefiled. Child, you are too pure to estimate your danger. If you remained as innocent as one of G.o.d's angels, the world would still condemn you."

Her slender fingers twined themselves round his wrist, so tenderly!--and she bent down her soft cheek till its blush was hidden on his hand. Then she looked up in his face with a bright, trustful smile.

"Great happiness can not be bought without a price. I fear no reproach so much as that of my own conscience. Do not think I delude myself as to the risk I am incurring. But if I am innocent, I shall never hear or heed what the world may say; if I am guilty, I have no right to complain of its scorn."

Hardened unbeliever as he was, Royston could have bowed himself there, and wors.h.i.+ped at her feet. But he would not confess his admiration, still less betray his triumph. He raised the little white hand that was free gently to his lips. Not with more reverent courtesy could he have done homage to an anointed queen.

"I wish I were worthier of you," he murmured, and no more was said then.

As they walked slowly homeward, the sullen clouds broke away from the face of the sun; but a weatherwise observer could have told that the truce was only treacherous. The tempest bided its time.

CHAPTER XIX.

It is not pleasant to stand by and a.s.sist at each step of an incantation that draws down a star from heaven, or darkens the face of the moon. Let us be content to accept the result, when it is forced upon us, without inquiring too minutely into the process. Not with impunity can even the Adepts gain and keep the secrets of their evil Abracadabra. The beard of Merlin is gray before its time; premature wrinkles furrow the brow of Canidia; though the terror of his stony eyes may keep the fiends at bay, the death-sleep of Michael Scott is not untroubled; the pillars of Melrose shake ever and anon as though an earthquake pa.s.sed by, and the monks cross themselves in fear and pity, for they know that the awful wizard is turning restlessly in his grave.

As we are not writing a three-volume novel, we have a right, perhaps, not to linger over this part of our story. For any one who likes to indulge a somewhat morbid taste, or who happens to be keen about physiology, there is daily food sufficient in those ingenious romances _d'Outre-mer_.

It is hardly worth while speculating how far Cecil deluded herself when she thought that she was safe in trusting to her own strength of principle and to the generosity of Royston Keene. All this seems to me not to affect the main question materially. Does it help us--after we have yielded to temptation--that our resolves, when it first a.s.sailed us, should have been prudent and sincere, if such a plea can not avert the consequences or extenuate the guilt? The grim old proverb tells us how a certain curiously tesselated pavement is laid down. Millions of feet have trodden those stones for sixty ages, yet they may well last till the Day of Judgment, they are so constantly and unsparingly renewed.

It is more than rashness for any mortal to say to the strong, treacherous ocean, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther;" it is trenching on the privilege of Omnipotence. The dikes may be wisely planned and skillfully built; but one night a wilder wind arises than any that they have withstood; the legions of the besieging army are mustering to storm. At one spot in the seawall, where patient miners have long been working unseen, a narrow breach is made, widening every instant; it is too late now to fly; the wolfish waves are within the intrenchments, mad for sack and pillage. On the morrow, where trim gardens bloomed, and stately palaces shone, there is nothing but a waste of waters strewn with wrecks and blue, swollen corpses. The Zuyder Zee rolls, ten fathoms deep, over the ruins of drowned Stavoren.

So we will not enter minutely into the details of poor Cecil's demoralization--gradual, but fearfully rapid. It was not by words that she was corrupted; for Royston was still as careful as ever to abstain from uttering one cynicism in her presence; but none the less was it true that daily and hourly some fresh scruple was washed away, some holy principle withered and died. The recklessness which ever carried him on straight to the attainment of a purpose or the indulgence of a fancy, trampling down the barriers that divide good from evil, seemed to communicate itself to Cecil contagiously. She seldom ventured on reflection now--still less on self-examination; but she could not help being herself sensible of the change: thoughts that she would have shrunk back from in horror not so long ago (if she could have comprehended them fully) had ceased now to startle or repel her as she looked them in the face. Do not suppose for an instant that there was a corresponding alteration in her outward demeanor, or that it displayed any wildness or eccentricity. Melodrama, etc., may be very successful at a trans-pontine theatre, but it is unpardonably out of place in our _salons_. The Tresilyan understood the duties of her social, if not of her moral position (so long as the first was not forfeited) as well as the strictest duenna alive. Though she might choose to defy the world's censure, she never dreamed of giving an opening to its ridicule; she was less capable of _gaucherie_ than of a crime. In her bearing toward others she was just the same as ever; if any thing, rather more brilliant and fascinating, and, if crossed or interfered with, perhaps a shade more haughtily independent.

Only when alone with Royston did she betray herself. It was sad to see how completely the stronger and worse nature had absorbed the weaker and better one till all power of volition and free agency vanished, and even individuality was lost. She was not sentimental or demonstrative in his presence (on the contrary, at such times, that loveliest face was very apt to put on the delicious _mine mutine_, which made it perfectly irresistible), but the idea seemed never to enter her mind that it would be possible to resist or controvert any seriously-expressed wish of her--_lover_. There! the word is written; and woe is me! that I dare not erase it. It must have come sooner or later, and it is as well to have got it over.

According to all rules for such cases laid down and provided, Cecil's life ought to have been spent in alternations between feverish excitement and poignant remorse. But the truth must be told--she was unaccountably happy. The simple fact was that she had no time to be otherwise. Even when entirely alone her conscience could find no opportunity of a.s.serting itself. Her thoughts were amply occupied with recalling every word that Royston had said, and with antic.i.p.ating what he would say at their next meeting. It is idle to suppose that remorse can not be kept at arm's length for a certain time; but the debt recklessly incurred must generally be paid to the uttermost farthing.

Life, if sufficiently prolonged, will always afford leisure for reflection and retrospect, and at such seasons we appreciate in full force the tortures of "solitary confinement." The criminal may go on pilgrimage to a hundred shrines, and never light on the purification that will scare the Erinnyes.

In this instance the victor certainly did not abuse his advantage, and was any thing but exacting in his requirements. It was strange how his whole manner and nature altered when alone with his beautiful captive.

The more evident became her subjugation, the more he seemed anxious to treat her with a delicate deference. They talked, as a rule, on any subject rather than their own feelings; and he spoke on all such indifferent topics honestly, if not wisely. For the rest of the world his sarcasm and irony were ready as ever; he kept all his sincerity and confidence for Cecil Tresilyan. This is the secret of the influence exercised by many men, at whose successes we all have marveled. Sweet, as well as disenchanting experiences are sometimes gained behind the scenes. None but those who have tried it can appreciate the delight of finding, in a manner that the uninitiate call cold and repellent, an ever-ready loving caress. But in Royston's case there was no acting: it was only that he allowed Cecil to see one phase of hid character that was seldom displayed.

The subordinates in the drama betrayed much more outward concern and disquietude than the princ.i.p.als. When f.a.n.n.y Molyneux found that Royston did not intend to evacuate his position, she tried the effect of a vigorous remonstrance on her friend. The latter heard her patiently, but quite impa.s.sively, declining to admit any probability of danger or necessity to caution. _La mignonne_ was not convinced, but she yielded.

She wound her arm round Cecil's waist, as they sat and whispered, nestling close to her side--"Dearest, remember this: if any thing should happen, I shall always think that some blame belongs to me, and I will never give you up--never."

The Tresilyan bent her beautiful swan-neck, as though she were caressing a dove nestling in her bosom, and pressed her lips on her companion's cheek long and tenderly.

"I could not do _that_," she said, "if I were guilty."

Neither had Harry refrained from lifting up his testimony against what he saw and suspected. The major would take more from him than from any man alive; he was not at all incensed at the interference.

"My dear Hal," he said, "don't make an old woman of yourself by giving credit to scandal, or inventing it for yourself. If you choose to be worried before your time, I can't help it; but it is more than unnecessary. Una can take care of herself perfectly well, without your playing the lion. Besides--what is the brother there for? You know there are some subjects I never talk about to you, and you don't deserve that I should be communicative now. But listen--you shall not think of Cecil worse than she is: up to this time, I swear, even her lips are pure from me. Now I hope you are satisfied; you have made me break my rule, for once; drop the subject, in the devil's name."

Though fully aware of his friend's unscrupulous character, Harry was satisfied that nothing _very_ wrong had occurred so far. Royston never lied.

"I'm glad that you can say so much," he replied; "the worst of it is, people will talk. I wonder that obnoxious parson has not made himself more disagreeable already. I didn't go to church last Sunday afternoon, because I felt a conviction that he was going to be personal in his sermon."

The major laughed his hard, unpleasant laugh. "Don't let that idea disturb your devotions another time. He is not likely to bite or even to bark very loud: he don't get my muzzle off in a hurry."

Indeed, it was profoundly true that since the disclosure the chaplain's reticence had become remarkable. When his own wife questioned him on the subject (very naturally), he checked her with some asperity, and read her a lecture on feminine curiosity that moved the poor woman, even to weeping. Mrs. Danvers was greatly surprised and disconcerted by the decision with which Mr. Fullarton rejected her suggestion, that he should aid and abet in thwarting Keene's supposed designs. "He had thought it right," he said, "to make Miss Tresilyan and others aware of the real state of the case; but he did not conceive that farther interference lay within the sphere of his duty." It was odd how that same once arbitrarily elastic sphere had contracted since the prophet met the lion in the pathway! d.i.c.k Tresilyan--the only other person much interested in the progress of affairs--did not seem to trouble himself much about them. He was perpetually absent on shooting expeditions; but, when at home, it was observed that he drank harder than ever, getting sulky sometimes without apparent reason, and disagreeably quarrelsome.

Royston had only stated the simple fact when he said that Cecil was free from any stain of actual guilt or dishonor. Whether the credit of having borne her harmless was most due to her own prudence and remains of principle, or to her tempter's self-restraint, we will not, if you please, inquire. It is as well to be charitable now and then. Her escape was little less than miraculous, considering how often she had trusted herself unreservedly to the mercy of one who was wont to be as unsparing in his love as in his anger. Let not this immunity be made an excuse for credulous confidence, or induce others to emulate her rashness. The Millenium will not come in our time, I fancy; and, till it arrives, neither child nor maiden may safely lay their hand on the c.o.c.katrice's den. The ballad tells us that Lady Janet was happy at last; but she paid dearly through months of sorrow and shame for those three red roses plucked in the Elfin Bower. The precise cause of Keene's forbearance it would be very difficult to explain: more than one feeling probably had to do with it.

If memory has any pleasures worth speaking of (which many grave and learned doctors take leave to doubt), certainly among the purest is the recollection of having once been endowed with the whole love of a rare and beautiful being which we did not abuse or betray. This is the only sort of lost riches on which we can look back with comfort out of the depths of present and pressing poverty; the pearl is so very precious that it confers on its possessor a certain dignity which does not entirely pa.s.s away, even when the jewel has slipped from his grasp, following the ring of Polycrates. Alas! alas! less generous than the blue aegaean are the sullen waters of the deep. _Mare mortuum._ Only on these grounds can that wonderful self-possession be accounted for, which enables men, seemingly ill-fitted for the situation, to confront the world in all its phases with so grand a calmness. It is refres.h.i.+ng to see how even coquetry recoils from that armor of proof, and to fancy how the dead beauty might triumph over the defeat of her living rivals, laughing the seductions of their loveliness to scorn. Even in crises of graver difficulty, where sterner a.s.sailants are to be encountered than Helen's magical smile or Florence's magnetic eyes, the invisible presence seems to inspire her lover with supernatural valiance. Remember the story of Aslauga's Knight; when once through the cloud of battle-dust gleamed the golden tresses, horse and man went down before him.

Royston was not half good enough to appreciate all this; yet some shadowy and undefined feeling, allied to it, may have helped to hold him back from pus.h.i.+ng his advantage to the uttermost. Another and more selfish presentiment worked probably more powerfully. There was one phantom from which the Cool Captain never could escape; for years it had followed close on the consummation of all his crimes, and was, in truth, their best avenger: his Nemesis was satiety. He knew too well how the sweetest flowers lost their color and fragrance, so soon as they were plucked and fairly in his grasp, not to shrink before the prospect of a certain disenchantment. This curse attaches to many of his kind: the instant the prize is won there arise misgivings as to its value; and defects develop themselves hourly in what seemed faultless perfection before. It is boys' play to simulate being _blase_; but the reality makes mature manhood disbelieve any thing sooner than inevitable retribution. Very often the thought forced itself upon Keene's mind, "If I were to weary of _her_ too?" and made him pause before he urged Cecil to the step that must have linked him to her fate forever.

Under other circ.u.mstances his patience might have held out still longer; but there were numberless difficulties and obstacles in the way of their meeting, and the perpetual constraint fretted Royston sorely. His principle always had been not openly to violate conventionalities without gaining an adequate equivalent; so he was more careful of Cecil's reputation than she was inclined to be, and, among worse lessons, taught her prudence. They met very seldom alone. When Mrs.

Danvers was present she made it her business to be as much as possible in the way; and her awkward attempts at interference were sometimes inexpressibly provoking. On one particular evening she had been unusually pertinacious and obtrusive. The major stood it tolerably well up to a certain point, but his savage temper gradually got the better of him; his face grew darker and darker, till it was black as midnight when he rose to go, and his lips were rigid as steel. It was evident he had come to some resolution that he meant to keep. When he was wis.h.i.+ng Bessie "good-night," he held her hand imprisoned for a moment without pressing it. "You are so good a theologian," he said, "that perhaps you can tell me where a text comes from that has haunted me for the last hour. It speaks of some one who 'loosed the bands of Orion.'" His manner and the sudden address disconcerted Mrs. Danvers so completely as to incapacitate her from reply: she suffered "judgment to go by default;"

and left Royston under the impression that she had never read the Book of Job.

The next day he asked Cecil to elope with him.

She listened without betraying either terror, or anger, or disdain; but she raised her beautiful eyes to his with a sad, searching inquiry, before which many men would have quailed. "Have you counted the cost to yourself and to me?"

"I have done both," replied Keene, gravely. "I can not say that you will never repent it; but I know that I shall never regret it."

There were no promises or vows exchanged; but a silence for two long minutes; and, when these were pa.s.sed, the sweet, pure lips had lost their virginity.

So with few more words it was finally arranged; and the next day Royston left Dorade to make preparations all along the road of their intended flight. Their plan was to take boat at Ma.r.s.eilles for the East, making their first permanent resting-place one of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago. Both were most anxious to evade any possibility of interception, more especially of collision with d.i.c.k Tresilyan.

On that evening Cecil was alone in her own room (Mrs. Danvers had gone out to a sort of love-feast at the Fullartons', where the company were to be entertained with weak tea and strong doctrine _a discretion_). She had rejected the offer of f.a.n.n.y's companions.h.i.+p on the plea, not altogether false, of a tormenting headache. _La mignonne_ was too innocent to suspect the reason that made her friend shudder in their parting embrace, half averting her cheek, though Cecil's arms clung round her as though they would never let her go. The saddest feeling of the many that were busy then in the guilty, troubled heart, was a consciousness that in a few hours the gulf between them would be deep and impa.s.sable as the chasm dividing Abraham from Dives.

Miss Tresilyan had taken unconsciously an att.i.tude in which you saw her once before, half-reclined, and gazing into the fire; outwardly still remained the same pensive, languid grace; but very different was the careless reverie that had stolen over her then, from the wild chaos of conflicting thoughts that involved her now.

Her whole being was so bound up in Royston Keene's, that she felt without him there would be nothing worth living for; neither had she the faintest misgiving as to the chances of his inconstancy. There had descended to her some of the stability and determination of purpose which had made many of her race so powerful for good or evil; in the pursuit of either they would never admit a doubt, or listen to a compromise. When Cecil believed, she believed implicitly, and, not even with her own conscience, made conditions of surrender. So long as _his_ strong arm was round her, she felt that she could defy shame, and even remorse; but how would it be if that support should fail? He had not been away yet twenty hours, and already there came creeping over her a chilling sense of helplessness and desolation. She knew her lover's violent pa.s.sions and haughty temper, impatient of the most distant approach to insolence or even contradiction from others, too well not to be aware that such a man walked ever on the frontier-ground between life and death. Suppose that he were taken from her?--her spirit, dauntless as it was, quailed before the ghastly terrors of imagined loneliness. An evil voice that had whispered perhaps in the ear of more than one of the "bitter, bad Tresilyans," seemed to murmur, "You, too, can die:" but Cecil was not yet so lost as to listen to the suggestion of the subtle fiend. She wasted no regrets on the past, and the wreck of all its brilliant promises: she was resolute to meet the perils of the future; nevertheless, her heart was heavy with apprehension. Remember the answer that the stout Catholic made to Des Adrets, when the savage baron taunted him with cowardice for shrinking twice from the death-leap on the tower, "_Je vous le donne, en dix_." So it is not in womanhood--however ruined in principle or reckless of the consequences, to venture deliberately, without a shudder, on the fatal plunge from which no fair fame has ever risen unshattered again. Even prejudices may not be torn up by the roots without stirring the earth around them.

She might have sat musing thus for about an hour; so deep in thought that she never heard the _portiere_ slowly drawn aside that divided the room from an ante-chamber. The Tresilyan had her emotions under tolerable control, and at least was not given to screaming; but she could hardly repress the startled cry that sprang to her lips when she raised her eyes.

The reproachful spectre that had haunted her for years--till very lately, when a stronger influence chased it away--a.s.sumed substance of form and feature, as the dark doorway framed the haggard, pain-stricken face of Mark Waring.

CHAPTER XX.

It is not very easy to confront, with decorous composure, the sudden apparition of the person on earth that one would have least liked to see. All things considered Cecil carried it off creditably, and greeted her unexpected visitor with sufficient cordiality. Mark took her offered hand gravely, without eagerness, not holding it an instant longer than was necessary. Then he spoke--

"They told me I should find you alone. I was so anxious to do so as soon as possible, that I ventured to break in upon you even at this unseasonable hour. You will guess that I had powerful reasons."

The Tresilyan threw back her haughty head, as a war-horse might do at the first blast of the trumpet: she scented battle in the wind.

"Will you be good enough to explain yourself?" she said, as she took her own seat again, and motioned him into another; "I am sure you would not trifle with me, or vex me unnecessarily."