Mary went one day to see her cousin. She found Olivia on the sofa, looking a little delicate, but only the more beautiful from that cause, as well as from the subdued, softened expression of her countenance.
Her husband sat affectionately by her side, the brightest satisfaction beaming from his handsome features, gazing upon his lovely wife, and new-born son, a fine healthy infant, resting on the mother's bosom.
It was altogether a perfect picture of happy family prosperity, and tears of heartfelt pleasure rose to Mary's eyes at the sight.
She wished and prayed that it might be an earnest of the establishment of a happier and better state of things between that married pair; that the long slumbering, or diverted demonstration of affection, now reawakened or recalled, might never again be put to silence, or lose their reasserted power. Alas! for the transitory nature of pure and holy influences like the present, upon the light, inconstant, or the worldly hearted; influences of time, or circumstances, which like the shaken blossoms of the spring, the breath of vanity or dissipation can in a moment dispel and scatter to the ground.
"They never came to fruit, and their sweet lives soon are o'er, But we lived an hour beneath them, and never dreamed of more."
At least thus we regret to say, it proved with regard to any temporary influence to which Mrs. de Burgh might have been subjected. For her convalescence, and the allurements and temptations of the ensuing season, tended too surely to the overthrow of those hopes and aspirations, in which poor Mary so rejoiced, in behalf of her cousin Louis and his beautiful wife. But this is wandering from the regular progress of our story.
CHAPTER V.
I am not false to thee, yet now Thou hast a cheerful eye; With flushing cheek and drooping brow, I wander mournfully.
Thou art the same; thy looks are gay, Thy step is light and free, And yet, with truth, my heart can say, I am not false to thee.
MRS. NORTON.
Spring was fast advancing. Arthur Seaham had returned some time from Scotland, and had entered as a student of the Temple. The Morgans had arrived in London, yet the cloud seemed only to thicken the more round Mary's prospects.
The friends had ceased to pain her ears by any open animadversion of her lover. They seemed to wait in moody silence the issue of affairs; the dangerous and precarious condition, in which they had ascertained that his father still remained--giving rise, in a great measure, to the idea suggested by a vague hint from the son, that on this circumstance depended the removal of the impediment which he professed had arisen against his marriage--still excusing his non-appearance.
And Mary--though not to hear mention of that beloved name, was to her almost as great an agony, as to know that injurious and suspicious thoughts were silently harboured in the breast of those around her, against that one loved being; and though her cheek day by day was becoming more pale, her heart more sinking--yearning for her lover's exculpation--yet more she still lived hopefully, trustfully, sure that all would eventually be right.
Day by day, she thought "he will be here," sometimes that he might even then be in London, only waiting to make his presence known until his anxious consultations with his lawyers had set his mind more at rest.
Mary was sometimes induced to accept the urgent solicitations of her sister Agnes to accompany herself and Sir Hugh, to such places of public amusement as the yet early season rendered admissible.
Lady Morgan, blooming and happy as ever youthful wife could be; with her indulgent husband, upon whom his continental sojourn, together with the influence of his handsome young spouse, had produced quite a polishing and refining effect, were established in a fashionable hotel, for the short space of time which now, alas! that there was no marriage to be celebrated, they intended--this season--to remain in London.
One night, when on the point of issuing from their private box at one of the minor theatres, where they had been witnessing the performance of a famous actress, a party of men, who had apparently occupied one of the lower boxes on the same side of the house, rushed quickly past, laughing and talking with light and careless glee.
Some glanced slightly on the young Lady Morgan; who happened to stand forward at the time, and whose appearance momentarily attracted their attention; but Mary, without being seen from her position behind her sister, caught sight of the party as they passed.
Why did the beatings of her heart stand still--that sick faint chill creep over her? could it be--oh, could it indeed be Eugene! nearly foremost of that group, whose dark eye had flashed that cursory glance upon her sister, as he hurried by--whose voice, in that well known cheerful laugh (at least so it had ever been to Mary's ears) had echoed on her heart, her anxious, longing, saddened heart?
Oh! could it be--and was it thus she now beheld him--he, whose last embrace still thrilled her frame--whose parting kiss still lingered on her lips--unconscious of her presence, careless, unthinking of her grief.
Yes, thus she first beheld him, for whom she had so long watched and waited,--and wept, when none were near.
"Mary dear, are you there?" her sister said looking back, when they had stepped out into the passage. "But, my dear darling, how pale you look.
Sir Hugh," she exclaimed quite reproachfully to her husband, "pray give Mary your arm," and with repentant alacrity the Baronet hastened to offer his assistance to his half-fainting sister-in-law. "It was the heat--the gas," poor Mary murmured; "she would be better when they went into the air."
And she did then seem to revive, and entering the carriage, told not a word of what had occurred to trouble her; nor hinted the fact of having seen Eugene, (if indeed her bewildered fancy had not deceived her), even to her brother, when she saw him on the morrow.
No, still in hope and trust, she waited patiently. The very next night but one after this occurrence, she was again called for by her sister and brother-in-law, to accompany them to the opera, but just re-opened for the season.
Oh! the wistful earnestness of that sad eye, straining its aching sight to discern some inmate of the opposite boxes, of the stalls below, who, for one deceiving moment, made her heart beat fast, by some fancied similitude with the object of her thoughts. But no, the vision of the night before was not to be renewed on this occasion, though of its reality--which at times she was almost inclined to doubt--she was not to leave the house quite unassured.
Mary and her sister were waiting in the round room, expecting the return of Sir Hugh, who had gone to look for the carriage; Lady Morgan, talking to a gentleman with whom she was acquainted, when Mary's attention was rivetted by the colloquy between two men, who had previously passed them in the vestibule, and near whom they again found themselves standing, evidently without the former being aware of their vicinity.
"Oh, yes!" said one, "that was Lady Morgan, the young wife of the rich Sir Hugh, the Welsh baronet, more than twice her age; a fine looking young woman; but did you see that pale, pretty girl who was with them; do you know that she is Miss Seaham, her sister, Eugene Trevor's intended."
"Ah, indeed? I saw Trevor to-day, and congratulated him, but I thought he did not seem much to like the subject."
"No indeed; I hear he is rather trying to back out of the affair. Some spoke in the wheel, I suppose about money matters, and the old father who was thought to be dying, seems to have picked up again."
"Well, I should think there were a few things besides money, which would rather stand in the way," was the reply, and then the speakers lowered their voices as they talked on, and Mary heard--and wished to hear no more.
"Dear Agnes, shall we go on? There is Sir Hugh coming," and Lady Morgan felt a gentle pressure on her fair round arm, and looking back, caught sight once more of her sister's pale and piteous countenance.
"My poor, dear Mary, these places certainly do not suit you," whispered her affectionate young _chaperone_, as she passed her sister's trembling arm through hers, and pressed onwards through the crowd to meet her husband. "I must really carry you back with me as soon as possible to our mountain breezes."
"Would that I had never left them, Aggy!" murmured poor Mary in low plaintive accents, whilst an uncontrollable flood of tears came to her full heart's relief.
The very next day, Mary set out on one of those expeditions, which at this time might be called her only real enjoyment--namely, her visits to her brother in his chambers at the Temple; often, as was the case on this occasion, to bring him back to dine in Portman Square.
The Majoribanks' chariot, with its fat, slow, sleek horses, and steady attendants, being conceded to her special use this evening; she went forth heavy at heart, but anxiously striving to rally her spirits, to meet her brother with that cheerfulness which in his society she ever strove (and found it less difficult than under other circumstances) to assume. It was rather early to proceed straight to the Temple, and therefore Mary had agreed with her aunt, that she should go first to execute some commissions in the opposite direction.
We can easily imagine from what source alone the interest could spring, with which her sad eyes gazed through the carriage windows, as she passed through some of the streets in this quarter.
Did she not know that somewhere in this vicinity, Eugene always lodged when he came to town. And oh! to be passing perhaps the very door of the house that contained him, was the gasping utterance of her heart, as she swallowed down the tears which struggled upwards at this suggestion.
"But he--he does not care--he can be happy and cheerful without me," was the still more bitter thought which succeeded, as she shrank back in the carriage in dark and tearless dejection.
But from this she is aroused by one of those matter-of-fact realities of common life, which form fortunate and salutary breaks in the tragic, or the romance of man's existence.
The carriage stops before a fancy workshop in Bond Street, where many colours for her aunt's worsted work are to be matched or chosen.
Mary does not herself alight; but gives a few directions to the well initiated footman, who knows perfectly how to give the order--better indeed perhaps than she herself--and sits in patient abstraction till the man's return. He reappears, puts the parcel into the carriage, then draws abruptly back, for some one has touched his arm, and signs that he should give place.
Mary languidly lifts her eyes, and Eugene is before her. The place and circumstance of this meeting, admitted not at first of any very open demonstration of feeling, such as must necessarily have been excited. A few low, hurried, agitated sentences were uttered by Trevor, as he bent forward into the carriage towards Mary, whose pale lips could scarcely articulate incoherent expressions of her sudden joy.
Then, by a peremptory gesture from the gentleman, the servant is commanded to let down the steps. He obeys. Trevor springs in. The door is closed; a moment's whispered consultation, and in faltering tones Mary gives orders to be driven to the Temple, and the carriage rolls off in that direction.
Once more alone together--once more by Eugene's side--Mary sees already the cloud dispersed--fear, doubt, misgiving, vanished from her path.
How comes it, then, that misery and bewilderment is the confused impression which this interview shall afterwards leave upon her mind?
How is it, that for the most part of that long way, she sits weeping silently, her cold hand trembling in the burning palm of Eugene?--he now in low, despairing accents bemoaning his grief, his pain--now passionately cursing his wretched fortunes, his fatal circumstances?
But no explanation--no hope--no promised deliverance from the sorrow or the evil.