A Life for a Life, Volume 3 (of 3)

Name: A Life for a Life, Volume 3 (of 3)
Author: Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

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Language: en400 downloads on Project Gutenberg

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Fiction

In: Romance·Novels·British Literature

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #48483.

The opening · free to read

|Many, many weeks, months indeed have gone by since I opened this my journal. Can I bear the sight of it even now? Yes; I think I can.

I have been sitting ever so long at the open window, in my old attitude, elbow on the sill; only with a difference that seems to come natural now, when no one is by. It is such a comfort to sit with my lips on my ring. I asked him to give me a ring, and he did so. Oh! Max, Max, Max!

Great and miserable changes have befallen us, and now Max and I are not going to be married. Penelope's marriage also has been temporarily postponed, for the same reason, though I implored her not to tell it to Francis, unless he should make very particular inquiries, or be exceedingly angry at the delay. He was not. Nor did we judge it well to inform Lisabel. Therefore, papa, Penelope, and I, keep our own secret.

Now that it is over, the agony of it smothered up, and all at Rockmount goes on as heretofore, I sometimes wonder, do strangers, or intimates, Mrs. Granton for instance, suspect anything? Or is ours, awful as it seems, no special and peculiar lot? Many another family may have its own lamentable secret, the burthen of which each member has to bear, and carry in society a cheerful countenance, even as this of mine.

Mrs. Granton said yesterday, mine was "a cheerful countenance." If so, I am glad. Two things only could really have broken my heart--his ceasing to love me, and his changing so in himself, not in his circumstances, that I could no longer worthily love him. By "him," I mean, of course Max. Max Urquhart, my betrothed husband, whom henceforward I can never regard in any other light.

How blue the hills are, how bright the moors! So they ought to be, for it is near midsummer. By this day fortnight--Penelope's marriage-day--we shall have plenty of roses. All the better; I would not like it to be a dull wedding, though so quiet; only the Trehernes and Mrs. Granton as guests, and me for the solitary bridesmaid.

"Your last appearance I hope, Dora, in that capacity," laughed the dear old lady. "'Thrice a bridesmaid, ne'er a bride,' which couldn't be thought of, you know. No need to speak--I guess why your wedding isn't talked about yet.--The old story, man's pride, and woman's patience. Never mind. Nobody knows anything but me, and I shall keep a quiet tongue in the matter. Least said is soonest mended. All will come right soon, when the Doctor is a little better off in the world."

I let her suppose so. It is of little moment what she or anybody thinks, so that it is nothing ill of him.

"Thrice a bridesmaid, never a bride." Even so. Yet, would I change lots with our bride Penelope, or any other bride? No.

Now that my mind has settled to its usual level; has had time to view things calmly, to satisfy itself that nothing could have been done different from what has been done; I may, at last, be able to detail these events. For both Max's sake and my own, it seems best to do it, unless I could make up my mind to destroy my whole journal. An unfinished record is worse than none. During our lifetimes we shall both preserve our secret; but many a chance brings dark things to light; and I have my Max's honour to guard, as well as my own.

This afternoon, papa being out driving, and Penelope gone to town to seek for a maid, whom the Governor's lady will require to take out with her--they sail a month hence--I shall seize the opportunity to write down what has befallen Max and me.

My own poor Max! But my lips are on his ring; this hand is as safely kept for him as when he first held it in his breast.

Let me turn back a page, and see where it was I left off writing my journal.

I did so; and it was more than I could bear at the time. I have had to take another day for this relation, and even now it is bitter enough to recall the feelings with which I put my pen by, so long ago, waiting for Max to come in "at any minute."

I waited ten days; not unhappily, though the last two were somewhat anxious, but it was simply lest anything might have gone wrong with him or his affairs. As for his neglecting or "treating me ill," as Penelope suggested, such a thought never entered my head. How could he treat me ill?--he loved me.

The tenth day, which was the end of the term he had named for his journey, I of course fully expected him.' I knew if by any human power it could be managed, I should see him; he never would break his word. I rested on his love as surely as in waking from that long sick swoon I had rested on his breast. I knew he would be tender over me, and not let me suffer one more hour's suspense or pain that he could possibly avoid.

It may here seem strange that I had never asked Max where he was going, nor anything of the business he was going upon. Well, that was his secret, the last secret that was ever to be between us; so I chose not to interfere with it, but to wait his time. Also, I did not fret much about it, whatever it was. He loved me. People who have been hungry for love, and never had it all their lives, can understand the utterly satisfied contentment of this one feeling--Max loved me.

At dusk, after staying in all day, I went out, partly because Penelope wished it, and partly for health's sake. I never lost a chance of getting strong now. My sister and I walked along silently, each thinking of her own affairs, when, at a turn in the road which led, not from the camp, but from the moorlands, she cried out, "I do believe there is Doctor Urquhart."

If he had not heard his name, I think he would have passed us without knowing us. And the face that met mine, when he looked up--I never shall forget it to my dying day.

It made me shrink back for a minute, and then I said:--

"Oh! Max, have you been ill?"

"I do not know. Yes--possibly."

"When did you come back?"

"I forget--oh! four days ago."

"Were you coming to Rockmount?"

"Rockmount?--oh! no." He shuddered, and dropped my hand.

"Doctor Urquhart seems in a very uncertain frame of mind," said Penelope, severely, from the other side the road. "We had better leave him. Come, Dora."

She carried me off, almost forcibly. She was exceedingly displeased. Four days, and never to have come or written! She said it was slighting me and insulting the family.

"A man, too, of whose antecedents and connections we knew nothing. He may be a mere adventurer--a penniless Scotch adventurer; Francis always said he was."

"Francis is--" But I could not stay to speak of him, or to reply to Penelope's bitter words. All I thought was how to get back to Max, and entreat him to tell me what had happened. He would tell me. He loved me. So, without any feeling of "proper pride," as Penelope called it, I writhed myself out of her grasp, ran hack to Doctor Urquhart, and took possession of his arm, my arm, which I had a right to.

"Is that you, Theodora?"

"Yes, it is I." And then I said, I wanted him to go home with me, and tell me what had happened.

"Better not; better go home with your sister."

"I had rather stay here. I mean to stay here."

He stopped, took both my hands, and forced a smile:--"You are the determined little lady you always were; but you do not know what you are saying. You had better go and leave me."

I was sure then some great misery was approaching us. I tried to read it in his face. "Do you--" did he still love me; I was about to ask, but there was no need. So my answer, too, was brief and plain.

"I never will leave you as long as I live."

Then I ran back to Penelope, and told her I should walk home with Doctor Urquhart; he had something to say to me. She tried anger and authority. Both failed. If we had been summer lovers it might have been different, but now in his trouble I seemed to feel Max's right to me and my love, as I had never done before. Penelope might have lectured for everlasting, and I should only have listened, and then gone back to Max's side. As I did.

His arm pressed mine close; he did not say a second time, "Leave me."

"Now, Max, I want to hear."

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