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THE ELOPEMENT DELAYED.
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds Towards Phœbus' mansion; such a waggoner As phaeton would whip you to the west. Come, gentle night; come, loving black browed night Give me my Romeo. Romeo and Juliet.
Captain Heath and the postilion were not the only persons impatient at the unexpected delay. Cecil leaning against a tree, watching with anxious eyes the window of Blanche's bed-room for the signal, and counting the weary minutes, as they dragged with immeasurable tediousness through their course of sixty seconds, began at length to suppose that she would never come.
Nor was the unhappy Blanche herself the least impatient of the four. The whole mystery of the delay was the presence of Violet in her room. She had repeatedly announced her intention of going to bed, but Violet gave no signs of retiring, and their conversation continued.
It more than once occurred to her to place Violet in her confidence, but certain misgivings restrained her. The fact is, Blanche had been uneasy at Cecil's attentions to Violet, during the first period of their acquaintance with him; an uneasiness which she now understood to have been jealousy; and naturally felt reluctant to speak of her engagement to one who had almost been her sister's lover.
It happened that Cecil's name came up during their conversation, and Violet turning her large eyes upon her sister's face, said,--
"Shall I tell you my suspicion, Blanche? Cecil Chamberlayne is fast falling in love with you: you colour; you know it then? perhaps return it? Oh, for God's sake tell me that you do not return it!"
"Why should I not?" replied Blanche, greatly hurt.
"My poor Blanche!" said Violet, tenderly kissing her, "I have hurt you, but it is with a surgeon's knife, which inflicts pain to save pain. If it is not too late--if you are only at the brink of the abyss, not in it--let me implore you to draw back, and to examine your situation calmly. Oh! do not waste your heart on such a man."
There was an earnestness in her manner which only made her language more galling, and Blanche somewhat pettishly replied,--
"You did not always think so. At one time you were near wasting your heart, as you call it, upon him."
"I was," gravely replied Violet, "and a fortunate accident opened my eyes in time. You, who seemed to have watched me so closely, may have noticed that for some time I have ceased to encourage his attentions."
"Since he has ceased to pay them," retorted Blanche.
Violet smiled a scornful smile.
Neither spoke for a few minutes.
"I have a great mind to ascend the ladder," said the impatient Cecil to himself, and see if it is only womanly weakness which detains her."
"Can they have been detected?" Captain Heath asked himself for the twentieth time.
"Blanche," said Violet at last, "you greatly misunderstand me; but what is worse, you greatly misunderstand him. Listen!"
She then narrated the whole of her episode with Cecil: her first yearnings towards him--her interest, and almost love; then the scene at the Grange; his conduct in the affair with the bull; she recalled to Blanche the mutual coldness which must have been observed until after Cecil's confession respecting his cowardice, which so far cleared him in her eyes, that she was amiable to him for the rest of the evening; she then told her of reflections made that night when alone, and the result to which she had arrived, and concluded by saying:--
"I am most willing to admit his fascinating manners, his varied accomplishments, and some good qualities; but he is weak, selfish, and capricious. He is not a proper husband for you, the more so as he is poor, and has not the character which will enable him to battle with the world. Rich, he would not make you a good husband; poor, he will be a curse to you, and throw the blame of his misery upon you."
Blanche remained perfectly quiet during this dissection of her lover's character, and not a change in her countenance betrayed that it had in the least affected her. Nor had it. Perfectly incredulous, she listened to her sister, seeing only the distortion of prejudice in her language.
"Have you finished, Violet?" she quietly asked.
"I have."
"Then give me a night to consider."
"Yes, consider it calmly; think of the man on whom you are about to bestow your affections, and ask yourself seriously, Is he the man I ought to choose?---- Good-night, Blanche!"
"Good-night. God bless you!" said Blanche, hugging her fervently, which Violet attributed to the emotion excited by their conversation, but which really was the embrace of parting.
A few minutes afterwards, Blanche was descending the ladder, a small packet in her hand, and was received in the arms of her impatient lover.
How the old post-chaise rattled merrily along the hard road, as if conscious of the precious burden which it bore! There was no moon: the sky was overcast. Lights glimmered from the windows of distant houses at rare intervals; and the watch-dog's lonely bark was occasionally heard--a sort of mournful sound, which told how deep the night had gone.
With what wild passion--with what inextinguishable delight the lovers pressed close to each other, in that rumbling chaise! The sense of peril and of escape was mixed with the indescribable rapture of two beings conscious that all barriers are borne down, and that they at length belong to each other.
Away! away! from home, with its restraints, its perils, and its doubts--far into the wide world of love and hope!--from father, sisters, friends--from luxuries and comforts, cheaply held by those who know not the reverse--to the protecting bosom of a husband, dearer than all the world beside; and with him to begin the battle of life, which love will make an everlasting triumph!
Away goes the rumbling chaise! too slowly for its inmates, whose impatience needs wings; too swiftly for the wretched man, who sits behind, communing with his own bitter thoughts.
What a slight partition divided the delirious lovers from the unhappy wretch who rode behind them--a partition which divided the joys of paradise from the pangs of purgatory. The captain had not only to endure the misery of unhappy love, but also the, to him, horrible torture of believing the girl he loved had given herself up to a villain, who did not intend to marry her.
"If I do force him to marry her," he said, "what happiness can she expect from such a scoundrel? Her character will be saved; but her heart will be broken ... If he refuses ... if I shoot him ... she will hate me ... will not less revere his memory ... and will have lost her name!"
And merrily the chaise rattled on.
It reached London at last. There the captain got down, and, hailing a cab, bade the driver follow the post-chaise, at a slight distance. It stopped at an hotel. They alighted, and went in.
The captain followed them to the hotel. His first act was to write this letter to Meredith Vyner.
(Don't read this aloud.)
"My DEAR VYNER,
"Before this reaches you, the flight of your daughter with Chamberlayne will have been known to you. Make yourself as easy as possible under the deplorable calamity; for I am in the same hotel with them, and will see them duly married.
"You will be astonished to hear me talk of their marriage, and of my forwarding it, instead of taking every step to prevent it. But, when I tell you that marriage is now _imperative_--that it is, alas! what we must all now eagerly desire--my conduct will be intelligible. Put your perfect trust in me. You know my affection for your children, and my regard for the honour of the family."
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