"Yes, I will see him," said Dorothea. "Pray tell him to come."
What else was there to be done? There was nothing that she longedfor at that moment except to see Will: the possibility of seeing him hadthrust itself insistently between her and every other object; and yet shehad a throbbing excitement like an alarm upon her—a sense that she wasdoing something daringly defiant for his sake.
When the little lady had trotted away on her mission, Dorothea stoodin the middle of the library with her hands falling clasped before her,making no attempt to compose herself in an attitude of dignifiedunconsciousness. What she was least conscious of just then was her ownbody: she was thinking of what was likely to be in Will's mind, and ofthe hard feelings that others had had about him. How could any dutybind her to hardness? Resistance to unjust dispraise had mingled withher feeling for him from the very first, and now in the rebound of herheart after her anguish the resistance was stronger than ever. "If I lovehim too much it is because he has been used so ill:"—there was a voicewithin her saying this to some imagined audience in the library, whenthe door was opened, and she saw Will before her.
She did not move, and he came towards her with more doubt andtimidity in his face than she had ever seen before. He was in a state ofuncertainty which made him afraid lest some look or word of his shouldcondemn him to a new distance from her; and Dorothea was afraid ofher own emotion. She looked as if there were a spell upon her, keepingher motionless and hindering her from unclasping her hands, while someintense, grave yearning was imprisoned within her eyes. Seeing that shedid not put out her hand as usual, Will paused a yard from her and saidwith embarrassment, "I am so grateful to you for seeing me."
"I wanted to see you," said Dorothea, having no other words atcommand. It did not occur to her to sit down, and Will did not give acheerful interpretation to this queenly way of receiving him; but he wenton to say what he had made up his mind to say.
"I fear you think me foolish and perhaps wrong for coming back sosoon. I have been punished for my impatience. You know—every oneknows now—a painful story about my parentage. I knew of it before Iwent away, and I always meant to tell you of it if—if we ever met again." There was a slight movement in Dorothea, and she unclasped herhands, but immediately folded them over each other.
"But the affair is matter of gossip now," Will continued. "I wished youto know that something connected with it—something which happenedbefore I went away, helped to bring me down here again. At least Ithought it excused my coming. It was the idea of getting Bulstrode toapply some money to a public purpose—some money which he hadthought of giving me. Perhaps it is rather to Bulstrode's credit that heprivately offered me compensation for an old injury: he offered to giveme a good income to make amends; but I suppose you know thedisagreeable story?"
Will looked doubtfully at Dorothea, but his manner was gatheringsome of the defiant courage with which he always thought of this fact inhis destiny. He added, "You know that it must be altogether painful tome."
"Yes—yes—I know," said Dorothea, hastily.
"I did not choose to accept an income from such a source. I was surethat you would not think well of me if I did so," said Will. Why should hemind saying anything of that sort to her now? She knew that he hadavowed his love for her. "I felt that"—he broke off, nevertheless.
"You acted as I should have expected you to act," said Dorothea, herface brightening and her head becoming a little more erect on itsbeautiful stem.
"I did not believe that you would let any circumstance of my birthcreate a prejudice in you against me, though it was sure to do so inothers," said Will, shaking his head backward in his old way, and lookingwith a grave appeal into her eyes.
"If it were a new hardship it would be a new reason for me to clingto you," said Dorothea, fervidly. "Nothing could have changed me but—"her heart was swelling, and it was difficult to go on; she made a greateffort over herself to say in a low tremulous voice, "but thinking that youwere different—not so good as I had believed you to be."
"You are sure to believe me better than I am in everything but one,"said Will, giving way to his own feeling in the evidence of hers. "I mean,in my truth to you. When I thought you doubted of that, I didn't careabout anything that was left. I thought it was all over with me, and therewas nothing to try for—only things to endure."
"I don't doubt you any longer," said Dorothea, putting out her hand;a vague fear for him impelling her unutterable affection.
He took her hand and raised it to his lips with something like a sob.But he stood with his hat and gloves in the other hand, and might havedone for the portrait of a Royalist. Still it was difficult to loose the hand,and Dorothea, withdrawing it in a confusion that distressed her, lookedand moved away.
"See how dark the clouds have become, and how the trees aretossed," she said, walking towards the window, yet speaking and movingwith only a dim sense of what she was doing.
Will followed her at a little distance, and leaned against the tall backof a leather chair, on which he ventured now to lay his hat and gloves,and free himself from the intolerable durance of formality to which hehad been for the first time condemned in Dorothea's presence. It must beconfessed that he felt very happy at that moment leaning on the chair.He was not much afraid of anything that she might feel now.
They stood silent, not looking at each other, but looking at theevergreens which were being tossed, and were showing the paleunderside of their leaves against the blackening sky. Will never enjoyedthe prospect of a storm so much: it delivered him from the necessity ofgoing away. Leaves and little branches were hurled about, and thethunder was getting nearer. The light was more and more sombre, butthere came a flash of lightning which made them start and look at eachother, and then smile. Dorothea began to say what she had been thinkingof.
"That was a wrong thing for you to say, that you would have hadnothing to try for. If we had lost our own chief good, other people's goodwould remain, and that is worth trying for. Some can be happy. I seemedto see that more clearly than ever, when I was the most wretched. I canhardly think how I could have borne the trouble, if that feeling had notcome to me to make strength."
"You have never felt the sort of misery I felt," said Will; "the miseryof knowing that you must despise me."
"But I have felt worse—it was worse to think ill—" Dorothea hadbegun impetuously, but broke off.
Will colored. He had the sense that whatever she said was uttered inthe vision of a fatality that kept them apart. He was silent a moment,and then said passionately—
"We may at least have the comfort of speaking to each other withoutdisguise. Since I must go away—since we must always be divided—youmay think of me as one on the brink of the grave."
While he was speaking there came a vivid flash of lightning which liteach of them up for the other—and the light seemed to be the terror of ahopeless love. Dorothea darted instantaneously from the window; Willfollowed her, seizing her hand with a spasmodic movement; and so theystood, with their hands clasped, like two children, looking out on thestorm, while the thunder gave a tremendous crack and roll above them,and the rain began to pour down. Then they turned their faces towardseach other, with the memory of his last words in them, and they did notloose each other's hands.
"There is no hope for me," said Will. "Even if you loved me as well asI love you—even if I were everything to you—I shall most likely alwaysbe very poor: on a sober calculation, one can count on nothing but acreeping lot. It is impossible for us ever to belong to each other. It isperhaps base of me to have asked for a word from you. I meant to goaway into silence, but I have not been able to do what I meant."
"Don't be sorry," said Dorothea, in her clear tender tones. "I wouldrather share all the trouble of our parting."
Her lips trembled, and so did his. It was never known which lipswere the first to move towards the other lips; but they kissedtremblingly, and then they moved apart.
The rain was dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spiritwere within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it wasone of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with acertain awe.
Dorothea sat down on the seat nearest to her, a long low ottoman inthe middle of the room, and with her hands folded over each other onher lap, looked at the drear outer world. Will stood still an instantlooking at her, then seated himself beside her, and laid his hand on hers,which turned itself upward to be clasped. They sat in that way withoutlooking at each other, until the rain abated and began to fall in stillness.Each had been full of thoughts which neither of them could begin toutter.
But when the rain was quiet, Dorothea turned to look at Will. Withpassionate exclamation, as if some torture screw were threatening him,he started up and said, "It is impossible!"
He went and leaned on the back of the chair again, and seemed to bebattling with his own anger, while she looked towards him sadly.
"It is as fatal as a murder or any other horror that divides people," heburst out again; "it is more intolerable—to have our life maimed by pettyaccidents."
"No—don't say that—your life need not be maimed," said Dorothea,gently.
"Yes, it must," said Will, angrily. "It is cruel of you to speak in thatway—as if there were any comfort. You may see beyond the misery of it,but I don't. It is unkind—it is throwing back my love for you as if it werea trifle, to speak in that way in the face of the fact. We can never bemarried."
"Some time—we might," said Dorothea, in a trembling voice.
"When?" said Will, bitterly. "What is the use of counting on anysuccess of mine? It is a mere toss up whether I shall ever do more thankeep myself decently, unless I choose to sell myself as a mere pen and amouthpiece. I can see that clearly enough. I could not offer myself to anywoman, even if she had no luxuries to renounce."
There was silence. Dorothea's heart was full of something that shewanted to say, and yet the words were too difficult. She was whollypossessed by them: at that moment debate was mute within her. And itwas very hard that she could not say what she wanted to say. Will waslooking out of the window angrily. If he would have looked at her andnot gone away from her side, she thought everything would have beeneasier. At last he turned, still resting against the chair, and stretching hishand automatically towards his hat, said with a sort of exasperation,"Good-by."
"Oh, I cannot bear it—my heart will break," said Dorothea, startingfrom her seat, the flood of her young passion bearing down all theobstructions which had kept her silent—the great tears rising and fallingin an instant: "I don't mind about poverty—I hate my wealth."
In an instant Will was close to her and had his arms round her, butshe drew her head back and held his away gently that she might go onspeaking, her large tear-filled eyes looking at his very simply, while shesaid in a sobbing childlike way, "We could live quite well on my ownfortune—it is too much—seven hundred a-year—I want so little—no newclothes—and I will learn what everything costs."
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
"Though it be songe of old and yonge,
That I sholde be to blame,
Theyrs be the charge, that spoke so large
In hurtynge of my name."
—The Not-Browne Mayde.
It was just after the Lords had thrown out the Reform Bill: thatexplains how Mr. Cadwallader came to be walking on the slope of thelawn near the great conservatory at Freshitt Hall, holding the "Times" inhis hands behind him, while he talked with a trout-fisher'sdispassionateness about the prospects of the country to Sir JamesChettam. Mrs. Cadwallader, the Dowager Lady Chettam, and Celia weresometimes seated on garden-chairs, sometimes walking to meet littleArthur, who was being drawn in his chariot, and, as became theinfantine Bouddha, was sheltered by his sacred umbrella with handsomesilken fringe.
The ladies also talked politics, though more fitfully. Mrs.Cadwallader was strong on the intended creation of peers: she had it forcertain from her cousin that Truberry had gone over to the other sideentirely at the instigation of his wife, who had scented peerages in theair from the very first introduction of the Reform question, and wouldsign her soul away to take precedence of her younger sister, who hadmarried a baronet. Lady Chettam thought that such conduct was veryreprehensible, and remembered that Mrs. Truberry's mother was a MissWalsingham of Melspring. Celia confessed it was nicer to be "Lady" than"Mrs.," and that Dodo never minded about precedence if she could haveher own way. Mrs. Cadwallader held that it was a poor satisfaction totake precedence when everybody about you knew that you had not adrop of good blood in your veins; and Celia again, stopping to look atArthur, said, "It would be very nice, though, if he were a Viscount—andhis lordship's little tooth coming through! He might have been, if Jameshad been an Earl."
"My dear Celia," said the Dowager, "James's title is worth far morethan any new earldom. I never wished his father to be anything else thanSir James."
"Oh, I only meant about Arthur's little tooth," said Celia,comfortably. "But see, here is my uncle coming."
She tripped off to meet her uncle, while Sir James and Mr.Cadwallader came forward to make one group with the ladies. Celia hadslipped her arm through her uncle's, and he patted her hand with arather melancholy "Well, my dear!" As they approached, it was evidentthat Mr. Brooke was looking dejected, but this was fully accounted forby the state of politics; and as he was shaking hands all round withoutmore greeting than a "Well, you're all here, you know," the Rector said,laughingly—
"Don't take the throwing out of the Bill so much to heart, Brooke;you've got all the riff-raff of the country on your side."
