The Days of My Life: An Autobiography

I was not much flattered by thinking that Miss Saville was quite sure of it all along – but I thought it most prudent to say nothing on this now. Flora was extremely interested in all the arrangements. “I will come whenever I am at Cottiswoode, Miss Saville,” she said, eagerly; “for, of course, my cousin is not strong, and it would be quite wrong for her to fatigue herself. I shall like so much to come. May we not go and see old Sally, now, cousin Hester! and the other old people? They are such famous story-tellers. I like old people for that; but, oh dear, how selfish I am! You are looking quite pale and tired out. Will you lean upon me, cousin? or may I run and tell them to get out the pony carriage? I am sure you are hardly able to walk home.”

But I was able, in spite of Flora’s fears. Miss Saville returned with us, looking jealously about her, and seeming to have a certain terror of us, and of encountering her strayed friend. We stopped at the Rectory gate to take leave of her, but she did not seem inclined to leave us then. “I am at leisure this morning – I will walk on with you;” but I could see very well that it was not any particular degree of leisure, but something much more important which made her accompany us. She grew more and more agitated as we approached Cottiswoode – still no one was in sight; but I thought I had caught a glimpse of the Rector himself, telegraphing at a window as we passed, shaking his head and saying “no,” and it was not possible to avoid perceiving Miss Saville’s anxiety, and her anxious looks around her. At last, as Flora clambered over a low stone fence in search of a plant, which she thought she recognised among the grass, Miss Saville addressed herself to me.

“I think it best to mention it, Mrs. Southcote, connected as our families are,” she said in an agitated tone, “though being an only child, you can scarcely know what family anxieties are, we have a brother with us – I am sure you have a right to be surprised – but really his state of mind is such that we could not introduce him into society. He has been a gay man in his day – and he has – oh! such a grief, my dear, to William and me! – fallen into ways – well, that we can’t approve of. He was bred an attorney – a lawyer, and was in very good practice till he got into misfortune. I am sorry to say poor Richard has not been able to bear misfortune, and he came down here for his health; and we have tried to keep him very quiet, the only thing to do him good – but this morning, you see, he has stolen out, and we can’t tell where he is gone. My dear, don’t look alarmed – he is not insane. Dear me! how could I imply such a thing – far different from that – he is very clever – but, you know, we don’t want him to trouble Mr. Southcote – or – or any one – and when he takes anything into his head he is very firm, and will not be persuaded out of it. He has taken a violent fancy since ever he came of speaking to Mr. Southcote or yourself – and we have done all we could to prevent him – for you know, we don’t like to show our family troubles any more than other people – especially as William is a clergyman; but I must tell you– hush! here is the young lady coming back – and if you meet my poor brother, Mrs. Southcote, do not be afraid.”

Miss Saville ended this very long speech, out of breath with hurry and agitation, as Flora reappeared. If he was not a madman, why should I be afraid of him? and madman or not, what could Saville want with me? On my husband, of course, he had the claim of gratitude, and I could not resist my impulse to mention that.

“I think I saw him over at the Rectory window,” I said quietly, and in a tone which must have jarred dreadfully on Miss Saville’s excited ears. “Was not he the man who brought Mr. Southcote first to Cottiswoode? I recollect him; I trust my husband has not forgotten the claims his friend has upon him.”

I had scarcely spoken the words, when I was bitterly ashamed of them; and I felt my face burn under my companion’s eye. She was startled by my tone, and she had evidently forgotten, if, indeed, she ever clearly knew, that my husband’s possession of Cottiswoode had been any injury to me, who now shared it with him. When she answered, she spoke in a tone of pique – she saw a certain disrespect, but she did not see the bitterness in my tone.

“He is not what he once was, Mrs. Southcote,” said Miss Saville; “but I think poor dear Richard does deserve something better than to be spoken of as ‘the man.’ I am not proud, but I know Edgar Southcote has reason to reckon a friend in Richard Saville. It was he who brought the poor boy over from Jamaica, when he had not a friend in the world to care for him – and he got him his rights. I am sorry for what has happened to my brother, and grieved for him; and I was foolish to think I might get sympathy from a stranger – but I’m not ashamed of Richard, Mrs. Southcote, and never will be.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Saville,” said I – for the moment I felt very much ashamed of myself.

Flora had not succeeded, and was tired with her scramble, and momentarily silenced by the fatigue; while neither Miss Saville nor I had much to say to her, or to each other. We walked on quietly, till we came to the little private gate which entered directly into the grounds surrounding Cottiswoode; for this favorite lane which led to the village, was much nearer to the house itself than to the great gate at the end of the avenue. When we arrived there, I invited Miss Saville to come in, but she would not; though, as we passed through the garden ourselves, I could see that she still stood by the little wicket watching us anxiously – no doubt, to see if we encountered her brother even here. I was no less on the watch myself, but we saw no one till we had entered the hall. Flora, as usual, tripped on before me. I followed after, slow and languidly; she was already in the drawing-room, when I had scarcely crossed the threshold, and when the wide hall-door, still held fully open, admitted the entire flood of noon-day light into the hall. At that moment, the library door was opened suddenly, and the very man I had been looking for stood before me. I could see that he was heated and flushed, as if with some recent argument; and his stealthy, sidelong, cunning look, which I could remember, had given way to an air of coarse dissipation; that state in which everything is surrendered, and when even appearance and dress and personal neatness are lost in the universal bankruptcy. Behind him, within the library, appeared my husband, pale, haughty; holding the door in his hand, and dismissing his visitor with a formal solemnity, such as I had never seen in him before. When Saville perceived me, he stood still for a moment, and made me a swaggering bow, and then advanced a step as though to address me. I bowed slightly to him, and hastened my steps to get out of his way. “Stay an instant, madam – stay an instant,” he said, with a little excitement, while my husband still remained behind, looking on. I only hurried in the more quickly. “Very well,” he said, with a loud exclamation – “surely, there is no reason, if you will not hear what concerns you, that I should trouble myself about you.”

I was strangely disturbed when, at last, I got into the quiet shelter of the drawing-room. I took refuge upon a sofa, and lay down there to recover my breath. The sight of this man, and the sound of his voice, which I almost thought I could remember in the over-excitement of my feelings, overpowered me with recollections. I remembered how we were when he came – how I was disgusted with the familiarity of his first address to me – how my father, for the moment, resisted Edgar Southcote’s claims; and how I endeavored to convince him that they were true. In this room, where we had conversed together – looking at the very portrait to which I had pointed, I scarcely could persuade myself that all was real, and that this was not a dream.

Flora took my bonnet from me, and loosed my mantle, and bade me be still and rest. “I am always so thoughtless. I am sure we ought not to have walked so far, cousin Hester,” said the penitent Flora. “I will come down immediately, and read to you, shall I? you ought to have a good rest.” But when Flora left me, I rose from the sofa to walk about the room. When I am disturbed in mind I cannot be still, unless, indeed, I am very greatly disturbed, when I can do anything.

I had only been a few moments alone, when my husband came to me. I retired to my usual seat immediately, and he came to my side. He still looked as I had seen him at the door of his library – almost like my father for a time – resolute, pale, stately, a man of invincible determination, on whom words would be wasted, and whose mind no persuasions could change. A little indignation and a little scorn united in his look. I cannot describe how very different from his usual appearance he was to-day.

“I have been having a visitor, Hester,” he said. “I fancied you recognised him, and I think it right you should know what he had to say. He is – ”

“Pray, do not tell me,” said I hurriedly; “I know who he is – but, indeed, I do not desire to hear his name, or anything he may have had to say.”

“You know who he is – did you know he was here, Hester?” said my husband, looking at me.

“Yes – I saw and recognised him at a window of the rectory some time since,” I said, “and Miss Saville has been telling me of him to-day – of course, you did not suppose that I had forgotten his name, or failed to suspect that the rector and his sister were relations of the man who brought you to Cottiswoode.”

“I have very few ways of knowing what you suspect, Hester,” he said, with some sadness, “but this you must permit me to tell you without delay – he thinks he has found – ”

“Will you do me one kindness?” I asked. “Flora is coming, and I do not wish to hear anything he said. I can have nothing to do with it one way or another, and it is irksome and painful to me. Indeed, I am tired and not well, and might be excused on that score. Here is my young cousin. I would rather you would not tell me.”

He drew back with a slight haughty bow, and retired from me. “As you will!” he said; and when Flora entered, which she did instantly, he left the room without another word.

What a perverse miserable creature I was! Though I had refused to hear him when he wished to speak to me, I was wretched when he was gone. When Flora came to me book in hand to read, I permitted her, that I might have a little uninterrupted leisure; and while she, poor girl, labored thus for my entertainment, my mind was wandering after my husband, and what he would have said – what could it be? Whatever it was, he was displeased at it, and in spite of the wide and constant difference between us, I could not forgive myself for rejecting his confidence – though, indeed, had he returned at that moment, I cannot answer for myself that I would not have done it again.

I could not bring my attention to Flora’s book; she appealed to me for admiration and sympathy at her own favorite passages; but the blank look with which I met her appeal, pained, though it did not offend, the affectionate girl. She excused me to herself as she always did, and quietly put the book away, pretending she saw the gardener going to the conservatory, and wanted to beg a flower from him. Thus I was once more left alone with my unreasonable and vexing thoughts. I might have heard what he had to say, my conscience whispered me, and I recalled the haughty withdrawal from me which marked his displeasure, with a pang which I wondered at. It was all Saville’s fault – Saville! this miserable man, who brought disgrace and unhappiness home to his brother and sister. I felt almost a positive hatred in my mind as I recalled him.

Feeling heated with my recent excitement, and very nervous and unhappy, I drew the little hood of my mantle over my head, and went out into the grounds before the house to subdue myself a little. The day was still at its height, sunny and warm, almost like summer, and every twig of all the trees and hedges was bursting with the young life of spring. Rich golden and purple crocuses spotted the dark soil in all the flower borders; and the pale little pensive snowdrop, instead of looking precocious as it usually does, looked late, feeble, and all unlike the sunshine. Waving their numberless boughs far up across the blue depths of the sky, I thought I could see the buds bursting on the elm-trees, and life was rising and swelling in everything like a great tide. I was refreshed by the cool breeze on my brow, and calmed with the sounds and breath of the fresh air out of doors. I cannot tell what induced me to turn my steps to the little wicket-gate, at which this morning we had left Miss Saville, and which opened on the lane leading to the rectory. I went to it, and leaned my arm upon it, looking down the road. I had not been there a minute when I heard a murmur of voices – “Don’t, Richard, pray, don’t! – I won’t have you frighten the poor child,” remonstrated the voice of Miss Saville. “It’s for her good,” answered another voice, and before I could leave my place, Saville had sprung across the low fence into the lane, and was close beside me.

For the first moment I did not move, but stood looking full at him with a gaze which subdued the man, though I cannot tell how. “Young lady! let me have half an hour’s conversation,” he said, in a humble tone; “I know a great deal which you would be very glad to know. Come, don’t be proud, I know you’re not over pleased to be only Queen Consort – if you’ll be ruled by me” —

“I will not be ruled by you – be so good as to leave me,” said I, drawing back – “I will hear nothing you have got to say – not a word.”

“If you will not hear me, you will repent it,” said the man. “I warrant Edgar has not told you a word – no, trust him for that.”

At this moment, I do not deny that my curiosity was very greatly roused, but strange emotions were roused with it; I could not bear to hear my husband’s name in this fellow’s lips.

“If my husband did not tell me, it was because I would not hear him,” said I, “and I will not hear you. I do not care what you have got to say. Miss Saville, I hope, will not think I mean any unkindness to her – but I have not a word to say to you.”

And I hastened away into the house, up-stairs to my own room. How my heart throbbed! how wearied, and bewildered, and sick at heart I felt! What could he mean? What could it be? Out of the temporary quietude I had fallen into, I was raised again into an eager consuming excitement, and I think for the first time that day, in the preoccupation and strain of my own mind, I wished Flora Ennerdale at home; for her sweet natural life, so great a contrast to mine at all times, was almost unendurable now.

THE TENTH DAY

THOSE lingering, uneventful days, though they looked so long and tedious as they passed, how they seemed to have flown when I look back upon their silent progress – for it was now April, the trees were rich with young spring leaves; the sky and the air were as bright as summer; the flowers were waking everywhere, peeping among the herbage on the road-side, looking out from the tufts of meadow grass, filling the breeze with a whisper of primroses and violets, and all the nameless favorites of spring. But spring had not come to Cottiswoode – we were as we had been since my first coming here; only that the estrangement between us daily became wider, more sullen and hopeless. We were as little as possible together; yet if his thoughts were as full of me as mine were of him, it mattered little that we sat in different rooms, and pursued alone our separate occupations. The consuming and silent excitement of this life of ours, when, though I never addressed him voluntarily, I watched for his coming and going, and anxiously expected, and sought a hidden meaning in every word he said, I cannot describe to any one – it was terrible. I could fancy that a demoniac in the old times must have felt something as I did – I was possessed – I had, in reality, no will of my own, but was overborne by a succession of frantic impulses, which must have looked like a deliberate system to a looker-on. I can neither understand nor explain the rules of my conduct – or rather, it had no rules. The wild suggestion of the moment, and no better principle, was the rule which guided me.

Flora had just left us after a second visit; she had been one day gone, and I felt her absence greatly. Even Alice did not make up to me now for this younger companion; for Alice was dull, and disturbed, and sad. I felt her every look a reproach to me, and I did not seek her to be with me as I had once done. I lay down on my sofa doing nothing; cogitating vain impressions of injury and wrong; going over imaginary conversations with my husband – turning my face away from the sweet daylight, and all the joyous life out of doors. As I rested thus, I heard my husband’s step approaching, and raised myself hurriedly; my heart began to beat, and the color came back to my cheek – why was he coming here now?

He came in – he advanced to my side – he stood before me! I turned over a book nervously – glanced once at him – tried to command my voice to speak, but could not. Then he sat down beside me on my sofa. I drew away from him as far as I could, and waited for what he had to say.

“Hester,” he said, “this has lasted long enough. If we are to preserve our senses – if one of us at least – some period must be put to this torture. Are you satisfied yet with the penance you have exacted? Or how much more do you wish me to suffer? For I declare to you, I have almost passed the bounds of endurance – you will make me mad!”

“I wish you to suffer nothing,” said I. “I will keep my room; I will keep out of your sight, if it makes you mad to see me. I will go away, or else confine myself to my own apartments; I exact nothing; I only desire you to leave me at peace.”

“You will keep out of my sight if I will leave you at peace? That is a sweet compact, is it not?” he said, with vehemence and bitterness, and I could see that, at last, his patience had quite given way. “What do you mean, Hester? Have you any recollection how it is that we are related to each other – do you know what is the bond between us?”

“Yes! we are in slavery,” I said; “we belong to each other – we are united for ever. It is no use deceiving ourselves; we never can be any better – that is all I know.”

“And why can we never be any better?” he said, softening and growing gentle in his tone. “Unhappy and disturbed as I am, my fears do not go the length of that. I will not do you the injustice to suppose, that you will keep this delusion all your life. If you will retain it now, I appeal to your better judgment afterwards. But why should you retain it now, Hester? You are no happier for your revenge – I am no better for my punishment. It is now a long time since the offence was committed; look at it again, and see if it is equal to the penalty. Tell me, Hester, what have I done?”

“You have deceived me,” I said.

“I told you nothing untrue of myself,” he said, quietly. “I did not tell you all the truth. See how you have changed me already – a man cannot be at the bar so long without trying to justify himself. At first I was a penitent offender – but nothing but mercy can make repentance, Hester, and you have shown no mercy to me. What have I done to deserve all that you have inflicted upon me?”

“You have deceived me,” I repeated sullenly.

He started up and made a few rapid strides through the room as if going away – but then he returned again. His temper, his self-command, his patience, could not bear any more – I saw that I had fairly roused him to strive with me.

“Is this all you have to say, Hester?” he asked almost sternly. “Am I to hear this and only this rung in my ears continually – have you nothing but my first offence to urge against me – is this all?”

“Yes,” I said, “it is all, and I have nothing more to say.”

He could not trust himself to speak, but went away from me again, and rapidly returned once more. “Grant it so,” he said, with a quick and breathless voice, “if I have deceived you, I have been myself deceived – we are on equal terms.”

I could not understand what he meant – when it dawned upon me, I rose slowly, and we stood, confronting each other, looking into each other’s eyes. “Have I deceived you?” I asked – it cost me an effort to preserve my calmness, but I did it.

“Yes,” he said vehemently, “you were a sweet and tender woman when you left your father’s house. I thought you one of those whose very presence makes a home – your high spirit, your rapid mind, only gave a noble charm to your generous loving heart – I thought so, Hester – I delighted in believing it. I thought the key of my joy in this world was given to me when they put your hand in mine. Look at me now – I am bankrupt, shipwrecked – from the first hour I brought you home, happiness was ended for me. This house is wretched – the very sunshine and daylight that God has made are no longer blessings to me. My life is a burden. My duties are intolerable. My hopes have departed one by one. I tell you that more bitterly, more grievously than you have been deceived, have you deceived me.”

I was stung and wounded to the heart. A dreadful passion took possession of me. I could have killed myself as I stood, that he might have seen me do it, and repented when it was too late. Even then, when these bitter words were said, I believe he repented.

“Why did you seek me then?” I cried passionately. “Why did you come out of your way to make us both so wretched? I am not a sweet or a tender woman. I never was so. I never pretended to be. Why did you not seek Flora Ennerdale? She was fit for you. She might have made you happy. Why did you not leave me in my solitude? I never came to seek you.”

“You insult me,” he said, turning away with renewed anger. I think he said something else. I did not hear it. I made no answer. I sat down to wait till he was gone. I cannot even tell how long it was till he went away, but when he did, I rose, and, guiding myself by my hands, went slowly up-stairs. I know my step was quite firm, but I held by the banisters and took pains to guide myself, for there was a darkness over my eyes, and I could not see plainly where I went. It seemed a long time before I could reach my own room, and when I entered it, Alice started, and came towards me with an exclamation of fright. This restored me a little to myself. I said I was faint – told her to bring me some wine, and lay down upon the couch till she returned. “Are you ill, my darling?” said Alice, bending over me with a pale face, as she gave me the wine. “No, no!” I said, “only faint – I must not be ill, for we have a good deal to do. I should like to take a drive – will you order the carriage to be ready in an hour, and then, Alice, come back to me.”

I lay quite still, recovering myself till she returned. I felt that to command and compose myself sufficiently to be able for all I wanted to do, required all my powers. Exerting all the resolution I had, I lay upon the couch, refusing to think, resting with a determined purpose and resolution to rest, such as seemed very strange when I thought of it afterwards – but I thought to do it then – slowly my eyes cleared, the beating of my heart subsided. I cannot tell what crisis I might have come to, had I given way to the dreadful agitation which had possession of me for a time; but as I lay here, silently looking round upon the familiar room, I felt both mind and body obeying me, and rejoiced to find that I was mistress of myself, as I had not been for many a day.

When Alice returned, I rose. I foresaw Alice’s remonstrances, her tears and entreaties, and I had intentionally left very little room for them by ordering the carriage so soon. When she came in, I sat up, refreshed and strong. I could not try to “prepare” her for it, I said abruptly, “Alice, I am going away.”

“Where, Miss Hester?” said Alice.

“I cannot tell where,” I said; “all that I know is, that I must go away from Cottiswoode. Alice, come near me – I will not constrain you. I will not be offended if you stay; but you must tell me at once what you will do, for I have very little time.”

Alice looked with great and pathetic earnestness in my face, but she did not cry or entreat me against it, as I feared she would do.

“Has it come to this? – are you sure it has come to this?” she asked, anxiously clasping her hands and gazing at me. “Oh! Miss Hester, consider what it is – consider how you are – and tell me solemnly has it come to this?”