Lucretia — Complete

  CHAPTER VIII. THE DISCOVERY.

  Dalibard had undertaken to get Lucretia from the house,--in fact,her approaching marriage rendered necessary a communication with Mr.Parchmount, as executor to her uncle's will, relative to the transferof her portion; and she had asked Dalibard to accompany her thither; forher pride shrank from receiving the lawyer in the shabby parlour of theshabby lodging-house; she therefore, that evening, fixed the next day,before noon, for the visit. A carriage was hired for the occasion, andwhen it drove off, Mr. Fielden took his children a walk to PrimroseHill, and called, as was agreed, on Mainwaring by the way.

  The carriage had scarcely rattled fifty yards through the street whenDalibard fixed his eyes with deep and solemn commiseration on Lucretia.Hitherto, with masterly art, he had kept aloof from direct explanationswith his pupil; he knew that she would distrust no one like himself. Theplot was now ripened, and it was time for the main agent to conduct thecatastrophe. The look was so expressive that Lucretia felt a chill ather heart, and could not, help exclaiming, "What has happened? You havesome terrible tidings to communicate!"

  "I have indeed to say that which may, perhaps, cause you to hate meforever; as we hate those who report our afflictions. I must endurethis; I have struggled long between my indignation and my compassion.Rouse up your strong mind, and hear me. Mainwaring loves your sister!"

  Lucretia uttered a cry that seemed scarcely to come from a humanvoice,--

  "No, no!" she gasped out; "do not tell me. I will hear no more; I willnot believe you!"

  With an inexpressible pity and softness in his tone, this man, whosecareer had given him such profound experience in the frailties of thehuman heart, continued: "I do not ask you to believe me, Lucretia;I would not now speak, if you had not the opportunity to convinceyourself. Even those with whom you live are false to you; at this momentthey have arranged all, for Mainwaring to steal, in your absence, toyour sister. In a few moments more he will be with her; if you yourselfwould learn what passes between them, you have the power."

  "I have--I have not--not--the courage; drive on--faster--faster."

  Dalibard again was foiled. In this strange cowardice there was somethingso terrible, yet so touching, that it became sublime,--it was the graspof a drowning soul at the last plank.

  "You are right perhaps," he said, after a pause; and wisely forbearingall taunt and resistance, he left the heart to its own workings.

  Suddenly, Lucretia caught at the check-string. "Stop," sheexclaimed,--"stop! I will not, I cannot, endure this suspense to lastthrough a life! I will learn the worst. Bid him drive back."

  "We must descend and walk; you forget we must enter unsuspected;" andDalibard, as the carriage stopped, opened the door and let down thesteps.

  Lucretia recoiled, then pressing one hand to her heart, she descended,without touching the arm held out to her. Dalibard bade the coachmanwait, and they walked back to the house.

  "Yes, he may see her," exclaimed Lucretia, her face brightening. "Ah,there you have not deceived me; I see your stratagem,--I despise it;I know she loves him; she has sought this interview. He is so mild andgentle, so fearful to give pain; he has consented, from pity,--that isall. Is he not pledged to me? He, so candid, so ingenuous! There mustbe truth somewhere in the world. If he is false, where find truth? Darkman, must I look for it in you,--you?"

  "It is not my truth I require you to test; I pretend not to truthuniversal; I can be true to one, as you may yet discover. But I own yourbelief is not impossible; my interest in you may have made me rash andunjust,--what you may overhear, far from destroying, may confirm foreveryour happiness. Would that it may be so!"

  "It must be so," returned Lucretia, with a fearful gloom on her brow andin her accent; "I will interpret every word to my own salvation."

  Dalibard's countenance changed, despite his usual control over it. Hehad set all his chances upon this cast, and it was more hazardous thanhe had deemed. He had counted too much upon the jealousy of commonnatures. After all, how little to the ear of one resolved to deceiveherself might pass between these two young persons, meeting not to avowattachment, but to take courage from each other! What restraint mightthey impose on their feelings! Still, the game must be played out.

  As they now neared the house, Dalibard looked carefully round, lest theyshould encounter Mainwaring on his way to it. He had counted on arrivingbefore the young man could get there.

  "But," said Lucretia, breaking silence, with an ironicalsmile,--"but--for your tender anxiety for me has, no doubt, provided allmeans and contrivance, all necessary aids to baseness and eavesdropping,that can assure my happiness--how am I to be present at this interview?"

  "I have provided, as you say," answered Dalibard, in the tone of a mandeeply hurt, "those means which I, who have found the world one foe andone traitor, deemed the best to distinguish falsehood from truth. I havearranged that we shall enter the house unsuspected. Mainwaring and yoursister will be in the drawing-room; the room next to it will be vacant,as Mr. Fielden is from home: there is but a glass-door between the twochambers."

  "Enough, enough!" and Lucretia turned round and placed her hand lightlyon the Provencal's arm. "The next hour will decide whether the means yousuggest to learn truth and defend safety will be familiar or loathsometo me for life,--will decide whether trust is a madness; whether you, myyouth's teacher, are the wisest of men, or only the most dangerous."

  "Believe me, or not, when I say I would rather the decision shouldcondemn me; for I, too, have need of confidence in men."

  Nothing further was said; the dull street was quiet and desolate asusual. Dalibard had taken with him the key of the house-door. The dooropened noiselessly; they were in the house. Mainwaring's cloak was inthe hall; he had arrived a few moments before them. Dalibard pointedsilently to that evidence in favour of his tale. Lucretia bowed her headbut with a look that implied defiance; and (still without a word) sheascended the stairs, and entered the room appointed for concealment.But as she entered, at the farther corner of the chamber she saw Mrs.Fielden seated,--seated, remote and out of hearing. The good-naturedwoman had yielded to Mainwaring's prayer, and Susan's silent look thatenforced it, to let their interview be unwitnessed. She did not perceiveLucretia till the last walked glidingly, but firmly, up to her, placeda burning hand on her lips, and whispered: "Hush, betray me not; myhappiness for life--Susan's--his--are at stake; I must hear what passes:it is my fate that is deciding. Hush! I command; for I have the right."

  Mrs. Fielden was awed and startled; and before she could recover evenbreath, Lucretia had quitted her side and taken her post at the fataldoor. She lifted the corner of the curtain from the glass panel, andlooked in.

  Mainwaring was seated at a little distance from Susan, whose face wasturned from her. Mainwaring's countenance was in full view. But itwas Susan's voice that met her ear; and though sweet and low, itwas distinct, and even firm. It was evident from the words that theconference had but just begun.

  "Indeed, Mr. Mainwaring, you have nothing to explain, nothing of whichto accuse yourself. It was not for this, believe me,"--and here Susanturned her face, and its aspect of heavenly innocence met the dry, lurideye of the unseen witness,--"not for this, believe me, that I consentedto see you. If I did so, it was only because I thought, because I fearedfrom your manner, when we met at times, still more from your evidentavoidance to meet me at all, that you were unhappy (for I know you kindand honest),--unhappy at the thought that you had wounded me, and myheart could not bear that, nor, perhaps, my pride either. That youshould have forgotten me--"

  "Forgotten you!"

  "That you should have been captivated," continued Susan, in a morehurried tone, "by one so superior to me in all things as Lucretia, isvery natural. I thought, then--thought only--that nothing could cloudyour happiness but some reproach of a conscience too sensitive. For thisI have met you,--met you without a thought which Lucretia would have aright to blame, could she read my heart; met you," and the voice for thefirst time faltered
, "that I might say, 'Be at peace; it is your sisterthat addresses you. Requite Lucretia's love,--it is deep and strong;give her, as she gives to you, a whole heart; and in your happinessI, your sister--sister to both--I shall be blest.'" With a smileinexpressibly touching and ingenuous, she held out her hand as sheceased. Mainwaring sprang forward, and despite her struggle, pressed itto his lips, his heart.

  "Oh," he exclaimed, in broken accents, which gradually became more clearand loud, "what--what have I lost!--lost forever! No, no, I will beworthy of you! I do not, I dare not, say that I love you still! I feelwhat I owe to Lucretia. How I became first ensnared, infatuated; how,with your image graven so deeply here--"

  "Mainwaring--Mr. Mainwaring--I must not hear you. Is this your promise?"

  "Yes, you must hear me yet. How I became engaged to your sister,--sodifferent indeed from you,--I start in amaze and bewilderment when Iseek to conjecture. But so it was. For me she has forfeited fortune,rank, all which that proud, stern heart so prized and coveted. Heaven ismy witness how I have struggled to repay her affection with my own! If Icannot succeed, at least all that faith and gratitude can give are hers.Yes, when I leave you, comforted by your forgiveness, your prayers, Ishall have strength to tear you from my heart; it is my duty, my fate.With a firm step I will go to these abhorred nuptials. Oh, shudder not,turn not away. Forgive the word; but I must speak,--my heart will out;yes, abhorred nuptials! Between my grave and the altar, would--wouldthat I had a choice!"

  From this burst, which in vain from time to time Susan had sought tocheck, Mainwaring was startled by an apparition which froze his veins,as a ghost from the grave. The door was thrown open, and Lucretia stoodin the aperture,--stood, gazing on him, face to face; and her own wasso colourless, so rigid, so locked in its livid and awful solemnity ofaspect that it was, indeed, as one risen from the dead.

  Dismayed by the abrupt cry and the changed face of her lover, Susanturned and beheld her sister. With the impulse of the pierced and lovingheart, which divined all the agony inflicted, she sprang to Lucretia'sside, she fell to the ground and clasped her knees.

  "Do not heed, do not believe him; it is but the frenzy of a moment. Hespoke but to deceive me,--me, who loved him once! Mine alone, mine isthe crime. He knows all your worth. Pity--pity--pity on yourself, onhim, on me!"

  Lucretia's eyes fell with the glare of a fiend upon the imploring facelifted to her own. Her lips moved, but no sound was audible. At lengthshe drew herself from her sister's clasp, and walked steadily up toMainwaring. She surveyed him with a calm and cruel gaze, as if sheenjoyed his shame and terror. Before, however, she spoke, Mrs. Fielden,who had watched, as one spellbound, Lucretia's movements, and, withouthearing what had passed, had the full foreboding of what would ensue,but had not stirred till Lucretia herself terminated the suspense andbroke the charm of her awe,--before she spoke, Mrs. Fielden rushed in,and giving vent to her agitation in loud sobs, as she threw her armsround Susan, who was still kneeling on the floor, brought something ofgrotesque to the more tragic and fearful character of the scene.

  "My uncle was right; there is neither courage nor honour in thelow-born! He, the schemer, too, is right. All hollow,--all false!" Thussaid Lucretia, with a strange sort of musing accent, at first scornful,at last only quietly abstracted. "Rise, sir," she then added, with hermost imperious tone; "do you not hear your Susan weep? Do you fear in mypresence to console her? Coward to her, as forsworn to me! Go, sir, youare free!"

  "Hear me," faltered Mainwaring, attempting to seize her hand; "I do notask you to forgive; but--"

  "Forgive, sir!" interrupted Lucretia, rearing her head, and with a lookof freezing and unspeakable majesty. "There is only one person here whoneeds a pardon; but her fault is inexpiable: it is the woman who stoopedbeneath her--"

  With these words, hurled from her with a scorn which crushed while itgalled, she mechanically drew round her form her black mantle; her eyeglanced on the deep mourning of the garment, and her memory recalledall that love had cost her; but she added no other reproach. Slowly sheturned away. Passing Susan, who lay senseless in Mrs. Fielden's arms,she paused, and kissed her forehead.

  "When she recovers, madam," she said to Mrs. Fielden, who was moved andastonished by this softness, "say that Lucretia Clavering uttered a vowwhen she kissed the brow of William Mainwaring's future wife!"

  Olivier Dalibard was still seated in the parlour below when Lucretiaentered. Her face yet retained its almost unearthly rigidity and calm;but a sort of darkness had come over its ashen pallor,--that shade soindescribable, which is seen in the human face, after long illness, aday or two before death. Dalibard was appalled; for he had too oftenseen that hue in the dying not to recognize it now. His emotion wassufficiently genuine to give more than usual earnestness to his voiceand gesture, as he poured out every word that spoke sympathy andsoothing. For a long time Lucretia did not seem to hear him; at last herface softened,--the ice broke.

  "Motherless, friendless, lone, alone forever, undone, undone!" shemurmured. Her head sank upon the shoulder of her fearful counsellor,unconscious of its resting-place, and she burst into tears,--tears whichperhaps saved her reason or her life.