CHAPTER LXX
Angela went home very thoughtful. The next three days she spent inwriting. First, she wrote a clear and methodical account of all theevents that had happened since Arthur's first departure, more than ayear ago, and attached to it copies of the various documents that hadpassed between herself and George, including one of the undertakingthat her husband had signed before the marriage. This account was inthe form of a statement, which she signed, and, taking it to Mr.Fraser, read it to him, and got him to sign it too. It took her twowhole days to write, and, when it was done, she labelled it "to beread first." On the third day she wrote the following letter to gowith the statement:
"For the first time in my life, Arthur, I take up my pen to write toyou, and in truth the difficulty of the task before me, as well as myown want of skill, tends to bewilder me, and, though I have much uponmy mind to say, I scarcely know if it will reach you--if, indeed, thisletter is ever destined to lie open in your hands--in an intelligibleform.
"The statement that I enclose, however, will--in case you do notalready know them--tell you all the details of what has happened sinceyou left me more than a year ago. From it you will learn how cruelly Iwas deceived into marrying George Caresfoot, believing you dead. Oh,through all eternity, never shall I forget that fearful night, norcease to thank God for my merciful escape from the fiend whom I hadmarried. And then came the morning, and brought you--the dead--alivebefore my eyes. And whilst I stood in the first tumult of my amaze--forgetful of everything but that it was you, my own, my belovedArthur, no spirit, but you in flesh and blood--whilst I yet stoodthus, stricken to silence by the shock of an unutterable joy--youbroke upon me with those dreadful words, so that I choked, feeling howjust they must seem to you, and could not answer.
"And yet it sometimes fills me with wonder and indignation to think ofthem; wonder that you could believe me so mad as to throw away thelove of my life, and indignation that you could deem me so lost as todishonour it. They drove me mad, those words, and from that momentforward I remember nothing but a chaos of the mind heaving endlesslylike the sea. But all this has passed, and I am thankful to say that Iam quite well again now.
"Still I should not have written to you, Arthur; I did not even knowwhere you were, and I never thought of recovering you. After what haspassed, I looked upon you as altogether lost to me for this world. Buta few days ago I went at her own request to see Lady Bellamy. All shesaid to me I will not now repeat, lest I should render this letter toowearisome to read, though a great deal of it was strange enough to bewell worth repetition. In the upshot, however, she said that I hadbetter write to you, and told me where to write. And so I write toyou, dear. There was also another thing that she told me of sad importfor myself, but which I must not shrink to face. She said that therelived at Madeira, where you are, a lady who is in love with you, andis herself both beautiful and wealthy, to whom you would have gone forcomfort in your trouble, and in all probability have married.
"Now, Arthur, I do not know if this is the case, but, if so, I hastento say that I do not blame you. You smarted under what must haveseemed to you an intolerable wrong, and you went for consolation toher who had it to offer. In a man that is perhaps natural, though itis not a woman's way. If it be so, I say from my heart, be as happy asyou can. But remember what I told you long ago, and do not fall intoany delusions on the matter; do not imagine because circumstances haveshaped themselves thus, therefore I am to be put out of your mind andforgotten, for this is not so. I cannot be forgotten, though for awhile I may be justly discarded; it is possible that for this worldyou have passed out of my reach, but in the next I shall claim you asmy own.
"Yes, Arthur, I have made up my mind to lose you for this life as afitting reward for my folly. But do not think that I do so without apang, for, believe me, since my mind emerged stronger and clearer fromthe storms through which it has passed, bringing back to me the fulllife and strength of my womanhood, I have longed for you with an ever-increasing longing. I am not ashamed to own that I would give worldsto feel your arms about me and your kiss upon my lips. Why should Ibe? Am I not yours, body and soul?
"But, dear, it has been given to me, perhaps as a compensation for allI have undergone and that is still left for me to undergo, to grasp amore enduring end than that of earthly ecstasy: for I can look forwardwith a confident assurance to the day when we shall embrace upon thethreshold of the Infinite. Do not call this foolish imagination, orcall it imagination, if you will--for what is imagination? Is it notthe connecting link between us and our souls, and recalling memoriesof our home. Imagination, what would our higher life be without it? Itis what the mind is to the body, it is the soul's _thought_.
"So in my imagination--since I know no better term--I foresee thatheavenly hour, and I am not jealous for the earthly moment. Nor,indeed, have I altogether lost you, for at times, in the stillness ofthe night, when the earthly part is plunged in sleep and my spirit isreleased from the thraldom of the senses, it, at indefinite periods,has the power to summon your beloved form to its presence, and in thiscommunion Nature vindicates her faithfulness. Thus, through the longnight rest comes upon me with your presence.
"And at last there will come a greater rest; at last--having livedmisunderstood--we shall die, alone, and then the real life or liveswill begin. It is not always night, for the Dawn is set beyond thenight, and through the gates of Dawn we shall journey to the day. Itis not always night; even in the womb of darkness throbs the promiseof the morning. I often wonder, Arthur, how and what this change willbe. Shall we be even as we are, but still, through unnumbered ages,growing slowly on to the Divine, or, casting off the very semblance ofmortality, shall we rise at one wide sweep to the pinnacle offulfilled time, there to learn the purposes and mark the measure ofall Being.
"How can I know? But this I believe, that whatever the change, howeverwide and deep the darkness which stretches between what is and what isnot yet, we cannot lose ourselves therein. Identity will still beours, and memory, the Janus-headed, will still pursue us, calling toour minds the enacted evil and that good which, having been, mustalways be. For we are immortal, and though we put off the mortal dress--yes, though our forms become as variable as the clouds, and assumeproportions of which we cannot dream--yet shall memory companion usand identity remain. For we are each fashioned apart for ever, andbuilt about with such an iron wall of individual life that all theforce of time and change cannot so much as shake it. And while I ammyself, and yet in any shape endure, of this be certain--the love thatis a part of me will endure also. Oh, herein is set my hope--nay, notmy hope, for hope upon the tongue whispers doubt within the heart, butthe most fixed unchanging star of all my heaven. It is not alwaysnight, for the Dawn is set beyond the night; and oh, my heart'sbeloved, at daybreak we shall meet again!
"Oh! Arthur, even now I long for the purer air and flashing sympathiesof that vast Hereafter, when the strong sense of knowledge shallscarcely find a limit ere it overleaps it; when visible power shallradiate from our being, and living on together through countlessExistences, Periods, and Spheres, we shall progress from majesty toever-growing majesty! Oh, for the day when you and I, messengers fromthe Seat of Power, shall sail high above these darkling worlds, and,seeing into each other's souls, shall learn what love's communion is!
"Do not think me foolish, dear, for writing to you thus. I do not wishto make you the victim of an outburst of thought that you may thinkhysterical. But perhaps I may never be able to write to you again inthis way; your wife, if you are married, may be jealous, or otherthings may occur to prevent it. I feel it, therefore, necessary totell you my inmost thoughts now whilst I can, so that you may alwaysremember them during the long coming years, and especially when youdraw near to the end of the journey. I hope, dearest Arthur, thatnothing will ever make you forget them, and also that, for the sake ofthe pure love you will for ever bear me, you will always live up toyour noblest and your best, for in this way our meeting will be madem
ore perfect.
"Of course it is possible that you may still be free, and, after youknow that I am not quite so much to blame as you may have thought,still willing to give your name to me. It is a blessed hope, but Iscarcely dare to dwell upon it.
"The other day I was reading a book Mr. Fraser lent me, which took myfancy very much, it was so full of contradictions. The unexpectedalways happened in it, and there was both grief and laughter in itspages. It did not end quite well or quite badly, or, rather it had_no_ end, and deep down underneath the plotless story, only peeping upnow and again when the actors were troubled, there ran a vein of realsorrow and sad, unchanging love. There was a hero in this odd bookwhich was so like life--who, by the way, was no hero at all, but acurious, restless creature who seemed to have missed his mark in life,and went along looking for old truths and new ideas with his eyes sofixed upon the stars that he was always stumbling over the pebbles inhis path, and thinking that they were rocks. He was a sensitive man,too, and as weak as he was sensitive, and often fell into pitfalls anddid what he should not, and yet, for all that, he had a quaint andgentle mind, and there was something to like in him--at least, sothought the women in that book. There was a heroine, too, who was allthat a heroine should be, very sweet and very beautiful, and shereally had a heart, only she would not let it beat. And of course thehero and heroine loved each other: of course, too, they both behavedbadly, and things went wrong, or there would have been no book.
"But I tell you this story because once, in a rather touching scene,this hero who made such a mess of things set forth one of the ideasthat he had found, and thought new, but which was really so very old.He told the heroine that he had read in the stars that happiness hasonly one key, and that its name is 'Love,' that, amidst all themutabilities and disillusions of our life, the pure love of a man andwoman alone stands firm and beautiful, alone defies change anddisappointment; that it is the heaven-sent salve for all our troubles,the remedy for our mistakes, the magic glass reflecting only what istrue and good. But in the end her facts overcame his theories, and hemight have spared himself the trouble of telling. And, for all hisstar-gazing, this hero had no real philosophy, but in his grief andunresting pain went and threw himself into the biggest pitfalls thathe could find, and would have perished there, had not a good angelcome and dragged him out again and brushed the mud off his clothes,and, taking him by the hand, led him along a safer path. And so forawhile he drops out of the story, which says that, when he is notthinking of the lost heroine, he is perhaps happier than he deservesto be.
"Now, Arthur, I think that this foolish hero was right, and thesensible heroine he worshipped so blindly, wrong.
"If you are still unmarried, and still care to put his theories to thetest, I believe that we also can make as beautiful a thing of ourlives as he thought that he and his heroine could, and, ourselvessupremely happy in each other's perfect love, may perhaps be able toadd to the happiness of some of our fellow-travellers. That is, Ithink, as noble an end as a a man and woman can set before themselves.
"But if, on the other hand, you are tied to this other woman who lovesyou by ties that cannot be broken, or that honour will not let youbreak; or if you are unforgiving, and no longer wish to marry me as Iwish to marry you, then till that bright hour of immortal hope--farewell. Yes, Arthur, farewell till the gate of Time has closed forus--till, in the presence of God our Father, I shall for ever call youmine.
"Alas! I am so weak that my tears fall as I write the word. Perhaps Imay never speak or write to you again, so once more, my dearest, mybeloved, my earthly treasure and my heavenly hope, farewell. May theblessing of God be as constantly around you as my thoughts, and may Heteach you that these are not foolish words, but rather the faintshadow of an undying light!
"I send back the ring that was used to trick me with. Perhaps,whatever happens, you will wear it for my sake. It is, you know, asymbol of Eternity.
"Angela Caresfoot."