Ethel Churchill/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CONFESSION.
Life has dark secrets; and the hearts are few
That treasure not some sorrow from the world—
A sorrow silent, gloomy, and unknown,
Yet colouring the future from the past.
We see the eye subdued, the practised smile,
The word well weighed before it pass the lip,
And know not of the misery within:
Yet there it works incessantly, and fears
The time to come; for time is terrible,
Avenging, and betraying.
Norbourne paused, with an irresolution for which he himself could not account, as he approached the door of his mother's room.
The future has a more subtle sympathy with the present than our imperfect nature can analyse. Who has not felt that nameless shadow upon the spirit, which indicates the coming trouble as surely as the over-hanging cloud foretells the thunderstorm? The external world is full of signs; and so is the internal, if we knew but how to trace them. There is the weight on the air before the tempest; there is the weight on the heart as the coming evil approaches.
Scorning himself for his folly, Courtenaye made an effort and opened the door; but, almost unconsciously to himself, he did it slowly and softly. He entered unperceived, and saw his mother prostrate before the cross; her face was buried in her hands, and the whole attitude bespoke humiliation and despair. It was as if she had dashed herself upon the floor in the last agony of an overburdened spirit, which seeks solace in prayer, and finds it not. Norbourne sprang to her side, and, raising her in his arms, exclaimed,—
"For God's sake, my beloved mother, let this mystery cease! Whatever be your sorrow, let your child share it. Can I do nothing for you?"
For the first time in her life, Mrs. Courtenaye let her head sink on her son's shoulder, and burst into a passionate flood of tears. Strange, for a woman and a widow, it was the first time that he had seen her shed such. What must be the force of that grief which thus utterly subdued one so proud, and so self-controlled! Norbourne carried rather than led her to a seat; and, lavishing upon her every tender and soothing epithet, implored her to tell him the worst. He was struck to see how she mastered herself. The sobs were swallowed down, the tears dashed aside; and, with one kindly pressure of the hand, she went to the inner room, saying, in a low but unbroken voice,—"In five minutes, my child."
Norbourne was left alone, and, insensibly, his eye was caught by the gloomy appearance of the room. The black hangings yet remained that had been put up at his father's death, but they were faded and somewhat torn. There was no carpet on the black oak floor, through whose crevices the wind came with that dreary sound which seems peculiar to it when it enters the dwelling of man. The wind, amid the green leaves and the breathing flowers, goes its way in music; it is the sweet and mystic song of universal nature. But it enters into our dwellings, and it learns there the accent of pain; it breathes what it bears away—the sigh that tells, even in the midnight hours, of unrest, and the voice of lamentation, that speaks but in solitude. These echoes accumulate, and the house that has stood for years retains within its walls complaints long since lost in air: but the wind, that heard, recalls them; and there is a strange likeness to humanity in its murmurs, as it howls mournfully along the vaulted ceiling, or shrieks through the winding passages.
Its dreary influence was on Norbourne, though he knew it not, and added to the disconsolate effect of the chamber. He knew that it was his mother's sitting-room, and yet there was not a single object that indicated feminine taste or presence. Chair and table alike were of deal; and, from the damp appearance of the grate, where the fire scarcely struggled into warmth, he surmised, and truly, that a fire was rarely lighted there. The only picture was the martyrdom of St. Sebastian; and Norbourne shuddered at the terrible truth, which gave so vivid a representation of torture. The crucifix, on which the Saviour was extended in his last agony, occupied a recess; and, beyond these, not an object caught his attention: all around depicted suffering and gloom.
But Norbourne had little time to dwell on the life of ascetic penance to which, it was obvious, his mother had condemned herself; for she came from the inner apartment. Stern must have been the mental discipline that had so banished all trace of emotion. Her clear olive cheek was pale, and the lip colourless; but so had they been for years. Perhaps the large black eyes had a brightness that had since left their thoughtful depths, but the scarcely checked tears glistened on the eyelids. Her tall figure was drawn up to its utmost; and the long black flowing garments and veil might have suited the abbess of some strict and proud order, who had renounced the world—its hopes, its feelings, and its vanities. But a nearer glance would have belied the first surmise. The lip was white, but it was tremulous; and human emotion was in the passionate paleness, and in the dark and glistening eyes. Mrs. Courtenaye took her seat; and, after a moment's silence, said—but the voice was hollow and constrained through all its effort at calmness,—
"I wished, my dear Norbourne, to express my entire approval of your marriage with your cousin"
"My marriage with my cousin," interrupted Norbourne, "will never take place. My uncle is so accustomed to arrange everybody's affairs for them, that he forgets that I am the first person to be consulted in an affair like this. I admire and like my uncle, but will not be dictated to. Once for all, my dear mother, I will not marry Constance Courtenaye."
"Think," exclaimed his mother, eagerly, "on the advantages of the alliance. You know very well that your estate, fine as it is, is burdened by heavy mortgages, which Constance's noble fortune would at once redeem."
"And, by the sacrifice of all my best feelings and dearest hopes, I might," cried Norbourne, "command a few luxuries to which I am perfectly indifferent."
"You are wrong," replied Mrs. Courtenaye: "luxury is but a trifle—not so power and position. With an unencumbered estate, you take the first place in the county; you obtain the finest field for the exertion of your talents; and England has no distinction to which you may not reasonably aspire."
"But I am not ambitious," returned Norbourne.
"It is what every man ought to be," interrupted his mother. "I should, from my inmost soul, despise any one who, with your advantages, could voluntarily sit down to a country life of indolent seclusion."
"I have no such idea," replied her son; "but my future does not depend on my marrying my cousin."
"It does, it does!" interrupted Mrs. Courtenaye, vehemently.
"You overvalue the advantages of the alliance," said Norbourne: "but, even were they tenfold, it would be of no avail to urge them upon me. My heart, my faith, are pledged to another."
"Do not tell me so!" almost shrieked his listener. "Norbourne, I charge you, by your mother's blessing, to marry your cousin—I command, I entreat you!"
Norbourne stood startled into silence by her sudden vehemence: it was but for a moment; and he continued, calmly, but kindly,—
"My mother's command would be sacred in any matter less intimately connected with my happiness and my honour."
"They cannot," said Mrs. Courtenaye, with such utter sadness of tone that Norbourne started at the sound, "be dearer to yourself than they are to me. Do not for some foolish fancy"
"Nay," interrupted Courtenaye, "I would not present to you a daughter unworthy of yourself. The fortune, the family, of Miss Churchill are equal to my own; and as to herself"
"Do not talk of her!" exclaimed his mother. "I implore you, think of the claims that your cousin has on your forbearance—your pity: she loves you."
Norbourne coloured, and then said, gravely,—"I do not wish to hear this, even from you. My cousin's feelings are too delicate for even our confidence."
"You are content, then, to repay the affection you have yourself inspired with the coldest ingratitude?" asked Mrs. Courtenaye.
"My dearest mother," cried the youth, "your desire for my advantageous settlement makes you unjust. You know well that nothing in my conduct has ever authorised Constance to fancy that I looked upon her but as a relative."
"And can you bear to think," replied Mrs. Courtenaye, "on the misery you have inflicted on that young and innocent heart? She loves you simply, earnestly, unconsciously; her whole life is bound up in yours: she will die, Courtenaye—die of a broken heart."
"You press me too hardly," exclaimed her son; "there is one as young—and oh, how fair!—who has intrusted her destiny to my keeping. I have sought in vain the opportunity of telling you—of imploring your consent: I do now. I cannot marry my cousin, for I love another."
"Oh, Norbourne! oh, my own beloved child!" exclaimed Mrs. Courtenaye, wringing her hands with a passionate gesture of entreaty,—"have you no love for me? This affection is of but a few months' growth: will you weigh it against that which has cherished you for years? My son, have pity upon your mother! I will never consent to your marrying any but your cousin—for my sake consent."
"My dearest mother," cried Norbourne, "is it possible that wordly advantages can so far blind your judgment? Do you know what it is to love—to feel how unutterably dear the presence of another can be—to know that all life could offer were valueless without her—to hope, to fear, to think, only for her beloved sake?"
"Hush, hush!" said his mother; "this is a boy's vain passion: will you weigh it against your mother's love? Norbourne, few mothers have ever loved a child as I have loved you. You have been my all—my world: night after night I have watched your sleep; your little head was never cradled near any heart but my own—ay, and more, for your sake I have sinned against myself. I know the falsehood of the faith in which you have been brought up, yet never have I sought to divert you from it: it led to power and honour in your native land. On my head, I said, let the sin rest. These walls could tell how the penance of midnight has expiated my fault. Choose, Norbourne, between your mistress and your mother—between my blessing and my curse."
Norbourne was less affected by this passionate appeal than might be supposed. He was the most struck by what appeared his mother's extreme unreasonableness. She had not brought forward one rational objection, nor one argument beyond his interest. It appeared to him that she had allowed her imagination to gain an undue sway from the solitude in which she had lived. The idea of a marriage between himself and his cousin had been dwelt upon till it reigned paramount, and she could not even comprehend that there was another side to the question.
Impressed with this belief, he rose; and said to his mother, in a kind, but determined tone, "I will not now prolong an interview which so agitates you. Think over the subject, my dearest mother; and, after I have spoken to my uncle, I will return."
"Speak to your uncle! Stop!" exclaimed Mrs. Courtenaye, grasping his arm with a convulsive force, of which her thin white fingers did not seem capable; while her fine features were convulsed by some strong, though still suppressed emotion: "rash boy, you rush upon your fate! You shall not—must not leave this room to meet your uncle, unless it be to tell him that you marry his daughter."
"Mother," said Norbourne, startled by her manner, "I will not, indeed, leave the room till you tell me the meaning of all this. My uncle has no right to influence my actions: I am independent of him."
"No, no, you are not independent of him; every thing you have," interrupted Mrs. Courtenaye, "hangs upon his will. Come hither to the window, boy," and she drew him after her with the unnatural strength of a moment's excitement: "look there!"
Norbourne mechanically gazed from the casement; and nature, so strong in her loveliness, for an instant caught his attention. The golden light that bathed the richly-coloured woods, and warmed the purple distance of the hills, was in strong contrast to the cold and gloomy chamber in which he stood: but such tranquil beauty has no influence on an hour of strong emotion; and he turned away, to question of his mother's face.
"Look from the window," said she, in a hoarse whisper; "do you see the turrets of our old house fling their shadows on the grass below? Do you see the fields and woods around? They now call you master. I tell you, that one word of your uncle's, and they are gone from you for ever. If you do not marry his daughter, he speaks that word."
Norbourne heard her words: he made no answer, for at first he doubted that he had heard aright. Then a terrible fear of his mother's sanity crossed his mind; but there was that in her face which allowed no question of her intellect.
"I know not," at last he exclaimed, "what strange mystery thus gives my birthright over to another; but this I know, though it be in his power to alienate from me every rood of that which is my rightful inheritance, I will not wed his daughter. Two things are yet left me—my honour and my name."
Mrs. Courtenaye's hand yet rested on that of her son; he felt the cold shudder which passed through her, and he saw the drops stand on her high white brow.
"Not even that!" said she; and he started at the faint hollowness of her voice. "Refuse to wed Constance, and you are with neither house, nor land, nor name!"
"What do you mean, madam?" exclaimed he, in a tone as strange and altered as her own; "am I not the son of the late Mr. Courtenaye—am I not your son?"
Both stood silent, each with a fixed and fascinated gaze on the other: she, with a face worn with a sorrow borne for many years—wan, emaciated, and on whose still fine features suffering wrought like physical pain; he, with all the hope and bloom of youth smitten by a sudden blow—pale as death, and yet with lip and brow curved as if they defied the very agony that wrung the blood from the heart.
"Am I," asked the youth, slowly, but with a voice so changed that it came unfamiliar to the ear even of his mother,—"am I the son of Mr. Courtenaye?"
"You are," replied his mother—and she leaned against the wall for support; while the blood, that had curdled at her heart for years, rushed over her face, throat, and hands, for a moment, and then left her even more deadly pale than before,-—"but I was not his wife."