Chapter 90
All was blank desolation--a wild agony, untempered by resignation, uncheered by prayer; for though she did pray, it was without trust, without hope, while her wretchedness was rendered more overwhelming by her efforts to conceal it. These were so far ineffectual that no one could help perceiving that she was extremely unhappy, but then all the family knew she was very fond of Philip, and neither her mother nor brother could be surprised at her distress, though it certainly appeared to them excessive. Mrs. Edmonstone was very sorry for her, and very affectionate and considerate; but Laura was too much absorbed, in her own feelings to perceive or to be grateful for her kindness; and as each day brought a no better report, her despair became so engrossing that she could not attempt any employment. She wandered in the garden, sat in dreamy fits of silence in the house, and at last, after receiving one of the worst accounts, sat up in her dressing-gown the whole of one night, in one dull, heavy, motionless trance of misery.
She recollected that she must act her part, dressed in the morning and came down; but her looks were ghastly; she tasted no food, and as soon as possible left the breakfast-room. Her mother was going in quest of her when old nurse came with an anxious face to say,--'Ma'am, I am afraid Miss Edmonstone must be very ill, or something. Do you know, ma'am, her bed has not been slept in all night?'
'You don't say so, nurse!'
'Yes, ma'am, Jane told me so, and I went to look myself. Poor child, she is half distracted about Master Philip, and no wonder, for they were always together; but I thought you ought to know, ma'am, for she will make herself ill, to a certainty.'
'I am going to see about her this moment, nurse,' said Mrs. Edmonstone; and presently she found Laura wandering up and down the shady walk, in the restlessness of her despair.
'Laura, dearest,' said she, putting her arm round her, 'I cannot bear to see you so unhappy.'
Laura did not answer; for though solitude was oppressive, every one's presence was a burthen.
'I cannot think it right to give way thus,' continued her mother. 'Did you really sit up all night, my poor child?'
'I don't know. They did so with him!'
'My dear, this will never do. You are making yourself seriously unwell.'
'I wish--I wish I was ill; I wish I was dying!' broke from Laura, almost unconsciously, in a hoa.r.s.e, inward voice.
'My dear! You don't know what you are saying. You forget that this self-abandonment, and extravagant grief would be wrong in any one; and, if nothing else, the display is unbecoming in you.'
Laura's over-wrought feelings could bear no more, and in a tone which, though too vehement to be addressed to a parent, had in it an agony which almost excused it, by showing how unable she was to restrain herself, she broke forth:----'Unbecoming! Who has a right to grieve for him but me?--his own, his chosen,--the only one who can love him, or understand him. Her voice died away in a sob, though without tears.
Her mother heard the words, but did not take in their full meaning; and, believing that Laura's undeveloped affection had led her to this uncontrolled grief, she spoke again, with coldness, intended to rouse her to a sense that she was compromising her womanly dignity.
'Take care, Laura; a woman has no right to speak in such a manner of a man who has given her
'Preference! It is his love!--his love! His whole heart! The one thing that was precious to me in this world! Preference! You little guess what we have felt for each other!'
'Laura!' Mrs. Edmonstone stood still, overpowered. 'What do you mean?'
She could not put the question more plainly.
'What have I done?' cried Laura. 'I have betrayed him!' she answered herself in a tone of despair, as she hid her face in her hands; 'betrayed him when he is dying!'
Her mother was too much shocked to speak in the soft reluctant manner in which she was wont to reprove.
'Laura,' said she, 'I must understand this. What has pa.s.sed between you and Philip?'
Laura only replied by a flood of tears, ungovernable from the exhaustion of sleeplessness and want of food. Mrs. Edmonstone's kindness returned; she soothed her, begged her to control herself, and at length brought her into the house, and up to the dressing-room, where she sank on the sofa, weeping violently. It was the reaction of the long restraint she had been exercising on herself, and the silence she had been maintaining. She was not feeling the humiliation, her own acknowledgement of disobedience, but of the horror of being forced to reveal the secret he had left in her charge.
Long did she weep, breaking out more piteously at each attempt of her mother to lead her to explain. Poor Mrs. Edmonstone was alarmed and perplexed beyond measure; this half confession had so overthrown all her ideas that she was ready to apprehend everything most improbable, and almost expected to hear of a private marriage. Her presence seemed only to make Laura worse, and at length she said,--'I shall leave you for half an hour, in hopes that by that time you may have recovered yourself, and be able to give the explanation which I _require_.'
She went into her own room, and waited, with her eyes on her watch, a prey to every strange alarm and antic.i.p.ation, grievously hurt at this want of confidence, and wounded, where she least expected it, by both daughter and nephew. She thought, guessed, recollected, wondered, tormented herself, and at the last of the thirty minutes, hastily opened the door into the dressing-room. Laura sat as before, crouched up in the corner of the wide sofa; and when she raised her face, at her mother's entrance, it was bewildered rather than embarra.s.sed.
'Well, Laura?' She waited unanswered; and the wretchedness of the look so touched her, that, kissing her, she said, 'Surely, my dear, you need not be afraid to tell me anything?'
Laura did not respond to the kindness, but asked, looking perplexed, 'What have I said? Have I told it?'
'What you have given me reason to believe,' said Mrs. Edmonstone, trying to bring herself to speak it explicitly, 'that you think Philip is attached to you. You do not deny it. Let me know on what terms you stand.'
Without looking up, she murmured, 'If you would not force it from me at such a time.'
'Laura, it is for your own good. You are wretched now, my poor child; why not relieve yourself by telling all? If you have not acted openly, can you have any comfort till you have confessed? It may be a painful effort, but relief will come afterwards.'
'I have nothing to confess,' said Laura. 'There is no such thing as you think.'
'No engagement?'
'No.'
'Then what am I to understand by your exclamations?'
'It is no engagement,' repeated Laura. 'He would never have asked that without papa's consent. We are only bound by our own hearts.'
'And you have a secret understanding with him?'
'We have never written to each other; we have never dreamed of any intercourse that could be called clandestine. He would scorn it. He waited only for his promotion to declare it to papa.'
'And how long has it been declared to you?'
'Ever since the first summer Guy was here.'
'Three years!' exclaimed her mother. 'You have kept this from me three years! O Laura!'
'It was of no use to speak!' said Laura, faintly.
If she had looked up, she would have seen those words, 'no use,' cut her mother more deeply than all; but there was only coldness in the tone of the answer, 'No use to inform your parents, before you pledged your affections!'
'Indeed, mamma,' said Laura, 'I was sure that you knew his worth.'
'Worth! when he was teaching you to live in a course of insincerity?
Your father will be deeply hurt.'
'Papa! Oh, you must not tell him! Now, I have betrayed him, indeed! Oh, my weakness!' and another paroxysm of tears came on.
'Laura, you seem to think you owe nothing to any one but Philip. You forget you are a daughter! that you have been keeping up a system of disobedience and concealment, of which I could not have believed a child of mine could be capable. O Laura, how you have abused our confidence!'
Laura was touched by the sorrow of her tone; and, throwing her arms round her neck, sobbed out, 'You will forgive me, only forgive him!'
Mrs. Edmonstone was softened in a moment. 'Forgive you, my poor child!
You have been very unhappy!' and she kissed her, with many tears.
'Must you tell papa?' whispered Laura.
'Judge for yourself, Laura. Could I know such a thing, and hide it from him?'
Laura ceased, seeing her determined, and yielded to her pity, allowing herself to be nursed as she required, so exhausted was she. She was laid on the sofa, and made comfortable with pillows, in her mother's gentlest way. When Mrs. Edmonstone was called away, Laura held her dress, saying, 'You are kind to me, but you must forgive him. Say you have forgiven him, mamma, dearest!'