East Lynne

It was just the wrong way for her to go to work, though.

As the days passed on, Lady Isabel improved wonderfully. She was soon able to go to the sands in the morning and sit there to enjoy the sea air, watching the waves come up to recede with the tide. She made no acquaintance whatever in the place, and when she had a companion it was Captain Levison. He would frequently join her there, sometimes take her, almost always give her his arm home. Of all things, she disliked the having to take his arm, would a thousand times over rather have taken good old Peter’s. A secret prick of the conscience whispered it might be better if she did not. One day she said, in a joking sort of manner—she would not say it in any other—that now she was strong, she had no need of his arm and his escort. He demanded, in evident astonishment, what had arisen that he might not still afford it, seeing her husband was not with her to give her his. She had no answer in reply to this, no excuse to urge, and, in default of one, took his arm, as usual. In the evening he would be ready to take her to the pier, but they sat apart, mixing not with the bustling crowd—he lending to his manner, as he conversed with her, all that he would call up of fascination—and fascination, such as Francis Levison’s, might be dangerous to any ear, in the sweet evening twilight. The walk over, he left her at her own door; she never asked him in in the evening, and he did not intrude without, as he sometimes would of a morning.

Now, where was the help for this? You may say that she should have remained indoors, and not have subjected herself to his companionship. But the remaining indoors would not have brought her health, and it was health that she was staying in Boulogne to acquire, and the sooner it came the better pleased she would be, for she wanted to be at home with her husband and children.

In a fortnight from the period of his departure, Mr. Carlyle was expected in Boulogne. But what a marvellous change had this fortnight wrought in Lady Isabel! She did not dare to analyze her feelings, but she was conscious that all the fresh emotions of her youth had come again. The blue sky seemed as of the sweetest sapphire, the green fields and waving trees were of an emerald brightness, the perfume of the flowers was more fragrant than any perfume had yet seemed. She knew that the sky, that the grassy plains, the leafy trees, the brilliant flowers, were but as they ever had been; she knew that the sunny atmosphere possessed no more of loveliness or power of imparting delight than of old; and she knew that the change, the sensation of ecstacy, was in her own heart. No wonder that she shrank from self-examination.

The change from listless languor to her present feeling brought the hue and contour of health to her face far sooner than anything else could have done. She went down with Captain Levison to meet Mr. Carlyle, the evening he came in, and when Mr. Carlyle saw her behind the cords, as he was going to the custom-house, he scarcely knew her. Her features had lost their sharpness, her cheeks wore a rosy flush, and the light of pleasure at meeting him again shone in her eyes.

“What can you have been doing to yourself, my darling?” he uttered in delight as he emerged from the custom-house and took her hands in his. “You look almost well.”

“Yes, I am much better, Archibald, but I am warm now and flushed. We have waited here some time, and the setting sun was full upon us. How long the boat was in coming in!”

“The wind was against us,” replied Mr. Carlyle, wondering who the exquisite was at his wife’s side. He thought he remembered his face.

“Captain Levison,” said Lady Isabel. “I wrote you word in one of my letters that he was here. Have you forgotten it?” Yes, it had slipped from his memory.

“And I am happy that it happened so,” said that gentleman, interposing, “for it has enabled me to attend Lady Isabel in some of her walks. She is stronger now, but at first she was unfit to venture alone.”

“I feel much indebted to you,” said Mr. Carlyle, warmly.

The following day was Sunday, and Francis Levison was asked to dine with them—the first meal he had been invited to in the house. After dinner, when Lady Isabel left them, he grew confidential over his claret to Mr. Carlyle, laying open all his intricate affairs and his cargo of troubles.

“This compulsory exile abroad is becoming intolerable,” he concluded; “and a Paris life plays the very deuce with one. Do you see any chance of my getting back to England?”

“Not the least,” was the candid answer, “unless you can manage to satisfy or partially satisfy those claims you have been telling me of. Will not Sir Peter assist you?”

“I believe he would, were the case fairly represented to him; but how am I to get over to do it? I have written several letters to him lately, and for some time I got no reply. Then came an epistle from Lady Levison; not short and sweet, but short and sour. It was to the effect that Sir Peter was ill, and could not at present be troubled with business matters.”

“He cannot be very ill,” remarked Mr. Carlyle; “he passed through West Lynne, in his open carriage, a week ago.”

“He ought to help me,” grumbled Captain Levison. “I am his heir, so long as Lady Levison does not give him one. I do not hear that she has expectations.”

“You should contrive to see him.”

“I know I should; but it is not possible under present circumstances. With these thunder-clouds hanging over me, I dare not set foot in England, and run the risk to be dropped upon. I can stand a few things, but I shudder at the bare idea of a prison. Something peculiar in my idiosyncrasy, I take it, for those who have tried it, say that it’s nothing when you’re used to it.”

“Some one might see him for you.”

“Some one—who? I have quarreled with my lawyers, Sharp & Steel, of Lincoln’s Inn.”

“Keen practitioners,” put in Mr. Carlyle.

“Too keen for me. I’d send them over the herring-pond if I could. They have used me shamefully since my uncle’s marriage. If ever I do come into the Levison estates they’ll be ready to eat their ears off; they would like a finger in a pie with such property as that.”

“Shall I see Sir Peter Levison for you?”

“Will you?” returned Captain Levison, his dark eyes lighting up.

“If you like as your friend, you understand; not as your solicitor; that I decline. I have a slight knowledge of Sir Peter; my father was well acquainted with him; and if I can render you any little service, I shall be happy, in return for your kind attention to my wife. I cannot promise to see him for those two or three weeks, though,” resumed Mr. Carlyle, “for we are terribly busy. I never was so driven; but for being so I should stay here with my wife.”

Francis Levison expressed his gratitude, and the prospect, however remote, of being enabled to return to England increased his spirits to exultation. Whilst they continued to converse, Lady Isabel sat at the window in the adjoining room, listlessly looking out on the crowds of French who were crowding to and from the port in their Sunday holiday attire. Looking at them with her eyes, not with her senses—her senses were holding commune with herself, and it was not altogether satisfactory—she was aware that a sensation all too warm, a feeling of attraction toward Francis Levison, was working within her. Not a voluntary one; she could no more repress it than she could repress her own sense of being; and, mixed with it, was the stern voice of conscience, overwhelming her with the most lively terror. She would have given all she possessed to be able to overcome it. She would have given half the years of her future life to separate herself at once and forever from the man.

But do not mistake the word terror, or suppose that Lady Isabel Carlyle applied it here in the vulgar acceptation of the term. She did not fear for herself; none could be more conscious of self-rectitude of principle and conduct; and she would have believed it as impossible for her ever to forsake her duty as a wife, a gentlewoman, and a Christian, as for the sun to turn round from west to east. That was not the fear which possessed her; it had never presented itself to her mind; what she did fear was, that further companionship with Francis Levison might augment the sentiments she entertained for him to a height that her life, for perhaps years to come, would be one of unhappiness, a sort of concealment; and, more than all, she shrank from the consciousness of the bitter wrong that these sentiments cast upon her husband.

“Archibald, I have a favor to ask you,” she said, after Captain Levison’s departure. “Take me back with you.”

“Impossible, my love. The change is doing you so much good; and I took the apartments for six weeks. You must at least remain that time.”

The color flowed painfully into her cheek. “I cannot stay without you, Archibald.”

“Tell me why.”

“I am so dull without you,” was all she could say. He felt that this was not reason enough for altering an arrangement that was so beneficial to her; so he left her the following morning, commending her to the continued care of Captain Levison.

CHAPTER XXI

QUITTING THE DANGER

Lady Isabel was seated on one of the benches of the Petit Camp, as it is called, underneath the ramparts of the upper tower. A week or ten days had passed away since the departure of Mr. Carlyle, and in her health there was a further visible improvement.

It was still evening, cool for July; no sound was heard save the hum of the summer insects, and Lady Isabel sat in silence with her companion, her rebellious heart beating with a sense of its own happiness. But for the voice of conscience, strong within her; but for the sense of right and wrong; but for the existing things; in short, but that she was a wife, she might have been content to sit by his side forever, never to wish to move or to break the silence. Did he read her feelings? He told her, months afterward, that he did; but it may have been a vain boast, an excuse.

“Do you remember the evening, Lady Isabel, just such a one as this, that we all passed at Richmond?” he suddenly asked. “Your father, Mrs. Vane, you, I and others?”

“Yes, I remember it. We had spent a pleasant day; the two Miss Challoners were with us. You drove Mrs. Vane home, and I went with papa. You drove recklessly, I recollect, and Mrs. Vane said when we got home that you should never drive her again.”

“Which meant, not until the next time. Of all capricious, vain, exacting women, Emma Vane was the worst; and Emma Mount Severn is no improvement upon it; she’s a systematic flirt, and nothing better. I drove recklessly on purpose to put her in a fright, and pay her off.”

“What had she done?”

“Put me in a rage. She had saddled herself upon me, when I wanted—I wished for another to be my companion.”

“Blanche Challoner.”

“Blanche Challoner!” echoed Captain Levison, in a mocking tone; “what did I care for Blanche Challoner?”

Isabel remembered that he had been supposed in those days to care a great deal for Miss Blanche Challoner—a most lovely girl of seventeen. “Mrs. Vane used to accuse you of caring too much for her,” she said, aloud.

“She accused me of caring for some one else more than for Blanche Challoner,” he significantly returned; “and for once her jealous surmises were not misplaced. No Lady Isabel, it was not Blanche Challoner I had wished to drive home. Could you not have given a better guess than that at the time?” he added, turning to her.

There was no mistaking the tone of his voice or the glance of his eye. Lady Isabel felt a crimson flush rising and she turned her face away.

“The past is gone, and cannot be recalled,” he continued, “but we both played our cards like simpletons. If ever two beings were formed to love each other, you and I were. I sometimes thought you read my feelings—”

Surprise had kept her silent, but she interrupted him now, haughtily enough.

“I must speak, Lady Isabel; it is but a few words, and then I am silent forever. I would have declared myself had I dared, but my uncertain position, my debts, my inability to keep a wife, weighed me down; and, instead of appealing to Sir Peter, as I ought to have done, for the means to assume a position that would justify me in asking Lord Mount Severn’s daughter, I crushed my hopes within me, and suffered you to escape—”

“I will not hear this, Captain Levison,” she cried, rising from her seat in anger.

He touched her arm to place her on it again.

“One single moment yet, I pray you. I have for years wished that you should know why I lost you—a loss that tells upon me yet. I have bitterly worked out my own folly since I knew not how passionately I loved you until you became the wife of another. Isabel, I love you passionately still.”

“How dare you presume so to address me?”

She spoke in a cold, dignified tone of hauteur, as it was her bounden duty to speak; but, nevertheless, she was conscious of an undercurrent of feeling, whispering that, under other auspices, the avowal would have brought to her heart the most intense bliss.

“What I have said can do no hurt now,” resumed Captain Levison; “the time has gone by for it; for neither you nor I are likely to forget that you are a wife. We have each chosen our path in life, and must abide by it; the gulf between us is impassable but the fault was mine. I ought to have avowed my affection, and not have suffered you to throw yourself away upon Mr. Carlyle.”

“Throw myself away!” she indignantly uttered, roused to the retort. “Mr. Carlyle is my dear husband, esteemed, respected, and beloved. I married him of my own free choice, and I have never repented it; I have grown more attached to him day by day. Look at his noble nature, his noble form; what are you by his side? You forget yourself, Francis Levison.”

He bit his lip. “No, I do not.”

“You are talking to me as you have no right to talk!” she exclaimed, in agitation. “Who but you, would so insult me, taking advantage of my momentarily unprotected condition. Would you dare to do it, were Mr. Carlyle within reach! I wish you good-evening, sir.”

She walked away as quickly as her tired frame would permit. Captain Levison strode after her. He took forcible possession of her hand, and placed it within his arm.

“I pray you forgive and forget what has escaped me, Lady Isabel. Suffer me to be, as before, the kind friend, the anxious brother endeavoring to be of service to you in the absence of Mr. Carlyle.”

“It is what I have suffered you to be, looking upon you as, I may say, a relative,” she coldly rejoined, withdrawing her hand from his contact. “Not else should I have permitted your incessant companionship; and this is how you have repaid it! My husband thanked you for your attention to me; could he have read what was in your false heart, he had offered you different sort of thanks, I fancy.”

“I ask your pardon, Lady Isabel; I have acknowledged my fault, and I can do no more. I will not so offend again; but there are moments when our dearest feelings break through the convenances of life and betray themselves, in spite of our sober judgment. Suffer me to support you down this steep hill,” he added, for they were then going over the sharp stones of the Grand Rue; “you are not strong enough to proceed alone, after this evening’s long walk.”

“You should have thought of that before,” she said, with some sarcasm in her tone. “No; I have declined.”

So she had to put his arm back, which he was holding out, as she walked on unsupported, with what strength she had, he continuing by her side. Arriving at her own door, she wished him a cool good-evening, and he turned away in the direction of his hotel.

Lady Isabel brushed past Peter, and flew upstairs, startling Wilson, who had taken possession of the drawing-room to air her smart cap at its windows in the absence of her lady.

“My desk, Wilson, immediately,” cried she, tearing off her gloves, her bonnet, and her shawl. “Tell Peter to be in readiness to take a letter to the post; and he must walk fast, or he will not catch it before the English mail is closed.”

The symptoms of sinful happiness throbbing at her heart while Francis Levison told her of his love, spoke plainly to Lady Isabel of the expediency of withdrawing entirely from his society, and his dangerous sophistries; she would be away from the very place that contained him; put the sea between them. So she dashed off a letter to her husband; an urgent summons that he should come to her without delay for remain away longer she would not. It is probable she would have started alone, not waiting for Mr. Carlyle, but for fear of not having sufficient funds for the journey, after the rent and other things were paid.

Mr. Carlyle, when he received the letter and marked its earnest tone, wondered much. In reply, he stated that he would be with her on the following Saturday, and then her returning, or not, with him could be settled. Fully determined not to meet Captain Levison, Isabel, in the intervening days, only went out in a carriage. He called once, and was shown into the drawing-room; but Lady Isabel, who happened to be in her own chamber, sent out a message, which was delivered by Peter. “My lady’s compliments, but she must decline receiving visitors.”

Sunday morning—it had been impossible for him to get away before—brought Mr. Carlyle. He strongly combatted her wish to return home until six weeks should have expired, he nearly said he would not take her, and she grew earnest over it, almost to agitation.

“Isabel,” he said, “let me know your motive, for it appears to me you have one. The sojourn here is evidently doing you a vast deal of good, and what you urge about ‘being dull,’ sounds very like nonsense. Tell me what it is.”

A sudden impulse flashed over her that she would tell him the truth. Not tell him that she loved Francis Levison, or that he had spoken to her as he did; she valued her husband too greatly to draw him into any unpleasantness whose end could not be seen; but own to him that she had once felt a passing fancy for Francis Levison, and preferred not to be subjected to his companionship now. Oh, that she had done so! Her kind, her noble, her judicious husband! Why did she not? The whole truth, as to her present feelings, it was not expedient that she should tell, but she might have confided to him quite sufficient. He would only have cherished her the more deeply, and sheltered her under his fostering care, safe from harm.

Why did she not? In the impulse of the moment she was about to do so, when Mr. Carlyle, who had been taking a letter from his pocket book put it into her hand. Upon what slight threads the events of life turn! Her thoughts diverted, she remained silent while she opened the letter. It was from Miss Carlyle, who had handed it to her brother in the moment of his departure, to carry to Lady Isabel and save postage. Mr. Carlyle had nearly dropped it into the Folkestone post office.

A letter as stiff as Miss Corny herself. The children were well, and the house was going on well, and she hoped Lady Isabel was better. It filled three sides of note paper, but that was all the news it contained, and it wound up with the following sentence, “I would continue my epistle, but Barbara Hare, who is to spend the day with us, has just arrived.”

Barbara Hare spending the day at East Lynne! That item was quite enough for Lady Isabel, and her heart and her confidence closed to her husband. She must go home to her children, she urged; she could not remain longer away from them; and she urged it at length with tears.

“Nay, Isabel,” said Mr. Carlyle; “if you are so much in earnest as this, you shall certainly go back with me.”

Then she was like a child let loose from school. She laughed, she danced in her excess of content; she showered kisses on her husband, thanking him in her gleeful gratitude. Mr. Carlyle set it down to her love for him; he arrived at the conclusion that, in reiterating that she could not bear to be away from him, she spoke the fond truth.

“Isabel,” he said, smiling tenderly upon her, “do you remember, in the first days of our marriage, you told me you did not yet love me, but that the love would come. I think this is it.”

Her face flushed nearly to tears at the words; a bright, glowing, all too conscious flush. Mr. Carlyle mistook its source, and caught her to his heart.

Lady Isabel had returned home to bodily health, to the delight of meeting her children, to the glad sensation of security. But as the days went on, a miserable feeling of apathy stole over her: a feeling as if all whom she had loved in the world had died, leaving her living and alone.

She did not encourage these reflections; knowing what you do know of her, you may be sure of that, but they thrust themselves continually forward. The form of Francis Levison was ever present to her; not a minute of the day but it gave the coloring to her thoughts, and at night it made the subject of her dreams. Oh, those dreams! They were painful to wake from; painful from the contrasts they presented to reality; and equally painful to her conscience, in its strife after what was right.

Mr. Carlyle mounted his horse one morning and rode over to Levison Park. He asked for Sir Peter, but was shown into the presence of Lady Levison—a young and pretty woman dressed showily. She inquired his business.

“My business, madam, is with Sir Peter.”

“But Sir Peter is not well enough to attend to business; it upsets him—worries him.”

“Nevertheless, I am here by his own appointment. Twelve o’clock he mentioned; and the hour has barely struck.”

Lady Levison bit her lip and bowed coldly; and at that moment a servant appeared to conduct Mr. Carlyle to Sir Peter. The matter which had taken Mr. Carlyle thither was entered upon immediately—Francis Levison, his debts, and his gracelessness. Sir Peter, an old gentleman in a velvet skullcap, particularly enlarged upon the latter.

“I’d pay his debts to-day and set him upon his legs again, but that I know I should have to do the same thing over and over again to the end of the chapter, as I have done it repeatedly hitherto,” cried Sir Peter. “His grandfather was my only brother, his father my dutiful and beloved nephew; but he is just as bad as they were estimable. He is a worthless fellow and nothing else, Mr. Carlyle.”

“His tale drew forth my compassion, and I promised I would see you and speak for him,” returned Mr. Carlyle. “Of Captain Levison’s personal virtues or vices, I know nothing.”

“And the less you know the better,” growled Sir Peter. “I suppose he wants me to clear him and start him afresh.”

“Something of that sort, I conclude.”

“But how is it to be done? I am at home, and he is over there. His affairs are in a state of confusion, and nobody can come to the bottom of them without an explanation from him. Some liabilities, for which I have furnished the money, the creditors swear have not been liquidated. He must come over if he wants anything done.”

“Where is he to come to? He must be in England sub rosa.”

“He can’t be here,” hastily rejoined Sir Peter. “Lady Levison would not have him for a day.”

“He might be at East Lynne,” good-naturedly observed Mr. Carlyle. “Nobody would think of looking for him there. I think it is a pity that you should not meet, if you do feel inclined to help him.”

“You are a deal more considerate to him than he deserves, Mr. Carlyle. May I ask if you intend to act for him in a professional capacity?”

“I do not.”

A few more words, and it was decided that Captain Levison should be immediately sent for. As Mr. Carlyle left Sir Peter’s presence, he encountered Lady Levison.

“I can scarcely be ignorant that your conference with my husband has reference to his grandnephew,” she observed.

“It has,” replied Mr. Carlyle.

“I have had a very bad opinion of him, Mr. Carlyle; at the same time I do not wish you to carry away a wrong impression of me. Francis Levison is my husband’s nephew, his presumptive heir; it may, therefore, appear strange that I set my face against him. Two or three years ago, previous to my marriage with Sir Peter, in fact before I knew Sir Peter, I was brought into contact with Francis Levison. He got acquainted with some friends of mine, and at their house I met him. He behaved shamefully ill; he repaid their hospitality with gross ingratitude; other details and facts regarding his conduct also became known to me. Altogether I believe him to be a base and despicable man, both by nature and inclination, and that he will remain such to the end of time.”