Henrietta Temple, Benjamin Disraeli [free ereaders .TXT] 📗

/> On a sudden he advanced, with a step too light even to be heard, knelt at her side, and, not venturing to touch her hand, pressed his lips to her arm, and with streaming eyes, and in a tone of plaintive tenderness, murmured, 'What have I done?'

She turned, her eyes met his, a wild expression of fear, surprise, delight, played over hen countenance; then, bursting into tears, she threw her arms round his neck, and hid her face upon his breast.

He did not disturb this effusion of her suppressed emotions. His throbbing heart responded to her tumultuous soul. At length, when the strength of her passionate affections had somewhat decreased, when the convulsive sobs had subsided into gentle sighs, and ever and anon he felt the pressure of her sweet lips sealing her remorseful love and her charming repentance upon his bosom, he dared to say, 'Oh! my Henrietta, you did not doubt your Ferdinand?'

'Dearest Ferdinand, you are too good, too kind, too faultless, and I am very wicked.'

Taking her hand and covering it with kisses, he said in a distinct, but very low voice, 'Now tell me, why were you unhappy?'

'Papa,' sighed Henrietta, 'dearest papa, that the day should come when I should grieve to meet him!'

'And why should my darling grieve?' said Ferdinand.

'I know not; I ask myself, what have I done? what have I to fear? It is no crime to love; it may be a misfortune; God knows that I have almost felt to-night that such it was. But no, I never will believe it can be either wrong or unhappy to love you.'

'Bless you, for such sweet words,' replied Ferdinand. 'If my heart can make you happy, felicity shall be your lot.'

'It is my lot. I am happy, quite happy, and grateful for my happiness.'

'And your father-our father, let me call him [she pressed his hand when he said this]--he will be happy too?'

'So I would hope.'

'If the fulfilment of my duty can content him,' continued Ferdinand, 'Mr. Temple shall not repent his son-in-law.'

'Oh! do not call him Mr. Temple; call him father. I love to hear you call him father.'

'Then what alarms my child?'

'I hardly know,' said Henrietta in a hesitating tone. 'I think--I think it is the suddenness of all this. He has gone, he comes again; he went, he returns; and all has happened. So short a time, too, Ferdinand. It is a life to us; to him, I fear,' and she hid her face, 'it is only------a fortnight.'

'We have seen more of each other, and known more of each other, in this fortnight, than we might have in an acquaintance which had continued a life.'

'That's true, that's very true. We feel this, Ferdinand, because we know it. But papa will not feel like us: we cannot expect him to feel like us. He does not know my Ferdinand as I know him. Papa, too, though the dearest, kindest, fondest father that ever lived, though he has no thought but for my happiness and lives only for his daughter, papa naturally is not so young as we are. He is, too, what is called a man of the world. He has seen a great deal; he has formed his opinions of men and life. We cannot expect that he will change them in your, I mean in our favour. Men of the world are of the world, worldly. I do not think they are always right; I do not myself believe in their infallibility. There is no person more clever and more judicious than papa. No person is more considerate. But there are characters so rare, that men of the world do not admit them into their general calculations, and such is yours, Ferdinand.'

Here Ferdinand seemed plunged in thought, but he pressed her hand, though he said nothing.

'He will think we have known each other too short a time,' continued Miss Temple. 'He will be mortified, perhaps alarmed, when I inform him I am no longer his.'

'Then do not inform him,' said Ferdinand.

She started.

'Let me inform him,' continued Ferdinand, giving another turn to his meaning, and watching her countenance with an unfaltering eye.

'Dearest Ferdinand, always prepared to bear every burthen!' exclaimed Miss Temple. 'How generous and good you are! No, it would be better for me to speak first to my father. My soul, I will never have a secret from you, and you, I am sure, will never have one from your Henrietta. This is the truth; I do not repent the past, I glory in it; I am yours, and I am proud to be yours. Were the past to be again acted, I would not falter. But I cannot conceal from myself that, so far as my father is concerned, I have not conducted myself towards him with frankness, with respect, or with kindness. There is no fault in loving you. Even were he to regret, he could not blame such an occurrence: but he will regret, he will blame, he has a right both to regret and blame, my doing more than love you--my engagement--without his advice, his sanction, his knowledge, or even his suspicion!'

'You take too refined a view of our situation,' replied Ferdinand. 'Why should you not spare your father the pain of such a communication, if painful it would be? What has passed is between ourselves, and ought to be between ourselves. If I request his permission to offer you my hand, and he yields his consent, is not that ceremony enough?'

'I have never concealed anything from papa,' said Henrietta, 'but I will be guided by you.'

'Leave, then, all to me,' said Ferdinand; 'be guided but by the judgment of your own Ferdinand, my Henrietta, and believe me all will go right. I will break this intelligence to your father. So we will settle it?' he continued enquiringly.

'It shall be so.'

'Then arises the question,' said Ferdinand, 'when it would be most advisable for me to make the communication. Now your father, Henrietta, who is a man of the world, will of course expect that, when I do make it, I shall be prepared to speak definitely to him upon all matters of business. He will think, otherwise, that I am trifling with him. To go and request of a man like your father, a shrewd, experienced man of the world like Mr. Temple, permission to marry his daughter, without showing to him that I am prepared with the means of maintaining a family, is little short of madness. He would be offended with me, he would be prejudiced against me. I must, therefore, settle something first with Sir Ratcliffe.

Much, you know, unfortunately, I cannot offer your father; but still, sweet love, there must at least be an appearance of providence and management. We must not disgust your father with our union.'

'Oh! how can he be disgusted?'

'Dear one! This, then, is what I propose; that, as to-morrow we must comparatively be separated, I should take advantage of the next few days, and get to Bath, and bring affairs to some arrangement. Until my return I would advise you to say nothing to your father.'

'How can I live under the same roof with him, under such circumstances?' exclaimed Miss Temple; 'how can I meet his eye, how can I speak to him with the consciousness of a secret engagement, with the recollection that, all the time he is lavishing his affection upon me, my heart is yearning for another, and that, while he is laying plans of future companionship, I am meditating, perhaps, an eternal separation!'

'Sweet Henrietta, listen to me one moment. Suppose I had quitted you last night for Bath, merely for this purpose, as indeed we had once thought of, and that your father had arrived at Ducie before I had returned to make my communication: would you style your silence, under such circumstances, a secret engagement? No, no, dear love; this is an abuse of terms. It would be a delicate consideration for a parent's feelings.'

'O Ferdinand! would we were united, and had no cares!'

'You would not consider our projected union a secret engagement, if, after passing to-morrow with your father, you expected me on the next day to communicate to him our position. Is it any more a secret engagement because six or seven days are to elapse before this communication takes place, instead of one? My Henrietta is indeed fighting with shadows!'

'Ferdinand, I cannot reason like you; but I feel unhappy when I think of this.'

'Dearest Henrietta! feel only that you are loved. Think, darling, the day will come when we shall smile at all these cares. All will flow smoothly yet, and we shall all yet live at Armine, Mr. Temple and all.'

'Papa likes you so much too, Ferdinand, I should be miserable if you offended him.'

'Which I certainly should do if I were not to speak to Sir Ratcliffe first.'

'Do you, indeed, think so?'

'Indeed I am certain.'

'But cannot you write to Sir Ratcliffe, Ferdinand? Must you really go? Must we, indeed, be separated? I cannot believe it; it is inconceivable; it is impossible; I cannot endure it.'

'It is, indeed, terrible,' said Ferdinand. 'This consideration alone reconciles me to the necessity: I know my father well; his only answer to a communication of this kind would be an immediate summons to his side. Now, is it not better that this meeting should take place when we must necessarily be much less together than before, than at a later period, when we may, perhaps, be constant companions with the sanction of our parents?'

'O Ferdinand! you reason, I only feel.'

Such an observation from one's mistress is rather a reproach than a compliment. It was made, in the present instance, to a man whose principal characteristic was, perhaps, a too dangerous susceptibility; a man of profound and violent passions, yet of a most sweet and tender temper; capable of deep reflection, yet ever acting from the impulse of sentiment, and ready at all times to sacrifice every consideration to his heart. The prospect of separation from Henrietta, for however short a period, was absolute agony to him; he found difficulty in conceiving existence without the influence of her perpetual presence: their parting even for the night was felt by him as an onerous deprivation. The only process, indeed, that could at present prepare and console him for the impending sorrow would have been the frank indulgence of the feelings which it called forth. Yet behold him, behold this unhappy victim of circumstances, forced to deceive, even for her happiness, the being whom he idolised; compelled, at this hour of anguish, to bridle his heart, lest he should lose for a fatal instant his command over his head; and, while he was himself conscious that not in the wide world, perhaps, existed a man who was sacrificing more for his mistress, obliged to endure, even from her lips, a remark which seemed to impute to him a deficiency of feeling. And yet it was too much; he covered his eyes with his hand, and said, in a low and broken voice, 'Alas! my Henrietta, if you knew all, you would not say this!'

'My Ferdinand,' she exclaimed, touched by that tender and melancholy tone, 'why, what is this? you weep! What have I said, what done? Dearest Ferdinand, do not do this.' And she threw herself on her knees before him, and looked up into his face with scrutinising affection.

He bent down