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

to him her heart, dedicated to him her life, devoted to him all her innocent and passionate affections, worshipped him as an idol! Why, what was life that it could bring upon its swift wing such dark, such agonising vicissitudes as these? It was not life; it was frenzy!

Some one knocked gently at her door. She did not answer, she feigned sleep. Yet the door opened, she felt, though her eyes were shut and her back turned, that there was a light in the room. A tender step approached her bed. It could be but one person, that person whom she had herself deceived. She knew it was her father.

Mr. Temple seated himself by her bedside; he bent his head and pressed his lips upon her forehead. In her desolation some one still loved her. She could not resist the impulse; she held forth her hand without opening her eyes, her father held it clasped in his.

'Henrietta,' he at length said, in a tone of peculiar sweetness.

'Oh! do not speak, my father. Do not speak. You alone have cause to reproach me. Spare me; spare your child.'

'I came to console, not to reproach,' said Mr. Temple. 'But if it please you, I will not speak; let me, however, remain.'

'Father, we must speak. It relieves me even to confess my indiscretion, my fatal folly. Father, I feel, yet why, I know not, I feel that you know all!'

'I know much, my Henrietta, but I do not know all.'

'And if you knew all, you would not hate me?'

'Hate you, my Henrietta! These are strange words to use to a father; to a father, I would add, like me. No one can love you, Henrietta, as your father loves you; yet speak to me not merely as a father; speak to me as your earliest, your best, your fondest, your most faithful friend.'

She pressed his hand, but answer, that she could not.

'Henrietta, dearest, dearest Henrietta, answer me one question.'

'I tremble, sir.'

'Then we will speak to-morrow.'

'Oh! no, to-night. To-morrow may never come. There is no night for me; I cannot sleep. I should go mad if it were not for you. I will speak; I will answer any questions. My conscience is quite clear except to you; no one, no power on earth or heaven, can reproach me, except my father.'

'He never will. But, dearest, tell me; summon up your courage to meet my question. Are you engaged to this person?'

'I was.'

'Positively engaged?'

'Long ere this I had supposed we should have claimed your sanction. He left me only to speak to his father.'

'This may be the idle tattle of women?'

'No, no,' said Henrietta, in a voice of deep melancholy; 'my fears had foreseen this dark reality. This week has been a week of terror to me; and yet I hoped, and hoped, and hoped. Oh! what a fool have I been.'

'I know this person was your constant companion in my absence; that you have corresponded with him. Has he written very recently?'

'Within two days.'

'And his letters?'

'Have been of late most vague. Oh! my father, indeed, indeed I have not conducted myself so ill as you perhaps imagine. I shrunk from this secret engagement; I opposed by every argument in my power, this clandestine correspondence; but it was only for a week, a single week; and reasons, plausible and specious reasons, were plentiful. Alas! alas! all is explained now. All that was strange, mysterious, perplexed in his views and conduct, and which, when it crossed my mind, I dismissed with contempt,--all is now too clear.'

'Henrietta, he is unworthy of you.'

'Hush! hush! dear father. An hour ago I loved him. Spare him, if you only wish to spare me.'

'Cling to my heart, my child. A father's love has comfort. Is it not so?'

'I feel it is; I feel calmer since you came and we have spoken. I never can be happy again; my spirit is quite broken. And yet, I feel I have a heart now, which I thought I had not before you came. Dear, dear father,' she said, rising and putting her arms round Mr. Temple's neck and leaning on his bosom, and speaking in a sweet yet very mournful voice, 'henceforth your happiness shall be mine. I will not disgrace you; you shall not see me grieve; I will atone, I will endeavour to atone, for my great sins, for sins they were towards you.'

'My child, the time will come when we shall remember this bitterness only as a lesson. But I know the human heart too well to endeavour to stem your sorrow now; I only came to soothe it. My blessing is upon you, my child. Let us talk no more. Henrietta, I will send your maid to you. Try to sleep; try to compose yourself.'

'These people--to-morrow--what shall I do?'

'Leave all to me. Keep your chamber until they have gone. You need appear no more.'

'Oh! that no human being might again see me!'

'Hush! that is not a wise wish. Be calm; we shall yet be happy. To-morrow we will talk; and so good night, my child; good night, my own Henrietta.'

Mr. Temple left the room. He bade the maid go to her mistress, in as calm a tone as if indeed her complaint had been only a headache; and then he entered his own apartment. Over the mantel-piece was a portrait of his daughter, gay and smiling as the spring; the room was adorned with her drawings. He drew the chair near the fire, and gazed for some time abstracted upon the flame, and then hid his weeping countenance in his hands. He sobbed convulsively.


CHAPTER VIII.


_In Which Glastonbury Is Very Much Astonished_.


IT WAS a gusty autumnal night; Glastonbury sat alone in his tower; every now and then the wind, amid a chorus of groaning branches and hissing rain, dashed against his window; then its power seemed gradually lulled, and perfect stillness succeeded, until a low moan was heard again in the distance, which gradually swelled into storm. The countenance of the good old man was not so serene as usual. Occasionally his thoughts seemed to wander from the folio opened before him, and he fell into fits of reverie which impressed upon his visage an expression rather of anxiety than study.

The old man looked up to the portrait of the unhappy Lady Armine, and heaved a deep sigh. Were his thoughts of her or of her child? He closed his book, he replaced it upon its shelf, and, taking from a cabinet an ancient crucifix of carved ivory, he bent down before the image of his Redeemer.

Even while he was buried in his devotions, praying perchance for the soul of that sinning yet sainted lady whose memory was never absent from his thoughts, or the prosperity of that family to whom he had dedicated his faithful life, the noise of ascending footsteps was heard in the sudden stillness, and immediately a loud knocking at the door of his outer chamber.

Surprised at this unaccustomed interruption, Glastonbury rose, and enquired the object of his yet unseen visitor; but, on hearing a well-known voice, the door was instantly unbarred, and Ferdinand Armine, pale as a ghost and deluged to the skin, appeared before him. Glastonbury ushered his guest into his cell, replenished the fire, retrimmed the lamp, and placed Ferdinand in his own easy seat.

'You are wet; I fear thoroughly?'

'It matters not,' said Captain Armine, in a hollow voice.

'From Bath?' enquired Glastonbury.

But his companion did not reply. At length he said, in a voice of utter wretchedness, 'Glastonbury, you see before you the most miserable of human beings.'

The good father started.

'Yes!' continued Ferdinand; 'this is the end of all your care, all your affection, all your hopes, all your sacrifices. It is over; our house is fated; my life draws to an end.'

'Speak, my Ferdinand,' said Glastonbury, for his pupil seemed to have relapsed into moody silence, 'speak to your friend and father. Disburden your mind of the weight that presses on it. Life is never without hope, and, while this remains,' pointing to the crucifix, 'never without consolation.'

'I cannot speak; I know not what to say. My brain sinks under the effort. It is a wild, a complicated tale; it relates to feelings with which you cannot sympathise, thoughts that you cannot share. O Glastonbury! there is no hope; there is no solace.'

'Calm yourself, my Ferdinand; not merely as your friend, but as a priest of our holy church, I call upon you to speak to me. Even to me, the humblest of its ministers, is given a power that can sustain the falling and make whole the broken in spirit. Speak, and speak fearlessly; nor shrink from exposing the very inmost recesses of your breast; for I can sympathise with your passions, be they even as wild as I believe them.'

Ferdinand turned his eyes from the fire on which he was gazing, and shot a scrutinising glance at his kind confessor, but the countenance of Glastonbury was placid, though serious.

'You remember,' Ferdinand at length murmured, 'that we met, we met unexpectedly, some six weeks back.'

'I have not forgotten it,' replied Glastonbury.

'There was a lady,' Ferdinand continued in a hesitating tone.

'Whom I mistook for Miss Grandison,' observed Glastonbury, 'but who, it turned out, bore another name.'

'You know it?'

'I know all; for her father has been here.'

'Where are they?' exclaimed Ferdinand eagerly, starting from his seat and seizing the hand of Glastonbury. 'Only tell me where they are, only tell me where Henrietta is, and you will save me, Glastonbury. You will restore me to life, to hope, to heaven.'

'I cannot,' said Glastonbury, shaking his head. 'It is more than ten days ago that I saw this lady's father for a few brief and painful moments; for what purpose your conscience may inform you. From the unexpected interview between ourselves in the gallery, my consequent misconception, and the conversation which it occasioned, I was not so unprepared for this interview with him as I otherwise might have been. Believe me, Ferdinand, I was as tender to your conduct as was consistent with my duty to my God and to my neighbour.'

'You betrayed me, then,' said Ferdinand.

'Ferdinand!' said Glastonbury reproachfully, 'I trust that I am free from deceit of any kind. In the present instance I had not even to communicate anything. Your own conduct had excited suspicion; some visitors from Bath to this gentleman and his family had revealed everything; and, in deference to the claims of an innocent lady, I could not refuse to confirm what was no secret to the world in general, what was already known to them in particular, what was not even doubted, and alas! not dubitable.'

'Oh! my father, pardon me, pardon me; pardon the only disrespectful expression that ever escaped the lips of your Ferdinand towards you; most humbly do I ask your forgiveness. But if you knew all------God!

God! my heart is breaking! You have seen her, Glastonbury; you have seen her. Was there ever on earth a being like her? So beautiful, so highly-gifted, with a heart as fresh, as fragrant as the dawn of Eden; and that heart mine; and all lost, all gone and lost! Oh! why am I alive?' He threw himself back in his