Miss Lambert was better, Lady Belwether was happy to say; she had had some refreshing sleep, and would no doubt get on nicely now. Mrs. Bloxam went to the invalid's room, and found Grace awake and looking very much better. Her face bore traces of mental strife and suffering, but they had passed over, and she was now quite composed. Mrs. Bloxam was a judicious woman in everything, and she took care not to agitate Gertrude.
"Lord Sandilands is very ill," she said, "but not dangerously so; and he is comfortable enough there, and not badly looked after. But he has sent for his own housekeeper, which is a good move. It is nothing but gout; but he is not strong, and he will probably be laid up for some time."
Gertrude asked some general questions, and Mrs. Bloxam answered them; and then, settling herself in a comfortable attitude, and keeping Gertrude's face well in view, she told her that in requesting her to visit him Lord Sandilands had a particular object in view. The colour deepened a little on Gertrude's cheek as she inquired its nature.
"I mean to tell you all about it, my dear," said.
Mrs. Bloxam; "but if I am to do so, I must break through the reserve which I have always maintained--as I think it was best for both of us I should--and refer not only to your marriage"--Gertrude started--"but to later circumstances, which render your position difficult. I suppose I have your permission to speak plainly?"
"Certainly," replied Gertrude. "I am sure you would not, unnecessarily or without due consideration, say anything to wound my feelings; and I am prepared to listen to anything you think it right to say."
This was not a cordial speech, but Mrs. Bloxam did not mind that. She wanted permission to speak, and she had gotten it; the manner of it was of no consequence. Things had changed since Gertrude had written the letter which procured her readmittance to the Vale House, but the natures of the two women had not undergone much alteration, and they felt only as much more warmly towards each other as prosperity and success predispose towards general kindliness and complacency.
"You are right," said Mrs. Bloxam; "I would not. You have not told me any particulars concerning your quarrel with your husband, and I don't wish to know--I really do not. I am not more free from curiosity, no doubt, than other people; but I would rather not gratify it in this instance. There is only one thing that I must know, if you will tell it to me." She paused, and Gertrude said, looking steadily at her,
"What is it? I may use my discretion about answering your question at all when I hear it; but if I decide on answering it, be quite sure that I will tell you the exact truth."
"No, you won't, my dear," said Mrs. Bloxam; "I don't require it. I want only the vague truth; tell me that. Is the secret of your quarrel with your husband one which puts him in your power--which secures your liberty, your right of action, to you under all circumstances--which makes the carrying out of this daring scheme of yours, this self-divorce, a matter distinctly of your choice, in which he cannot thwart or foil you?"
Gertrude's gaze at the speaker did not relax, her eyelids did not droop, but she took a little time before she answered.
"I will tell you what you ask. The secret of my quarrel with Gilbert Lloyd is one which puts him in my power. He mustdo as I choose in every matter in which I am concerned. I am perfectly free; he is hopelessly bound. But the agreement between us is mutual I have no right over him, as he has none over me. I shall never recognise his existence in any way."
"That you have the power of carrying out that resolution is the only thing I need to know," said Mrs. Bloxam. "It makes me clear about the advice I am going to give you. Having this perfect guarantee for his not venturing to interfere with you, you consider yourself of course entitled to act as if no such person as your husband were in existence. Have you any objection to tell me whether you are disposed to push this right of action to the extent of marrying again--of marrying Miles Challoner, for instance?"
Mrs. Bloxam shifted her position as she asked this question, laid her head well back against the cushion of her chair, and did not look a Gertrude, who took longer to reply than before. When she spoke, the words came with difficulty.
"You must have some very strong reason for asking me such a question."
"I have, my dear. Mere curiosity, or even anything short of the necessity which exists for our understanding each other to a certain extent, would never have induced me to ask it. Will you answer me?"
"Yes," said Gertrude, "I will. I acknowledge no limits to the extent to which I am disposed to push my right of action. I should marry without hesitation from motives of ambition; I should marry without hesitation if the man were any but what he is--if he were anyone but Miles Challoner.."
Mrs. Bloxam sat bolt upright, and gazed at Gertrude in irrepressible, unmixed amazement. "What do you say?" she asked. "Can it be possible that we are all mistaken? Lord Sandilands and I, and Miles Challoner himself, for he thinks you love him. I am as certain as I ever was of any human being's sentiments. Have you been blind to his love, his devotion to you? What doyou mean?"
"I mean this," said Gertrude: "I know that Miles Challoner loves me; he has told me so; but I knew it before; I have not been blind to his devotion; and I love him." She paused. The listener's attitude and expression of uncomprehending astonishment remained unchanged. "I love him; I know the difference now, and I know that what I once took for love did not deserve the name. I would not deceive him; I would not dishonour him; I would not involve himin the degradation of my life,--for the degradation of the past is still upon me--for any joy the world could give me, not even for that of being his wife."
The passion and earnestness of her speech almost transformed Gertrude. She surprised Mrs. Bloxam so much, that all her previously-arranged line of argument escaped her memory, and she could say nothing but "Gertrude, Gertrude, you doastonish me!"
"Not more than I astonish myself, I assure you; not so much. Before I knew him I don't think I could even have imagined what it was like to care more for the peace and happiness of another than for my own. I have learned what it is like now, and the lesson, in one word, means love. Go on with what you have to say to me, Mrs. Bloxam, remembering in it all that I love Miles Challoner, and will never involve him in any way in my life."
"But this completely upsets what I was going to say to you," said Mrs. Bloxam; "it changes the whole state of things, but it renders it no less necessary that you should make up your mind how you will explain matters to Lord Sandilands."
"To Lord Sandilands?" said Gertrude inquiringly. "What have I to explain to him, and why?"
"Because he is Miles Challoner's friend and yours; and because he knows that Miles wants to marry you, and most earnestly desires that the marriage should take place."
"Hedesires it! How can that be? How can a man of Lord Sandilands' rank wish his friend to make so unequal a marriage--a marriage which the world he lives in would so utterly condemn?"
"Probably because he has lived long enough in that world to know that its opinion is of no great value, and to think that Miles Challoner had better consult his own happiness than its prejudices. He is a great friend and admirer of yours also; and, in short, I may as well tell you plainly and abruptly, he sent for me to consult me on the best means of overcoming what he considers misplaced pride and overstrained delicacy on your part, and inducing you to consent to his arranging the preliminaries to the marriage; I mean"--here Mrs. Bloxam hesitated a little--"settling everything as your mutual friend."
"It is well for him it cannot be," said Gertrude bitterly, "or the world would hardly praise his conduct in helping Miles Challoner to a marriage with me. The interest Lord Sandilands takes in me deserves all my gratitude and as much of my confidence as I can give, and he shall have them. He may be displeased that his kind projects are not to be carried out, but he will understand that it is impossible."
"I don't see that he will understand it," said Mrs. Bloxam, "unless you tell him about your marriage; and how are you to do that?" She forgot for the moment that she spoke with the knowledge of Gertrude's parentage in her mind, but that Gertrude was quite ignorant of it.
"Tell Lord Sandilands of my marriage!" said Gertrude; "what can you be thinking of? That must never be known to anyone; he is a kind friend indeed, but nothing would induce me to tell him that.."
"I beg your pardon; of course not," said Mrs. Bloxam, recovering herself, and remembering that the communication Lord Sandilands intended to make must not be forestalled. "Your resolution surprised me so much, I grew confused. But how will you account for refusing Mr. Challoner?"
"I shall account for it," said Gertrude, "on the best grounds--grounds which would be adequate in my own judgment had I never made the fatal mistake of my miserable marriage. If I were nothing more than the world knows or believes me to be, I should still hold myself an unsuitable wife for him, and should still refuse him for his own sake."
"And this is what you will tell Lord Sandilands?" said Mrs. Bloxam. "Gertrude, are you sure you can stand firm to your decision against the pleading of your lover and the support and arguments of your friend?"
"I am quite sure," said Gertrude, "for I shall stand firm for their own sakes. To yield would be to injure, to hesitate would be to torment them: I will neither yield nor hesitate."
"Lord Sandilands wishes to see you as soon as you can come with me to see him," said Mrs. Mourn. "I know he intends to urge Mr. Challoner's cause with all the argument and all the authority in his power."
"No argument and no authority can avail," said Gertrude.
"And you are determined to go on in this stage-life?"
"Yes; it is delightful to me in some respects, and it is independent and free. I don't say I have not had a struggle in reaching the determination I have arrived at; but I have reached it, and there is nothing more to be said or done. Whenever you choose, after a day or two, I will see Lord Sandilands; he will help me to impress on Miles Challoner the uselessness, indeed the cruelty, of pressing a suit which can only pain me and avail him nothing. I shall convince him easily; he knows the world too well to be difficult of persuasion of the justice of all that I shall say to him."
"It appears to me," thought Mrs. Bloxam, "that I shall get out of this business safely whatever happens, if she only perseveres in hiding her marriage; and I don't think there's much danger of her not doing so."
"I am rather tired, dear," said Gertrude after a pause, during which they had both kept silence, and turning towards Mrs. Bloxam with perhaps the sweetest smile and the friendliest gesture she had ever bestowed upon that lady; "and I think we will not talk any more just now. Tell Lady Belwether I shall try to come down for a little this evening. I am far from suspecting the kind old lady of wishing me to tumble for the company; but I should like to oblige her and the Dean, if possible."
Mrs. Bloxam took the hint. Gertrude was left alone, to endure all the agony caused her by the resolution she had taken; but yet to feel that she derived strength from having taken it, and that to get her decision finally and authoritatively communicated to Miles Challoner by Lord Sandilands, with the addition of an earnest request that he would not remain in England at present, and subject her and himself to the pain of meeting, was a very sensible relief. The bitterness of the suffering through which she passed at this time never quite died out of Gertrude's memory. There was something in it which wrung her soul with a far keener and deadlier anguish than all the coarser, more actual miseries which had beset her miserable married life. By the measure of the increased strength and refinement of her feelings, of the growth of her intellect, and the development of her tastes, the power and the obligation to suffer in this instance were increased. Of the man whom she had once fancied she loved, Gertrude never thought with any distinctness either of abhorrence, fear, or regret. The few words she had spoken to him in the midst of the fashionable crowd where they had last met had, she felt, effectually freed her from his pursuit henceforth; and in her present frame of mind, with her whole nature softened by her love for Miles, she was accustomed to look back rather on her own errors of judgment and perception as the fatal folly of her own girlhood, as the origin of her misfortunes, and to allow the sinister figure of her husband to slink in the backgrounds of her memory, something to be shunned and left in obscurity. In the wildest and deepest of her misery, and when her resolution was highest and sternest, there was one steadfast feeling in Gertrude's heart, by which she clung in all the tempest of emotion, while the clamour was loudest in her storm-tossed heart. It was the indestructible happiness of knowing herself beloved. Nothing could take that from her, whatever befell; life might have many more trials, many more deprivations in store for her, but it could not deprive her of that--not even change on his own part: and she did not think he would change. Very early in their acquaintance she had recognised, with the pleasure of a kindred disposition, the tranquil stability of Miles Challoner's character; but not even change could alter that truth, could efface that blessedness, could deprive her of that priceless treasure. She even asked herself, in the mood of mournful exultation in which she was, whether she could have felt this secret, subtle joy so keenly if she had not learned to distinguish the false from the true by such a terrible experience? If this had been a first love, could it have been so awfully dear and precious, a consolation so priceless, as to be hugged and hidden in her utmost heart; a talisman against misery, a talisman sufficiently powerful to subdue the anguish of its own ineffectualness, its own hopelessness? Could any girl unversed in the world's way, unskilled in the world's delusions, innocent and ignorant, knowing no ill of herself or others, have loved Miles Challoner as she loved him--this woman who had been brought in such close contact with crime, meanness, degradation, who had passed from girlhood to womanhood, on the border of respectability, with a tolerably uninterrupted look-out, very little space intervening over the debatable land of scheming, shifts, and general Bohemianism--this woman, whose dearest hope was to keep the knowledge of the truth about her--her life--her very name--from the man she loved?
The task of speaking with Lord Sandilands, of destroying the hopes the kind old man cherished for his friend and for her, of defending the position she had to take up, for the destruction of all the prospect of happiness which life had to offer her, was not one to be contemplated with anything but intense reluctance. But Gertrude forced herself to the contemplation of it, and made up her mind to get the interview over as soon as possible. She had not forgotten that she had promised Miles to see him again, to speak with him again, on the subject of the suit he had urged. She knew well how impatient he would be; but while her illness and seclusion continued, he would know the fulfilment of her promise was not possible. What if she made an effort to go down to the drawing-room to-night, and found him there--was forced to meet him in the presence of strangers? She could not endure that; she felt that her nerves, in such a trial, would refuse to obey her will. She would write a line to him, asking him to remain away from Hardriggs until he should hear from her again. There could be no harm in that; but suppose he should be intending to come there that evening, the intimation of her wish would reach him too late. She rang the bell, and sent her maid for Mrs. Bloxam, to whom she propounded the difficulty.
"I know he will be here," Mrs. Bloxam said; "Lady Belwether has just said so."
"Then I must write," said Gertrude; "and you must give him the note."
Mrs. Bloxam conveyed the few lines, in which Gertrude begged Miles to abstain from appearing in the drawing-room after dinner, to the hands of that anxious and almost-despairing lover, and he instantly obeyed the behest which it contained. Lord Sandilands' illness and need of his society furnished an excuse which was not only valid, but did him credit with his hostess and Mr. Dean, who was pleased to remark that his attention to his noble friend was a very gratifying spectacle, very gratifying indeed. When Miles rejoined his noble friend he told him most ruefully of the fresh rebuff he had received, and presented a doleful aspect anything but exhilarating to an invalid in want of cheerful companionship. Lord Sandilands did not seem to notice the depressed state of his spirits, but listened to him with an air rather of satisfaction than otherwise.
"Never mind, Miles," he said; "it's a good sign that she did not choose to meet you in the presence of a lot of strangers. Have patience, my dear boy and I promise you, on the faith of your old friend, which never failed you yet, all will be well."
Miss Lambert made her appearance that evening in the drawing-room at Hardriggs for a short time. She was warmly congratulated on her recovery, and had many pretty things said to her about her temporary eclipse. She even ventured to sing just one song; a simple but beautiful one, which went to the hearts of the company in general, and apparently to the nose of Mr. Dean in particular, as that dignitary used his handkerchief with prolonged solemnity while the concluding cadence was yet lingering in the air. It was agreed on all hands that never had Miss Lambert been more completely charming.
On the day but one after,--a bright, balmy day, when the earth looked its best, and the sky its bluest,--one of the Hardriggs equipages conveyed Mrs. Bloxam and Miss Lambert to Lord Sandilands' seaside abode. The visit had been duly notified by a message from Mrs. Bloxam, and the ladies had the satisfaction of learning that his lordship was much better, and quite able to receive them. They were ushered upstairs, and into a sitting-room on the first-floor. The room was empty, and the folding-doors which communicated with another room were closed. In a few moments they opened, and gave admittance to a middle-aged woman, plainly dressed, very respectable; the exact model of all a housekeeper ought to be. On her steady arm Lord Sandilands leaned; and as he limped slowly towards his visitors with extended hand, expressing his pleasure at seeing them, Gertrude recognised in the housekeeper Mrs. Bush, and Mrs. Bush recognised in the lady whom she had heard announced as Miss Lambert the wife of her ci-devant lodger, Gilbert Lloyd.