IT is rather difficult for a girl, after all her solemn and awful anticipations of the wonderful event of her marriage, to find after it is over that she is precisely the same person as she was before—that instead of the sudden elevation, the gravity, and decorum, and stateliness of character which would become the mature stage of her existence, she has brought all her girlish faults with her, all her youth and extravagance, and is in reality, just as she was a few months ago, neither wiser, nor older, nor having greater command of herself, than when she was a young unwedded girl. After I became accustomed to Harry’s constant companionship, and got over the first awe of myself and my changed position, I was extremely puzzled to find myself quite unchanged. No, I had not bidden a solemn adieu to my youth when I left my father’s house; I was as young as ever, as impulsive, as eager, as ready to enjoy as to be miserable. I could fancy, indeed, with all this, and the gay foreign life around me, and Harry’s anxiety to please, and amuse, and keep me happy—I who knew life only as it passed in our lonely drawing-room and garden, or in the dull streets of Cambridge—that youth, instead of being ended, was only beginning for me.
I was in vigorous health, and had an adventurous spirit. Long rapid journeys had in them a strange exhilaration for me. I liked the idea of our rapid race over states and empires; the motion, and speed, and constant change made the great charm of travel. I did not care for museums and picture-galleries: but I cared for a bright passing glimpse of an old picturesque town, a grand castle or cathedral; and though the road we travelled was a road which people called hackneyed and worn out, the resort of cockney tourists, and all manner of book-makers—yet it was perfectly fresh to me.
This day was in the early part of October, chill, bracing, and sunshiny. A very wearisome journey on the day before, had brought us to an old German town, where there was neither tourist nor English; but old embattled walls—Gothic houses, and churches dating far back—those picturesque rude centuries, when they knew the art of building, whatever other arts they did not know. Young and light of heart as we were, our fatigue vanished with the night, and when we had taken our coffee and our hard leathery rolls in the light, cold, carpetless salle of our inn, we went out arm in arm for one of our long rambles, with no cicerone to disturb our enjoyment. We were not model sightseers—we did not find out what was to be admired beforehand, nor seek the lions—we were only two very young people much delighted with these novel scenes, and with each other, who were in no mood to be critical. We delighted to lose ourselves in these quaint old streets—to trace their curious intricacies, to find out the noble vistas here and there, when the high houses stretched along in perched and varied lines to the golden way, where there was some smoke and a great deal of sunshine, behind which lay the sky. We saw the churches, and admired and wondered at them, but our great fascination was in the streets, where everything savored of another land and time; the peasant dress, the characteristic features, the strange tongue, which, except when Harry spoke, was unintelligible to me, made all these streets animated pictures to my eager observation.
I was a very good walker, and not easily wearied, and Harry was only too eager to do every thing I pleased. We came and went, enjoying every thing, and I think our fresh young English faces, our freedom, and vigor, and youthful happiness attracted some wistful glances from under the toil-worn, sun-burnt brows of these peasant people, about whom I was so curious; our enjoyment was so frank and honest, that it pleased even the unenjoying bystanders; and all the young waiters at the inn, who shook their heads at my elaborately conned questions in German, and drove me desperate with the voluble and anxious explanations of which I could not understand a word, had now a French dictionary on the side-table in the salle, which some one was always studying for my especial benefit—what with smiles and signs, and my English-French, and their newly acquired phrases, we managed to do a little conversation sometimes, though whether I or my young attendants would have been most barbarous to a Parisian, even I cannot tell—though I dare say the palm would have been given to me.
Although my dress was quite plain, and we flattered ourselves that it was not easy to find out that this was our wedding tour, it was strange what a sympathetic consciousness every one seemed to have that I was a bride. The people were all so wonderfully kind to us—we travelled in the simplest way without either maid or man. We had nothing to limit or restrain us, no need to be at any certain place by any certain day, no necessity to please any one’s convenience but our own; so we rambled on through these old picturesque streets, the bright autumn day floating unnoted over our heads, and life running on with us in an enchanted stream. There was the chill of early winter in the air already; and in those deep narrow lanes, where the paths looked like a deep cut through the houses rather than a road, on each side of which they had been built, were parties of wood-sellers chopping up into lengths for fuel great branches and limbs of trees. Everybody seemed to be laying in their winter stock, the streets resounded with the ringing of the hatchet, the German jokes and gossip of the operators, and the hoarse rattle of the rope or chain by which the loaded bucket was drawn up to the highest story, the storeroom of these antique houses. As we threaded these deep alleys arm in arm, catching peeps of interiors and visions of homely housewifery, we caught many smiling and kindly glances, and I do not doubt that many a brave little woman called from the door to her mother when she saw us coming, that here were the young Englishers again—for we had store of kreutzers and zwangzigers, and these small people very soon found it out.
We had just emerged upon one of the principal streets, when Harry uttered a surprised and impatient exclamation, and turned me hastily around again, to go in another direction. “What is the matter?” cried I, in alarm. “Nothing,” he said, quietly, “only a great bore whom I knew when I was last in Germany. Here, Hester, let’s avoid him if we can.”
We turned up a steep street leading to one of the gates of the town, and Harry hurried me along at a great pace. “We are running away,” said I, laughing, and out of breath. “You are a true Englishman, Harry, you flee before a bore when you would face an enemy; who is this formidable stranger?”
“He is a professor at Bonn,” said Harry, in a disturbed and uneasy tone. “I was there some time, you know—and knew him pretty well, but if he finds us out here, we will never get rid of him, unless we leave the town in desperation. Come, Hester, a race for it, you are not too old or too sedate for that. An army of bores would conquer with a look, like Cæsar—nothing could stand before them. Come, Hester!”
We ran across the bridge of planks which stretched over the peaceful moats, now a garden of rich verdure, full of tobacco plants and plum-trees, from the Thiergarten Thor. There we continued our ramble without the walls. At a little distance was a peaceful old churchyard, where some great people were lying, and where many unknown people slept very quietly with love-wreaths and scattered flowers over their humble tombstones. Some one had been laid down in that quiet bed even now, and we two, in our youth and flush of happiness, stood by, and saw the flowers showered down in handfuls and basketfuls upon the last enclosure of humanity. The rude earth was not thrown in till this sweet bright coverlid lay thick and soft upon the buried one—buried in flowers. We came away very softly from this scene—it touched our hearts, and awed us with a sense of our uncertain tenure of our great happiness. We clung close to each other, and went on with subdued steps, saying nothing; and there on our way, at regular intervals, were those rude frames of masonry, enclosing each its piece of solemn sculpture, its groups of Jews and Romans looking on, and its one grand central figure, thorn-crowned and bearing the cross. I remember the strange emotion which crept upon me as we went along this sunny road. I had heard of the great sorrows of life, with the hearing of the ear, but I knew them not—and it struck me with a dull and strange wonder to see these pictures of the mortal agony which purchased life and hope and comfort for this latter world. I shrank closer to my husband and clasped his arm, and turned my eyes from those dark and antique pictures. I knew not Him who stooped under his tremendous burden, in this sublime and voluntary anguish. I was awestruck at the thought, but I turned away from it. I was glad to talk again of what we had been seeing, of where we were to go next. We were going back to our hotel in the first place, and when we returned by another gate, I woke once more to amusement, when I saw how jealously Harry looked about to see if his bore was still in our way.
And as it happened, when we had almost reached our inn, and turned a sharp corner on our way to it, we suddenly met this dreaded stranger face to face; there was no escaping then; after a moment’s pause, he rushed upon Harry with the warmest solicitations, addressing him in very deliberate and laborious English, by his present name, which he called “Soutcote,” and seemed quite to claim the standing of an old friend.
I was amused, yet I was annoyed, at Harry’s appearance and manner. He was more than constrained, he was embarrassed, one moment cordial, the other, cold and repellant, and though he submitted to an affectionate greeting himself, it was in the proudest and briefest manner in the world that he introduced me. My new acquaintance was a middle-aged gentleman, abundantly bearded, with an immense cloak over his arm, and an odor of cigars about his whole person—but that odor of cigars was in the very atmosphere. I am sorry to confess that even Harry had it; and the Professor had bright, twinkling, sensible eyes, and his face, though it was large and sallow, was good-humored and pleasant, so much as you could see of it, from its forest of hair. He did not look at all like a bore, and he spoke very good slow English, and I was surprised at Harry’s dislike of him. He asked where we were living, and with a very bad grace Harry told him; then he volunteered to call on us. I had to answer myself that we would be glad to see him, for Harry did not say a word, and then he apologized for some immediate engagement he had, and went away.
“He does not seem a bore,” said I; “why did you run away from him, Harry? and if you only give him time enough, he speaks very good English. It is pleasant to hear some one speaking English. I hope he will come to-night.”
“O inconsistent womanhood!” said Harry, hiding a look of great annoyance under a smile, “how long is it since you told me that you liked to be isolated from all the world, and that it was very pleasant for two people to have a language all to themselves?”
“That was a week ago,” I said, “and I like it still, and yet I like to hear somebody speak English; why do not you like him? I think he looks very pleasant for a German. You ought to be glad to have some one else to speak to than always me.”
“Do you judge by yourself?” said Harry, smiling; “as for me, Hester, I am no more tired of our tête-à-tête than I was the day we left Cambridge—so pray be thankful on your account and not mine.”
“Are you vexed, Harry?” asked I.
“I am annoyed to have this presuming intruder thrust upon us,” said Harry. “I know he is not easily discouraged, and I did know him very well, and went to his house, so that I should not like quite to be rude to him; and foreigners are so ignorant of our English habits in England, our friend would not understand that people who have only been three weeks married, prefer their own society to anybody else; but everything is so different here.”
“Perhaps he does not know how short a time it is,” said I, “but he called you Southcote, Harry; did you write to him, or how does he know?”
“Oh! from the papers, of course,” said Harry, hurriedly, “you know what linguists these Germans are, and how they like to show their proficiency in our language: and, of course, there are lots of English fellows in Bonn; and where there are English, there is generally a Times. Why, the professor has become quite a hero, Hester; come in and dine, and forget that our solitude has been disturbed; what a bloom you have got—I think they will vote me thanks when I take you home.”
So speaking, Harry hastened me in to arrange my dress. I could not understand his embarrassment, his perplexity, his dislike of the stranger. Why receive him less cordially than he had been used to do; why introduce him to me so stiffly; a person who knew so much about him, that he was even aware of his change of name, though he did not seem equally aware of his marriage. It was very odd altogether—my curiosity was piqued, and I think I should have been very much disappointed if the stranger had not come that night.
We had another long ramble after dinner, for our hotel apartments, great gaunt rooms, with rows of many windows, and scanty scattered morsels of furniture, were not very attractive, and when we finally came in again very tired, Harry wrapped my shawl round me, had a crackling explosive wood fire lighted in the stove, made me rest upon the sofa, and finally told me that he would “take a turn” for ten minutes and have a cigar. I was a little disappointed—he seldom did it, and I did not like to be without him, even for ten minutes; however, I was reasonable, and let him go away.
When he was gone, I lay quite still in the great darkening room; there were five windows in it, parallel lines of dull light coming in over the high steep roof of a house opposite, where there were half-a-dozen stories of attic windows, like a flight of steps upon the giddy incline of those mossed tiles. The whole five only made the twilight visible, and disclosed in dark shadow the parallel lines of darkness in the spaces between them; and the great green porcelain stove near which I lay, gave no light, but only startling reports of sound to the vacant solitary apartment. I was glad to hear the crackling of the wood—it was “company” to me—and I began to think over Alice’s last letter, with its consolatory assurance that my father was well. He wrote himself, but his letters said nothing of his health, and I was very glad of the odd upside down epistle of Alice, which told me plainly in so many words what I wanted to know. In another week we were to go home, but Harry had said nothing yet of where we were to go to; he had received a letter from Mr. Osborne, about the house, and I concluded we would go first to Cambridge, and there find a place for ourselves.
It brought the color to my cheek to think of going home with Harry, and taking my husband with me to the dwelling of my youth. I was shy of my father and Alice, under my new circumstances. If I had the first meeting over, I did not think I would care for the rest—but the first meeting was a very embarrassing thought. I was occupying myself with boding of these pleasant troubles, when I heard voices approaching the door; the Herr Professor’s solemn English, and Harry’s tones, franker and less embarrassed than before. I got up hastily, and they entered; the stranger came and took a seat by me; he began to tell me he had once been in London, and what a wonderful place he thought it; his manner of speaking was amusing to me—it was very slow, as if every word had to be translated as he went on—but it was very good English notwithstanding, and not merely German translated into English words; and the matter was very good, sprightly and sensible; and I was very much amused by his odd observations upon our habits, and the strange twist the most familiar things acquired when looked at through his foreign spectacles. He had a great deal of quiet humor, and made quaint grave remarks, at which it was very hard to keep one’s gravity. I thought he was the last person in the world whom any one could call a bore.
All this time Harry sat nervous and restless, with a flush upon his face, taking little part in the conversation; but watching the very lips of the stranger, as it seemed to me, to perceive the words that they formed before he uttered them. I was very anxious that he should speak rather of Harry, than of London. I should have liked so much to hear if he was very popular among his companions, and very clever as a student; but when I saw how very nervous and fidgety Harry was, I did not like to ask, but sat in discomfort and strange watchfulness, my attention roused to every word the professor said. I could not perceive that he said anything of importance, and I really was very much disturbed and troubled by the look of Harry.
Then suddenly the stranger turned round and began to speak to him in German. Why in German? when he could speak English perfectly well, and evidently liked to exhibit his acquirements. This put the climax to my astonishment, and it did more than that, it woke a vague pang in my heart, unknown before, which I suppose was that little thing called jealousy; had Harry gone out on purpose to meet and warn him? was it at Harry’s request, and that I might not understand, that they spoke in German? A sudden suspiciousness sprang up within me—was there, indeed, some secret which Harry did not want me to know?—I who would have counted it the greatest hardship in the world to have anything to conceal from him.
I sank into sudden and immediate silence—I watched Harry. I was mortified, grieved, humiliated—I could have left the room and gone away somewhere to cry by myself; but this would only make matters worse, and I did not wish Harry to think me unreasonable or exacting. But he saw that I grew very pale, he saw the tears in my eyes, and how firmly my hands clasped each other. He suddenly said something in English—the stranger answered, and this cause of distress to me was gone; but now the Professor was speaking of having visited Harry in England. “And that house you were speaking of,” said the German, “that, ho—I know not your names—did you never go to live in it then?”
“No, no, I have never been there,” said Harry, hastily, “a place I was thinking of—of settling in, Hester,” he explained to me in a very timid way, “when you are next in England you must see a true English home, Professor—no bachelor’s quarters now.”
“Ah, my young friend, I have not forgot what you did say about la belle cousine,” said the Professor, with a smile at me.
I sat as still as if I had been made of stone. I saw Harry’s face flush with a violent color; but no color came to my cheek—I felt cold, rigid, desolate. I shivered over all my frame with the chill at my heart. For he had said so often that I was the only one who had ever entered his heart—that he had known no love of any kind till he knew me. Alas! were these all vain words; the common deceits of the world—and what was I to believe or trust in, if my faith failed in Harry? I tried to believe it was some foolish jest, but though I might have persuaded myself so from the unconscious smile of the Professor, there was guilt on Harry’s brow. I did not change my position in the slightest gesture. I sat very still, scarcely drawing my breath. The momentary pause that followed was an age to me. While the silence lasted, I had already tried to persuade myself that whatever might have been, Harry loved me only now—but I could not do it—I was sick to my very heart.
I heard him dash into conversation again, into talk upon general subjects, vague and uninteresting. I listened to it all with the most absorbing interest to find something more on this one point, if I could. Then, by and bye, the stranger went away. I bade him good-night mechanically, and sat still, hearing the wood crackling in the stove, and Harry’s footsteps as he returned from the door. He came in, and sat down beside me on the sofa. He took my cold hand and clasped it between his. He said “Hester—Hester—Hester!” every time more tenderly, till I could bear it no longer, and burst into tears.
“Oh, Harry! you might have told me,” I exclaimed passionately, “you might have said that you cared for some one else before you cared for me!”
“It would have been false, if I had said so, Hester,” he answered me, in a very low earnest tone.
“Oh, Harry, Harry! do not deceive me now,” I said, making a great effort to keep down a sob.
He drew me close to him, and made me lean upon his shoulder. “In this I never have, nor ever will, deceive you,” he said, bending over me—“I never knew what love was till I knew you, Hester. What I say is true. See—I have no fear that you can find me out in a moment’s inconstancy. My thoughts have never wandered from you since I saw you first—and before I saw you, I was desolate and loved no one. You believe me?”
Could I refuse to believe him? I clung to him and cried, but my tears were not bitter any more. I could believe him surely better than a hundred strangers; but still I lifted my head and said, “What did the Professor mean?”
“I knew he would make mischief, this meddling fellow,” said Harry. “Hester! do not distrust me, at least on this point, when I say I cannot tell you yet what he means. I have a confession to make, and a story to tell—it is so, indeed, I cannot deny it. But wait till we get to England—wait till we are at home—you will trust me for a few days longer—say you will?”
“I have trusted you implicitly, everything you have done and said until now,” said I almost with a groan.
He kissed my hand with touching humility. “You have, Hester, I know you have,” he said under his breath, but he said no more—not a word of explanation—not a single regret—not a hint of what I was to look for when he told me his story—his story! what could it be?
For some time we sat in silence side by side, listening to the wind without, and to the roaring and crackling of the wood in the stove. We did not look at each other. For the first time, we were embarrassed and uneasy. We had no quarrel—no disagreement, but there was something between us—something—one of those shadowy barriers that struck a sense of individual existence and separateness for the first time to our hearts. We were checked upon our course of cordial and perfect unity. We began an anxious endeavor to make conversation for each other—it did not flow freely as it had done, nor was this the charmed silence in which only last night we had been delighted to sit. The wind whistled drearily about the house, and rattled at the windows. “I hope we will have calm weather to cross the channel,” said Harry, and then we began to discuss how and when we were to go home.
Yes—the charm of our rambling was gone, all my desire now was to get home to know what this confession was which Harry had to make to me. It was not the confession I had dreaded—it was not that somebody else had ever been as dear to him as I was now—what could it be? He spoke of it no more, but left it to my imagination without a word. My imagination, puzzled and bewildered, could make nothing of the mystery—could he, in his early youth, have done something very wrong? No, it was impossible, I could not credit that of Harry. I was entirely at fault, and I think before an hour was over I would gladly have undertaken to forgive him beforehand, and chase the nightmare away. But he did not seem able to forget it; it was a bigger nightmare to him than to me. He was very kind, very loving, and tender; but there was a deprecation in his manner which troubled me exceedingly. How I longed now that this Dutch professor had never broken in upon our happy, happy days. How annoyed I was at my own childish perversity, my opposition to Harry because I thought he was not cordial to the stranger. What concern had I with the stranger? and he had repaid me by bringing the first blank into our joyous intercourse—the first secret between our hearts.
Before evening was spent, we were a little better. It made me miserable to see Harry looking unhappy and constrained. We tacitly avoided all reference which could touch upon this mystery, and arranged and re-arranged our journey home, or to “England” as we said. I did not ask where we should go to, nor did he say, and so ended the first tedious evening of our married life.