hands—I have
given you pain; I am going to give you more, but there is no help
for it—shake hands with your friend, Marian Halcombe, first."
The sudden kindness—the warm, high-minded, fearless sympathy
which met me on such mercifully equal terms, which appealed with
such delicate and generous abruptness straight to my heart, my
honour, and my courage, overcame me in an instant. I tried to
look at her when she took my hand, but my eves were dim. I tried
to thank her, but my voice failed me.
"Listen to me," she said, considerately avoiding all notice of my
loss of self-control. "Listen to me, and let us get it over at
once. It is a real true relief to me that I am not obliged, in
what I have now to say, to enter into the question—the hard and
cruel question as I think it—of social inequalities.
Circumstances which will try you to the quick, spare me the
ungracious necessity of paining a man who has lived in friendly
intimacy under the same roof with myself by any humiliating
reference to matters of rank and station. You must leave
Limmeridge House, Mr. Hartright, before more harm is done. It is
my duty to say that to you; and it would be equally my duty to say
it, under precisely the same serious necessity, if you were the
representative of the oldest and wealthiest family in England.
You must leave us, not because you are a teacher of drawing—-"
She waited a moment, turned her face full on me, and reaching
across the table, laid her hand firmly on my arm.
"Not because you are a teacher of drawing," she repeated, "but
because Laura Fairlie is engaged to be married."
The last word went like a bullet to my heart. My arm lost all
sensation of the hand that grasped it. I never moved and never
spoke. The sharp autumn breeze that scattered the dead leaves at
our feet came as cold to me, on a sudden, as if my own mad hopes
were dead leaves too, whirled away by the wind like the rest.
Hopes! Betrothed, or not betrothed, she was equally far from me.
Would other men have remembered that in my place? Not if they had
loved her as I did.
The pang passed, and nothing but the dull numbing pain of it
remained. I felt Miss Halcombe's hand again, tightening its hold
on my arm—I raised my head and looked at her. Her large black
eyes were rooted on me, watching the white change on my face,
which I felt, and which she saw.
"Crush it!" she said. "Here, where you first saw her, crush it!
Don't shrink under it like a woman. Tear it out; trample it under
foot like a man!"
The suppressed vehemence with which she spoke, the strength which
her will—concentrated in the look she fixed on me, and in the
hold on my arm that she had not yet relinquished—communicated to
mine, steadied me. We both waited for a minute in silence. At
the end of that time I had justified her generous faith in my
manhood—I had, outwardly at least, recovered my self-control.
"Are you yourself again?"
"Enough myself, Miss Halcombe, to ask your pardon and hers.
Enough myself to be guided by your advice, and to prove my
gratitude in that way, if I can prove it in no other."
"You have proved it already," she answered, "by those words. Mr.
Hartright, concealment is at an end between us. I cannot affect
to hide from you what my sister has unconsciously shown to me.
You must leave us for her sake, as well as for your own. Your
presence here, your necessary intimacy with us, harmless as it has
been, God knows, in all other respects, has unsteadied her and
made her wretched. I, who love her better than my own life—I,
who have learnt to believe in that pure, noble, innocent nature as
I believe in my religion—know but too well the secret misery of
self-reproach that she has been suffering since the first shadow
of a feeling disloyal to her marriage engagement entered her heart
in spite of her. I don't say—it would be useless to attempt to
say it after what has happened—that her engagement has ever had a
strong hold on her affections. It is an engagement of
given you pain; I am going to give you more, but there is no help
for it—shake hands with your friend, Marian Halcombe, first."
The sudden kindness—the warm, high-minded, fearless sympathy
which met me on such mercifully equal terms, which appealed with
such delicate and generous abruptness straight to my heart, my
honour, and my courage, overcame me in an instant. I tried to
look at her when she took my hand, but my eves were dim. I tried
to thank her, but my voice failed me.
"Listen to me," she said, considerately avoiding all notice of my
loss of self-control. "Listen to me, and let us get it over at
once. It is a real true relief to me that I am not obliged, in
what I have now to say, to enter into the question—the hard and
cruel question as I think it—of social inequalities.
Circumstances which will try you to the quick, spare me the
ungracious necessity of paining a man who has lived in friendly
intimacy under the same roof with myself by any humiliating
reference to matters of rank and station. You must leave
Limmeridge House, Mr. Hartright, before more harm is done. It is
my duty to say that to you; and it would be equally my duty to say
it, under precisely the same serious necessity, if you were the
representative of the oldest and wealthiest family in England.
You must leave us, not because you are a teacher of drawing—-"
She waited a moment, turned her face full on me, and reaching
across the table, laid her hand firmly on my arm.
"Not because you are a teacher of drawing," she repeated, "but
because Laura Fairlie is engaged to be married."
The last word went like a bullet to my heart. My arm lost all
sensation of the hand that grasped it. I never moved and never
spoke. The sharp autumn breeze that scattered the dead leaves at
our feet came as cold to me, on a sudden, as if my own mad hopes
were dead leaves too, whirled away by the wind like the rest.
Hopes! Betrothed, or not betrothed, she was equally far from me.
Would other men have remembered that in my place? Not if they had
loved her as I did.
The pang passed, and nothing but the dull numbing pain of it
remained. I felt Miss Halcombe's hand again, tightening its hold
on my arm—I raised my head and looked at her. Her large black
eyes were rooted on me, watching the white change on my face,
which I felt, and which she saw.
"Crush it!" she said. "Here, where you first saw her, crush it!
Don't shrink under it like a woman. Tear it out; trample it under
foot like a man!"
The suppressed vehemence with which she spoke, the strength which
her will—concentrated in the look she fixed on me, and in the
hold on my arm that she had not yet relinquished—communicated to
mine, steadied me. We both waited for a minute in silence. At
the end of that time I had justified her generous faith in my
manhood—I had, outwardly at least, recovered my self-control.
"Are you yourself again?"
"Enough myself, Miss Halcombe, to ask your pardon and hers.
Enough myself to be guided by your advice, and to prove my
gratitude in that way, if I can prove it in no other."
"You have proved it already," she answered, "by those words. Mr.
Hartright, concealment is at an end between us. I cannot affect
to hide from you what my sister has unconsciously shown to me.
You must leave us for her sake, as well as for your own. Your
presence here, your necessary intimacy with us, harmless as it has
been, God knows, in all other respects, has unsteadied her and
made her wretched. I, who love her better than my own life—I,
who have learnt to believe in that pure, noble, innocent nature as
I believe in my religion—know but too well the secret misery of
self-reproach that she has been suffering since the first shadow
of a feeling disloyal to her marriage engagement entered her heart
in spite of her. I don't say—it would be useless to attempt to
say it after what has happened—that her engagement has ever had a
strong hold on her affections. It is an engagement of
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