“Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend  Seeking a higher object.”—LAODAMIA.
 
“For love and beauty and delight
 There is no death nor change; their might
 Exceeds our organs, which endure
 No light, being themselves obscure.”
 
THE SENSITIVE PLANT.
 
 
 
AH, yes! What of Ralph? Through all these months, to Marion so weary with suspense and ever-recurring disappointment, what had he been about? How came it that he, whom we have heard vowing to himself that her happiness should be his first consideration, had allowed her thus to suffer, when, as we know, a word from him at any moment would have set all right, would have made the world rosy again, and filled with sunlight even the grim old house at Mallingford?
 
To explain it all, to show what a strange chain of commonplace mistakes and cross-purposes had, coupled with one small act of deliberate malice, effected all the mischief, tortured with doubt and misgiving two true hearts, and altogether changed the course of two, if not three, lives—to make all this clear, we must step back some way: to the very time, indeed, we last heard of Ralph. Heard of him, only, incidentally, as having been successful in obtaining the promise of Sir Archibald, or rather, through his influence, that of the powers that be in such matters, with respect to the expected consular vacancy at A—.
 
That was the last, I think, that we know of him thus far, excepting, by-the-by, an instant’s peep of him more recently in his mother’s Swiss maison de campaigne, where the Severns were domesticated for the summer. To return, however, to the day in March, on which, hopeful and elated, as I think I said, Ralph set out again for Altes, having succeeded in the mission which had brought him across the water.
 
The journey back was a much more cheerful affair than had been that to England.
 
Ralph was not naturally by any means given to over-anxiety about money matters—in fact his actual experience of limited means had been but small, for he had always had enough for moderate requirements. But he was a thoroughly conscientious man. Many would say morbidly so, and I daresay there might be nothing exaggerated or unreasonable in such an opinion.
 
Very quiet and reserved people are apt to become morbid on some point. They get hold of a notion, and turn it round and round in their minds, till a sort of mental dizziness, very adverse to clear judgement, results. It is a grand thing now and then to get a fresh, outside opinion on matters about which we are deeply interested. Nor is the soundness of that opinion of as much moment as might be imagined. Its freshness is the great thing; for assuredly, though directly it may not influence our eventual decision, our own powers of judgement will, by its breezy rush through our cobwebbed brain, become marvellously invigorated, and braced for the work, which, after all, to be well done, must be their own, and no one else’s!
 
Such had been on Ralph the effect of his rare confidence in another—that other, as will be remembered, having been the sensible, middle-aged, but nevertheless quite sufficiently “romantic,” Mr. Price. From the date of his long talk with his odd tutor, the young man’s bewilderments, fors and againsts, conflicting duties and inclinations, ranged themselves with wonderful order and celerity. It was all nonsense, “morbid humbug,” he soon learnt to call it, about his being different from other men, cut off by peculiar circumstances from what, after all, in plain, honest English is every man’s birthright—liberty to please himself in the choice of the helpmeet, without which Providence certainly never intended him, or any other able-bodied young man, to go through life! Provided, of course, the prospective helpmeet saw things in the same way as he; of which, Heaven be thanked, he had no reasonable grounds to doubt.
 
What he could do, without too much going out of his way, or any approach to unmanly subservience, to conciliate his mother, he would. But beyond a certain point he now saw clearly it was not his duty to defer to her. Should she show herself inclined to be reasonable, which state of things, however, he at present felt far from sanguine about: he would be only too ready to meet her at any point on the friendly road, he would, in any case, swallow his pride, to the extent of accepting from her whatever amount of pecuniary assistance she saw fit to afford him. Pride, indeed, was hardly the word for it, for in a sense the property was his own, though at present, unfortunately, not to be obtained but by her good-will. And if she took it into her head to stand out and refuse him anything? Well, then, he had the appointment at A—— to fall back upon, the securing of which, his practical good sense and Mr. Price’s advice, had shown him to be the one distinct duty before him; without which as a certainty, however small, he had no right to allow the fortunes of another to be joined to his.
 
What he had said to Marion, before leaving Altes, had not been on impulse. Each word, each look and gesture, that last evening when she had shown him in her innocence, the whole depths of her pure, loving heart, and tempted him sorely to say but one word more, to press her if but for an instant to his breast—each word and glance that evening he had rigidly controlled, and acted throughout implicitly as he believed to be for the best. From the light of after results, we now may question if he did wisely; if, after all, it had not been better to have gone further, or not so far? From the top of the hill it requires no great wisdom to look back and say which would have been the best road up: but this is not how we are meant to travel our life-journey. Slowly and toilfully, with but little light, and what there is often dazzling and deceptive, with bleeding feet and trembling limbs we creep along—one step beyond, often the limit of our darkened view. This is how the Allwise sees fit to train us. Doubt not and judge not. When at last we climb beyond the mists and fogs, though that time may be still a far way off, we shall see that it was for the best.
 
But no misgiving of this kind came to torment Ralph on his way back, as he thought, to the woman, from whom no reasonable barrier now divided him.
 
“For to put it in its very worst light,” said he to himself (a feat by-the-bye your very conscientious people are strangely fond of performing), “even if my health gives way and I have to throw up the A—— appointment, my mother is not so utterly devoid of natural affection as to let us starve while she is rolling in wealth. And even if I were to die and leave my darling alone, why, we should have had our little hit of happiness, which surely is better than to have had none at all. And if my Marion had a child, or children,” he murmured to himself softly, “it would force my mother to take an interest in her for the old name’s sake. It would not seem quite so bad to leave her if she had boys and girls about her! She seems so very lonely, poor child, except for Mrs. Archer, who after all is only a friend. Though I really don’t know why I should think myself likely to die. I am perfectly healthy, though not very robust. John’s death, I think, put it into my head that I should not live to be old.”
 
And then in thought he wandered off to picturing to himself where and when he could best manage to see Marion alone.
 
“I wonder if she thought me cold,” he said to himself; “I must have seemed so. But still I am sure she understood me. She has a wonderfully quick and delicate sympathy. Yes, I am certain she understood me or she would not have trusted me so. The only unsatisfactory remembrance I have of our conversation is of her sudden distress when she bethought herself of what she hinted at as a barrier on her side. What could it be? Some disgrace in her family. Something connected with her father. But that will soon be explained and set straight. Nothing not actually affecting herself could conic between us.”
 
So he whiled away the many hours of his journey, tedious only in so far as the days seemed long till he could see her again, hear repeated by her own lips the sweet assurance, which, had he been a vainer or more conventional man, he would have read many a time ere now; in her changing colour, the varying tones of her voice, the childlike trust and appeal in her innocent eyes when she raised them to his.
 
I don’t know that ever Ralph Severn was happier than during this journey back to Altes. Truly, this falling in love of his had done great things for him: sunnied his whole nature, and for the first time revealed to him the marvellous beauty there is in this life of ours; the light and joy which underlie it, our intense powers of happiness no less than of suffering. All which things being real and true, whatever be the dark mysteries for the present on the other side; it was, I doubt not, well for him to have had a glimpse of them, an actual personal experience of happiness, however short-lived. We speak fluently of the discipline of suffering? Is nothing to be learnt from its twin sister, joy? Or is she sent but to mock us? I cannot think so. Her visits may be short and rare, but some good gift of enduring kind she surely leaves behind, if only, blinded by the tears we shed at her departure, we did not fail to see it.
 
Such, however, it seems to me, is not the case with the highest and deepest natures. To them, I think, all life experience is but as fresh and precious soil in a garden where all is turned to good account sooner or later. There may be ugly and unsightly things about; the flowers, when withered, may seem to pollute the air and cumber the ground; but only to our ignorance does it appear so. Under the great Master-hand all is arranged, nothing overlooked. Every shower of rain, every ray of sunshine, has its peculiar mission. All influences tend to the one great end in view, the ultimate perfection of the work. If only the gardener be humble and willing, patient, and, withal, earnest to learn. Then even from his mistakes he shall gain precious and lasting fruit.
 
Ralph Severn’s character was no shallow one. His love for Marion was, as I have said, the one great affection of his life. And something his nature gained from its present happiness that it never afterwards lost. Something indefinite and subtle. But an influence for good.
 
It was late in the evening when he reached Altes. His mother and Miss Vyse, ignorant of the precise hour at which his arrival might be expected, were just about leaving the drawing-room for the night. The children, of course, were in bed; but, in the fulness of his happy heart, Ralph went and kissed little Sybil as she lay asleep.
 
How forcibly it reminded him of his last return to the Rue des Lauriers!
 
He only saw Lady Severn and his cousin-by-courtesy for a very few minutes; but even in that time his quick perception revealed to him some slight change in the manner of both. In Florence it was the most marked. Her tone seemed to him more natural because more unrestrained. A sort of contemptuous indifference to him, united to something of triumph and secret satisfaction, peeped out in her carelessly good-natured, rather condescending greeting. She was looking very well too, exceedingly radiant and handsome. Her white skin appeared positively dazzling, her clear black eyebrows in their faultless curve, relieving what might otherwise have been too marble-like for attractive living beauty; her glorious hair, in which nestled a cluster of crimson roses (of a peculiar and carefully-selected shade, by contrast browning the surface they lay on) shone a mass of burnished gold; for by candlelight the tinge of red only intensified its lustre and richness. She stood thus for a moment, under the full glare of the lamp—a rash thing for any but a perfectly beautiful woman to do; but Florence knew herself to be one of the few whose charms are immensely increased by such an ordeal—her eyes cast down—fortunately so, if she were challenging the young man’s admiration, for wonderfully fine as they were Ralph never could succeed in admiring them, nor her, when he felt them fixed on his face. She was dressed in black, something soft and sweeping, but yet intensely black; and from out of its midst curved her round white arms, rose her beautiful, dazzling neck and throat, on which lay some heavy coils of dull, red gold chain, or beads. A golden rope was the appearance they presented at a little distance, or “rather,” thought Ralph, as in his moment’s glance he saw the coils heave slightly as she breathed, “are they like some magical snake she has bewitched to serve her purpose?”
 
It was a silly fancy, but it dispelled the momentary impression of her great beauty; which, not to have been struck by, one must needs have been less or more than human.
 
“What can she be after now?” thought Ralph, with some misgiving. “All this very effective get-up must have been done with a purpose. And her uncommonly cool tone! Rather a change from the oily manner she used to favour me with, though upon my word I think it’s an improvement. Can she be intending to try to pique me? No, she would never be so silly. Besides, they did not know I was coming to-night. I declare I believe she has got hold of some one else. How I pity the poor devil! All the same, from personal motives, I can’t refrain from wishing her success.” And half puzzled, half amused, he turned to his mother.
 
“How well you are looking, Ralph!” broke from her involuntarily. And it was very true. For all that he was tired and travel-stained, for he had come in to see his mother before changing his clothes, the young man certainly looked his very best. There was a healthy brown flush under his somewhat sallow skin, which improved him vastly, and showed to advantage the dark, rather too deep set eyes, whose colour I never could succeed in defining. His figure, always lithe and sinewy, seemed to have gained in vigour and erectness. He looked both taller and stronger; his whole carriage told of greater heartiness and elasticity, a quicker and healthier flow of the life-blood in his veins.
 
He looked pleased at the gratification involuntarily displayed in his mother’s tone, for till then her manner had chilled and perplexed him. She was more cordial than when he had left her, but she looked uneasy and depressed, and received him with the manner of one almost against her convictions, allowing to return to favour a but half-penitent culprit. Her “So you are back again, Ah, well!” had something rather piteous in its tone of reproach and resignation, but was, at the same time, exceedingly irritating. “Let bygones be bygones,” it seemed to say. “You have been an undutiful son, but I am the most magnanimous and long-suffering of mothers.” Underlying all this, however, was a different feeling, an evident anxiety as to his well-being, evinced by the heartiness of her exclamation as to his satisfactory looks. And besides this, he felt convinced she was concealing something which she believed would distress him; for, with all her worldly-mindedness and class prejudice, Lady Severn was the most transparent and honest-intentioned of women. He could not make it out, nor ask to have it explained; for, joined to his constitutional reserve, his mother and he were not, never had been, on such terms as to allow him frankly to beg her to confide to him the cause of her evident uneasiness. So they separated for the night. He, happy man, to forget all mysteries and misgivings in the thought of tomorrow’s meeting with Marion. Poor Ralph!
 
The morning came only too soon to dispel his dream. He did not see the children at breakfast as usual, and on expressing his surprise was told by his mother that they now breakfasted separately, as otherwise it made them too late for their lessons.
 
“Then does Miss Freer come earlier now?” was on his tongue to ask, but something in the air of satisfaction with which Florence was sipping her coffee, stopped his intention.
 
“I shall not mention my darling’s name before her,” he said to himself.
 
A few minutes later Lotty and Sybil ran in “just for one moment, Grandmamma,” clamorous in their welcome of their truant uncle. While they were still busy hugging Sir Ralph, the bell rang.
 
“Oh come, Lotty, do,” said Sybil the virtuous, “that will be Miss Brown.”
 
“Miss Brown,” quoth Ralph, in haste, “who the—who on earth is she?”
 
“Our governess, since Miss Freer left,” replied Lotty, (Sybil was as yet incapable of approaching the subject of Miss Freer’s departure without tears, and therefore was wise enough to leave the explanation to Lotty’s less sensitive tongue). “Didn’t you know, Uncle Ralph, that Miss Freer had left? She went away with Mrs. Archer, but she would have left off teaching us at any rate. Grandmamma thought she was not ‘inexperienced’ enough for us now we are getting so big. Not instructed enough, though she was very kind. Miss Brown plays far grander on the piano. You can hear her quite across the street. Just like the band on the Place. And she——.”
 
“Lotty,” said her grandmother sharply, “you talk much too fast. It is not for little girls like you to discuss their elders. Go now, both of you, at once, to Miss Brown, and be good girls.”
 
Lotty disappeared instantly. Sybil lingered one little short moment to kiss her uncle softly once more, and then followed her sister. What had the child-heart read of the sorrow, the sudden, sharp pang of bitter disappointment that thrilled through the strong man, in whom her innocence, she instinctively wished to comfort?
 
For once in his life Ralph felt thankful for Lotty’s tongue. Its chatter gave him an instant in which to recover himself, to rally his scattered forces and decide on his present course. Perfect silence! He was not in the habit of betraying his feelings, and certainly his powers of self-control must not fail him now, for the gratification of the heartless beauty at his mother’s board.
 
His first impulse had been to rise in the strength of his wrath and indignation, to have done, for once in a way, with conventional restrictions, and to hurl bitter, biting words at her, who in his inmost heart he believed to be the author of all this. It was well he did not do so. Florence was prepared for it, would have enjoyed it immensely, and would certainly have remained mistress of the field. His heroics would have been altogether out of place, as a very few minutes sufficed to show him, and would but have exposed himself and another to ridicule and derision. For what would Florence have answered? She had the words all ready.
 
“My dear Ralph, what do you mean? My dearest aunt, has your son gone out of his mind? How can I, of all people, be responsible for Mrs. Archer’s having been called to India to nurse her husband, or to the movements of the young lady visiting her? Truly, Sir Ralph, you must excuse me, but just ask yourself—why should I be supposed to take so extraordinary an interest in every young lady my aunt sees it to engage to teach your nieces? And still more, what possible reason could I have for supposing this particular young lady to be an object of interest to you? It is not usual, to say the least, for the gentleman of the house, to have an understanding with the governess?”
 
Which memorable speech however was never destined to be uttered.
 
Ralph thought better of it, and decided to nurse his wrath and keep his own counsel.
 
There is a great deal of nonsense spoken and written about truth, and truth tellers. The most exalted characters in a certain of class fiction can never bring themselves without a tremendous fuss, either to utter or act a falsehood, and if they ever attempt either, they are sure to bungle it: spite of themselves “their ingenuous nature betrays itself,” “their lips scorn to descend to the meanness,” &c. &c. It is not so in real life. I know of no persons who, when they are put to it, can tell a falsehood better, or act it more cleverly, than essentially truthful, because truth-loving natures. The reason, I fancy, lies somewhere in this direction. It takes some strength, some resolution, to do something they thoroughly dislike, and so they, having “gone for it,” feeling the necessity of the disagreeable action, do it to the best of their ability, set their shoulder to the wheel and go through with it with a will. This is how, to my experience, really thorough people tell stories!
 
Ralph did his bit of falsity very neatly. All the same, alas, Florence saw through it! He di............