A Tête-à-Tête and a Discovery In little more than twenty minutes, the journey was accomplished. I paused at the gate to wipe my streaming forehead, and recover my breath and some degree of composure. Already the rapid walking had somewhat mitigated my excitement; and with a firm and steady tread, I paced the garden walk.
In passing the inhabited wing of the building, I caught a sight of Mrs Graham through the open window, slowly pacing up and down her lonely room.
She seemed agitated, and even dismayed, at my arrival, as if she thought I too was coming to accuse her. I had entered her presence intending to condole with her upon the wickedness of the world, and help her to abuse the vicar and his vile informants, but now I felt positively ashamed to mention the subject, and determined not to refer to it, unless she led the way.
`I am come at an unseasonable hour,' said I, assuming a cheerfulness I did not feel, in order to reassure her; `but I won't stay many minutes.'
She smiled upon me, faintly it is true, but most kindly--I had almost said thankfully, as her apprehensions were removed.
`How dismal you are, Helen! Why have you no fire?' I said, looking round on the gloomy apartment.
`It is summer yet,' she replied.
`But we always have a fire in the evenings--if we can bear it;--and you, especially, require one in this cold house and dreary room.
`You should have come a little sooner, and I would have had one lighted for you; but it is not worth while now--you won't stay many minutes, you say, and Arthur is gone to bed.'
`But I have a fancy for a fire, nevertheless. Will you order one, if I ring?'
`Why Gilbert, you don't look cold!' said she, smilingly regarding my face, which no doubt seemed warm enough.
`No,' replied I, `but I want to see you comfortable before I go.'
`Me comfortable!' repeated she, with a bitter laugh, as if there were something amusingly absurd in the idea. `It suits me better as it is,' she added, in a tone of mournful resignation.
But determined to have my own way, I pulled the bell.
`There now, Helen!' I said, as the approaching steps of Rachel were heard in answer to the summons. There was nothing for it but to turn round and desire the maid to light the fire.
I owe Rachel a grudge to this day for the look she cast upon me ere she departed on her mission--the sour, suspicious, inquisitorial look that plainly demanded, `What are you here for, I wonder?' Her mistress did not fail to notice it, and a shade of uneasiness darkened her brow.
`You must not stay long, Gilbert,' said she, when the door was closed upon us.
`I'm not going to,' said I, somewhat testily, though without a grain of anger in my heart against anyone but the meddling old woman. `But Helen, I've something to say to you before I go.'
`What is it?'
`No, not now--I don't know yet precisely what it is--or how to say it,' replied I, with more truth than wisdom; and then, fearing lest she should turn me out of the house, I began talking about indifferent matters in order to gain time. Meanwhile Rachel came in to kindle the fire, which was soon effected by thrusting a red-hot poker between the bars of the grate, where the fuel was already disposed for ignition. She honoured me with another of her hard, inhospitable looks in departing, but, little moved thereby, I went on talking; and setting a chair for Mrs Graham on one side of the hearth and one for myself on the other, I ventured to sit down, though half suspecting she would rather see me go.
In a little while we both relapsed into silence, and continued for several minutes gazing abstractedly into the fire--she intent upon her own sad thoughts, and I reflecting how delightful it would be to be seated thus beside her with no other presence to restrain our intercourse--not even that of Arthur, our mutual friend, without whom we had never met before--if only I could venture to speak my mind, and disburden my full heart of the feelings that had so long oppressed it, and witch it now struggled to retain, with an effort that it seemed impossible to continue much longer,--and revolving the pros and cons for opening my heart to her there and then, and imploring a return of affection, the permission to regard her thenceforth as my own, and the right and the power to defend her from the calumnies of malicious tongues. On the one hand, I felt a new-born confidence in my powers of persuasion--a strong conviction that my own fervour of spirit would grant me eloquence--that my very determination--the absolute necessity for succeeding that I felt--must win me what I sought; while on the other, I feared to lose the ground I had already gained with so much toil and skill, and destroy all future hope by one rash effort, when time and patience might have won success. It was like setting my life upon the cast of a die; and yet I was ready to resolve upon the attempt. At any rate I would entreat the explanation she had half promised to give me before: I would demand the reason of this hateful barrier, this mysterious impediment to my happiness and, as I trusted, to her own.
But while I considered in what manner I could best frame my request, my companion wakened from her reverie with a scarcely audible sigh, and looking towards the window where the blood-red harvest moon, just rising over one of the grim, fantastic ever-greens, was shining in upon us, said,--`Gilbert, it is getting late.'
`I see,' said I. `You want me to go,I suppose.'
`I think you ought. If my kind neighbours get to know of this visit--as no doubt they will--they will not turn it much to my advantage'
It was with what the vicar would doubtless have called a savage sort of a smile that she said this.
`Let them turn it as they will,' said I. `What are their thoughts to you or me, so long as we are satisfied with ourselves--and each other.
Let them go to the deuce with their vile constructions and their lying inventions!'
This outburst brought a flush of colour to her face.
`You have heard, then, what they say of me?'