CHAPTER XLIX

"My brother tells me it is your wish to see Mr. Wilfrid Pole."

Emilia's "Yes" came faintly in answer to Georgiana's cold accents.

"Have you considered what you are doing in expressing such a desire?"

Another "Yes" was heard from under an uplifted head:--a culprit

affirmative, whereat the just take fire.

"Be honest, Emilia. Seek counsel and guidance to-night, as you have done

before with me, and profited, I think. If I write to bid him come, what

will it mean?"

"Nothing more," breathed Emilia.

"To him--for in his way he seems to care for you fitfully--it will

mean--stop! hear me. The words you speak will have no part of the

meaning, even if you restrain your tongue. To him it will imply that his

power over you is unaltered. I suppose that the task of making you

perceive the effect it really will have on you is hopeless."

"I have seen him, and I know," said Emilia, in a corresponding tone.

"You saw him that night of our return from Penarvon? Judge of him by

that. He would not spare you. To gratify I know not what wildness in his

nature, he did not hesitate to open your old wound. And to what purpose?

A freak of passion!"

"He could not help it. I told him he would come, and he came."

"This, possibly, you call love; do you not?"

Emilia was about to utter a plain affirmative, but it was checked. The

novelty of the idea of its not being love arrested her imagination.

"If he comes to you here," resumed Georgiana--

"He must come!" cried Emilia.

"My brother has sanctioned it, so his coming or not will rest with him.

If he comes, let me know the good that you think will result from an

interview? Ah! you have not weighed that question. Do so;--or you give no

heed to it? In any ease, try to look into your own breast. You were not

born to live unworthily. You can be, or will be, if you follow your

better star, self-denying and noble. Do you not love your country? Judge

of this love by that. Your love, if you have this power over him, is

merely a madness to him; and his--what has it done for you? If he comes,

and this begins again, there will be a similar if not the same destiny

for you."

Emilia panted in her reply. "No; it will not begin again." She threw out

both arms, shaking her head. "It cannot, I know. What am I now? It is

what I was that he loves. He will not know what I am till he sees me. And

I know that I have done things that he cannot forgive. You have forgiven

it, and Merthyr, because he is my friend; but I am sure Wilfrid will not.

He might pardon the poor 'me,' but not his Emilia! I shall have to tell

him what I did; so" (and she came closer to Georgiana) "there is some

pain for me in seeing him."

Georgiana was not proof against this simplicity of speech, backed by a

little dying dimple, which seemed a continuation of the plain sadness of

Emilia's tone.

She said, "My poor child!" almost fondly, and then Emilia looked in her

face, murmuring, "You sometimes doubt me."

"Not your truth, but the accuracy of your perceptions and your knowledge

of your real designs. You are certainly deceiving yourself at this

instant. In the first place, the relation of that madness--no, poor

child, not wickedness--but if you tell it to him, it is a wilful and

unnecessary self-abasement. If he is to be your husband, unburden your

heart at once. Otherwise, why? why? You are but working up a scene,

provoking needless excesses: you are storing misery in retrospect, or

wretchedness to be endured. Had you the habit of prayer! By degrees it

will give you the thirst for purity, and that makes you a fountain of

prayer, in whom these blind deceits cannot hide."

Georgiana paused emphatically; as when, by our unrolling out of our

ideas, we have more thoroughly convinced ourselves.

"You pray to heaven," said Emilia, and then faltered, and blushed. "I

must be loved!" she cried. "Will you not put your arms round me?"

Georgiana drew her to her bosom, bidding her continue. Emilia lay

whispering under her chin. "You pray, and you wish to be seen as you are,

do you not? You do. Well, if you knew what love is, you would see it is

the same. You wish him to see and know you: you wish to be sure that he

loves nothing but exactly you; it must be yourself. You are jealous of

his loving an idea of you that is not you. You think, 'He will wake up

and find his mistake;' or you think, 'That kiss was not intended for me;

not for me as I am.' Those are tortures!"

Her discipline had transformed her, when she could utter such sentiments

as these!

Feeling her shudder, and not knowing how imagination forestalls

experience in passionate blood, Georgiana said, "You speak like one who

has undergone them. But now at least you have thrown off the mask. You

love him still, this man! And with as little strength of will! Do you not

see impiety in the comparison you have made?"

"Oh! what I see is, that I wish I could say to him, 'Look on me, for I

need not be ashamed--I am like Miss Ford!'"

The young lady's cheeks took fire, and the clear path of speech becoming

confused in her head she said, "Miss Ford?"

"Georgiana," said Emilia, and feeling that her friend's cold manner had

melted; "Georgey! my beloved! my darling in Italy, where will we go! I

envy no woman but you who have seen my dear ones fight. You and I, and

Merthyr! Nothing but Austrian shot shall part us."

"And so we make up a pretty dream!" interjected Georgiana. "The Austrian

shot, I think, will be fired by one who is now in the Austrian service,

or who will soon be."

"Wilfrid?" Emilia called out. "No; that is what I am going to stop. Why

did I not tell you so at first? But I never know what I say or do when I

am with you, and everything seems chance. I want to see him to prevent

him from doing that. I can."

"Why should you?" asked Georgiana; and one to whom the faces of the two

had been displayed at that moment would have pronounced them a hostile

couple.

"Why should I prevent him?" Emilia doled out the question slowly, and

gave herself no further thought of replying to it.

Apparently Georgiana understood the significance of this odd silence: she

was perhaps touched by it. She said, "You feel that you have a power over

him. You wish to exercise it. Never mind wherefore. If you do--if you

try, and succeed--if, by the aid of this love presupposed to exist, you

win him to what you require of him--do you honestly think the love is

then immediately to be dropped?"

Emilia meditated. She caught up her voice hastily. "I think so. Yes. I

hope so. I mean it to be."

"With a noble lover, Emilia. Not with a selfish one. In showing him the

belief you have in your power over him, you betray that he has power over

you. And it is to no object. His family, his position, his prospects--all

tell you that he cannot marry you if he would. And he is, besides,

engaged--"

"Let her suffer!" Emilia's eyes flashed.

"Ah!" and Georgiana thought, "Have I come upon your nature at last?"

However it might be, Emilia was determined to show it.

"She took my lover from me, and I say, let her suffer! I would not hurt

her myself--I would not lay my finger on her: but she has eyes like blue

stones, and such a mouth!--I think the Austrian executioner has one like

it. If she suffers, and goes all dark as I did, she will show a better

face. Let her keep my lover. He is not mine, but he was; and she took him

from me. That woman cannot feed on him as I did. I know she has no hunger

for love. He will look at those blue bits of ice, and think of me. I told

him so. Did I not tell him that in Devon? I saw her eyelids move as fast

as I spoke. I think I look on Winter when I see her lips. Poor, wretched

Wilfrid!"

Emilia half-sobbed this exclamation out. "I don't wish to hurt either of

them," she added, with a smile of such abrupt opposition to her words

that Georgiana was in perplexity. A lady who has assumed the office of

lecturer, will, in such a frame of mind, lecture on, if merely to

vindicate to herself her own preconceptions. Georgiana laid her finger

severely upon Wilfrid's manifest faults; and, in fine, she spoke a great

deal of the common sense that the situation demanded. Nevertheless,

Emilia held to her scheme. But, in the meantime, Georgiana had seen more

clearly into the girl's heart; and she had been won, also, by a natural

gracefulness that she now perceived in her, and which led her to think,

"Is Merthyr again to show me that he never errs in his judgement?" An

unaccountable movement of tenderness to Emilia made her drop a few kisses

on her forehead. Emilia shut her eyes, waiting for more. Then she looked

up, and said, "Have you felt this love for me very long?" at which the

puny flame, scarce visible, sprang up, and warmed to a great heat.

"My own Emilia! Sandra! listen to me: promise me not to seek this

interview."

"Will you always love me as much?" Emilia bargained.

"Yes, yes; I never vary. It is my love for you that begs you."

Emilia fell into a chair and propped her head behind both hands, tapping

the floor briskly with her feet. Georgiana watched the conflict going on.

To decide it promptly, she said: "And not only shall I love you thrice as

well, but my brother Merthyr, whom you call your friend--he will--he

cannot love you better; but he will feel you to be worthy the best love

he can give. There is a heart, you simple girl! He loves you, and has

never shown any of the pain your conduct has given him. When I say he

loves you, I tell you his one weakness--the only one I have discovered.

And judge whether, he has shown want of self-control while you were dying

for another. Did he attempt to thwart you? No; to strengthen you; and

never once to turn your attention to himself. That is love. Now, think of

what anguish you have made him pass through: and think whether you have

ever witnessed an alteration of kindness in his face toward you. Even

now, when he had the hope that you were cured of your foolish fruitless

affection for a man who merely played with you, and cannot give up the

habit, even now he hides what he feels--"

So far Emilia let her speak without interruption; but gradually awakening

to the meaning of the words:--

"For me?" she cried.

"Yes; for you."

"The same sort of love as Wilfrid feels?"

"By no means the same sort; but the love of man for woman."

"And he saw me when I was that wretched heap? And he knows everything!

and loves me. He has never kissed me."

"Does that miserable test--?" Georgiana was asking.

"Pardon, pardon," said Emilia penitently; "I know that is almost nothing,

now. I am not a child. I spoke from a sudden feeling. For if he loves me,

how--! Oh, Merthyr! what a little creature I seem. I cannot understand

it. I lose a brother. And he was such a certainty to me. What did he

love--what did he love, that night he found me on the pier? I looked like

a creature picked off a mud-bank. I felt like a worm, and miserably

abandoned, I was a shameful sight. Oh! how can I look on Merthyr's face

again?"

In these interjections Georgiana did not observe the proper humility and

abject gratitude of a young person who had heard that she was selected by

a prince of the earth. A sort of 'Eastern handmaid' prostration, with

joined hands, and, above all things, a closed mouth, the lady desired.

She half regretted the revelation she had made; and to be sure at once

that she had reaped some practical good, she said: "I need scarce ask you

whether you have come to a right decision upon that other question."

"To see Wilfrid?" said Emilia. She appeared to pause musingly, and then

turned to Georgiana, showing happy features; "Yes: I shall see him. I

must see him. Let him know he is to come immediately."

"That is your decision."

"Yes."

"After what I have told you?"

"Oh, yes; yes! Write the letter."

Georgiana chid at an internal wrath that struggled to win her lips.

"Promise me simply that what I have told you of my brother, you will

consider yourself bound to keep secret. You will not speak of it to

others, nor to him."

Emilia gave the promise, but with the thought; "To him?--will not he

speak of it?"

"So, then, I am to write this letter?" said Georgiana.

"Do, do; at once!" Emilia put on her sweetest look to plead for it.

"Decidedly the wisest of men are fools in this matter," Georgiana's

reflection swam upon her anger.

"And dearest! my Georgey!" Emilia insisted on being blunt to the outward

indications to which she was commonly so sensitive and reflective; "my

Georgey! let me be alone this evening in my bedroom. The little Madre

comes, and--and I haven't the habit of being respectful to her. And, I

must be alone! Do not send up for me, whoever wishes it."

Georgiana could not stop her tongue: "Not if Mr. Wilfrid Pole--?"

"Oh, he! I will see him," said Emilia; and Georgiana went from her

straightway.