Chapter XXIII: Cecil's Jealousy

A husband's jealousy, which cunning men would pass upon their wives for a compliment, is the worst can be made them; for indeed it is a compliment to their beauty, but an affront to their honour.

WYCHERLEY: _The Gentleman Dancing Master._

The captain had just sealed his letter when he saw Cecil leave the hotel alone. He determined to profit by the opportunity, and seek Blanche. He found her writing.

As she recognised him, she gave a low scream, and then springing up, exclaimed:--

"Is my father with you? Oh! intercede for us. Gain his consent."

"I am alone, Blanche."

"Alone?"

"I came with you from Wytton. The same carriage brought us both; you rode inside, and I behind."

"What! .... is .... what! are you going to....?"

"To watch over you, dear Blanche, as a brother would. To _force_ him to marry you."

"Force! why, what do you mean? Cecil is but this instant gone for the license."

"Are you _sure_ of that?"

"Sure? _He_ said so; and shall I doubt his word?"

"Why then did he bring you here? Why did he not take you to Gretna?"

"Because he feared we might be pursued, and they would be sure to follow that route."

"Hm! Yes, it is possible. And _till_ you are married?"

"I am to stay with an old lady--a relation of his. He will prepare her to receive me this morning."

He sighed. So strange is human nature, that the idea of Cecil behaving delicately and honourably in the transaction, was at first a disappointment and an additional grief to him! He could not bear to think his rival less contemptible than he had held him to be, nor could he with pleasure find that his own services were not needed. Blanche wanted no protector. Nevertheless, partly out of a lingering suspicion that all would not go on so smoothly as it promised, and partly from the very want he felt to consider himself of some use to his beloved Blanche, he refused entirely to credit her statement of Cecil's intentions, and declared that he would remain to watch.

"At any rate, allow me to give you away," he said, "I shall then be sure that all is right. Can you refuse me?"

She held out her hand to him by way of answer. He raised it respectfully to his lips, gazed sorrowfully at her, and withdrew.

When Cecil returned, and learned from her that the captain was in the same hotel, that he had seen Blanche, and that she had consented to his giving her away, he stormed with rage.

"Heath again! Is the viper always to be in my path, and imagine I shall not crush him at last? What is the meaning of his thrusting himself between us?" he asked her, with great fierceness. "What the devil is at the bottom of it? What makes him so anxious to have you married? I am a beggar, and he knows it; yet first one thing, then the other, he has nothing but schemes to make me marry you. Wanted me to be a quill-driver, that I might be rich enough to marry. Marry, marry, marry! By God! there is something in it which I will discover."

"Cecil, dearest Cecil, you terrify me!"

He paced angrily up and down the room, without attending to her. A horrible suspicion had taken possession of his mind: he thought that Captain Heath had not only been her lover, but that his passion had been returned, and that it was to conceal the consequences of their guilty love that a marriage with any one seemed so desirable.

"I see it all," he said to himself, as he strode about the room; "they have selected me as their gull. It is a collusion. From whom, but from her, should he have known we had taken that moonlight stroll in the shrubbery? Why should he take upon himself the office of sentinel? Why offer me a situation? Why follow us up to town? How should he know we were to elope? Why should he, in God's name, be anxious to have her married, when it is quite clear he loves her, or has loved her, himself? He owned it last night--owned that he loved her! I do believe, when he carried off the ladder, he knew I was in the room, and adopted that mode of making me irretrievably commit myself.--But it is not too late.--We are not married yet!"

How curiously passion colours facts! No one will say that Cecil had not what is called abundant "evidence" for his suspicion, and the evidence was coherent enough to justify to his own mind all that he thought. It is constantly so in life. We set out with a presumption, and all the "facts" fit in so well with the presumption, that we forget it is after all not the _facts_, but the _interpretation_ which is the important thing we seek and instead of seeking this we have begun by assuming it; whereas had we assumed some other interpretation, we should perhaps have found the facts quite as significant, although the second interpretation would be diametrically opposed to the former.

Had Cecil, instead of seeking for corroborative facts to pamper his own irritable jealousy, just asked himself whether the characters of Blanche and the captain were not quite sufficient of themselves to throw discredit on any suspicion of the kind--whether, indeed, he ought to entertain such an idea of such persons, unless overwhelmed by the most clear, precise, unequivocal evidence--he would have saved himself all the tortures of jealousy, and would not have desecrated the worship of his love by thoughts so debasing and so odious.

Blanche, perfectly bewildered, sat silent and trembling, keeping her eyes fixed upon the strangely altered bearing of her lover.

Stopping from his agitated walk, he suddenly stood still, folded his arms, gazed at her with quiet fierceness, and said,--

"As Captain Heath takes so much interest in, you, perhaps he will have no objection to escort you back to your father."

"Cecil! ... Cecil! ... In Heaven's name, what do you mean?" she said, half rising from her chair; but afraid to trust her trembling limbs, she sank back again, and looked at him in helpless astonishment.

"My meaning is very plain, very," he said, with intense coldness. "You are free to return to your family, or not to return, if you prefer remaining with Captain Heath. Perhaps," he added sarcastically, "as he is so partial to marriage, he will marry you himself."

She strove to speak, but a choking sensation at the throat prevented her. She saw him leave the room without having strength to recall him, without ever making a motion to prevent him.

In mute despair, she heard his heavy tread upon the stairs, and like a person stunned, felt no command of her faculties, scarcely felt anything beyond a stupid bewildering prostration of the soul.

With flushed face and heated brain, Cecil rushed into the street, and wandered distractedly away. The fresh air somewhat cooled his burning brow, and the exercise gradually enabled him to recover his self-possession. He began to doubt whether he had not been rash in his suspicions.

"It is quite true that Heath has taken a most extraordinary part in the whole affair; but I remember now, that, during our interview in my room, he seemed by no means anxious I should marry her; indeed I taunted him with wishing to get me out of the way. He offered me the secretaryship to enable me to marry, and when I refused that he set his face against ... I have been an ass! ...

"And yet his conduct is inexplicable. He loves her, and she knows it.... What a web entangles me! ... I will return and question her; she cannot deceive me ... she is not altogether lost ... I will try her."

With this purpose he returned.

Meanwhile, Captain Heath had found Blanche weeping bitterly, under the degrading accusation of Cecil's jealousy; and having extorted from her some incoherent sentences, which made him aware of what had passed, he said, "My dear Blanche, I am going to bid you have courage for an act of fortitude. You must struggle with yourself--you must reason calmly for a moment."

"Oh, tell me, tell me what to do. How shall I eradicate his suspicions?"

"You cannot do it. In one so weak and capricious--one who could think so unworthily of you, and upon such ridiculous appearances--jealousy is incurable. It will bring endless misery upon you. It will destroy all love, all confidence. If he suspects you already, what is to secure you from his suspicions hereafter? Blanche, you must quit this. Return with me to your father's; he will receive you kindly."

"No, no, no," sobbed the unhappy girl.

"Yes, Blanche. It is a hard alternative, but it is the best. You ought to rejoice in his injustice, because it displays him in his true colours. He tells you what you have to expect."

"I love him."

"Alas! I know it; but you see how he repays your love."

She only sobbed in answer.

"He will make you miserable for ever. Now, before the irrevocable step is taken, release yourself from such a fate: return with me."

She wept, but could not speak.

Heath's arguments at last prevailed; and, in a tone of terrible despair, she exclaimed, "Take me home, then."

A flash of joy passed over his sad face as he heard this heart-broken phrase, which assured him that, however his beloved Blanche might suffer at first, she was at least saved from the certain misery of becoming the wife of Cecil Chamberlayne.

On reaching the hotel, Cecil ran rapidly up stairs, and on the first landing stood aghast, at seeing Blanche coming down, leaning on the captain's arm. She was weeping, and her face was hidden by the handkerchief with which she wiped her eyes.

"Where are you taking her?" Cecil fiercely asked.

"Home," was the stern reply.

"Home! Whose home? yours?"

"To her father."

"And by whose authority?" he said, in a low, hoarse, almost suffocated voice.

"Her own," was the crushing answer.

They passed on.

Cecil, amazed, bewildered, could merely utter, in a tone of sad and reproachful inquiry, "Blanche!"

A stifled, agonizing sob burst from her; but clinging closer to her protector, she hurried him on.

Cecil leaned against the banister for support. As Blanche reached the bottom of the stairs, she could not resist giving a parting look; and the anguish of the face which then met her eye so completely changed her feelings, that, forgetting all Captain Heath had said, she flew up the stairs and threw herself into Cecil's arms, exclaiming, "My own beloved, you will not send me from you?"

He pressed her frantically to his heart, and carried her back to their apartment.

Captain Heath's face was contracted by a fearful spasm as he slowly sought his own room. Once more were his hopes crushed; once more had he to renounce the visions of exquisite bliss which filled his soul. On the point of for ever separating Blanche from her unworthy lover, as he had imagined, and with the opening which that separation made for his own future prospects, he now again saw that the struggle was useless, and that Blanche was irretrievably lost to him.