The Child Wife

The child sate silent, her body bent, her arms crossed over her knees, her head drooping low between them.

“I need not tell you, either,” continued Sir George, “that I overheard what passed between you and – ”

Another pause, as if he hated to pronounce the name.

“This stranger, who has entered my house like a thief and a villain.”

In the drooping form before him there was just perceptible the slightest start, followed by a tinge of red upon her cheek, and a shivering throughout her frame.

She said nothing, though it was plain the speech had given pain to her.

“I know not what words may have been exchanged between you before. Enough what I heard last night – enough to have broken my heart.”

“O father!”

“’Tis true, my child! You know how carefully I’ve brought you up, how tenderly I’ve cherished, how dearly I love you!”

“O father!”

“Yes, Blanche; you’ve been to me all your mother was; the only thing on earth I had to care for, or who cared for me. And this to arise – to blight all my fond expectations – I could not have believed it?”

The young girl’s bosom rose and fell in convulsive undulations, while big tear-drops ran coursing down her cheeks, like a spring shower from the blue canopy of heaven.

“Father, forgive me! You will forgive me!” were the words to which she gave utterance – not in continued speech, but interrupted by spasmodic sobbing.

“Tell me,” said he, without responding to the passionate appeal. “There is something I wish to know – something more. Did you speak to – to Captain Maynard – last night, after – ”

“After when, papa?”

“After parting from him outside, under the tree?”

“No, father, I did not.”

“But you wrote to him?”

The cheek of Blanche Vernon, again pale, suddenly became flushed to the colour of carmine. It rose almost to the blue irides of her eyes, still glistening with tears.

Before, it had been a flush of indignation. Now it was the blush of shame. What her father had seen and heard under the deodara, if a sin, was not one for which she felt herself accountable. She had but followed the promptings of her innocent heart, benighted by the noblest passion of her nature.

What she had done since was an action she could have controlled. She was conscious of disobedience, and this was to be conscious of having committed crime. She did not attempt to deny it. She only hesitated through surprise at the question.

“You wrote a note to him?” said her father, repeating it with a slight alteration in the form.

“I did.”

“I will not insist on knowing what was in it. From your candour, my child, I’m sure you would tell me. I only ask you to promise that you will not write to him again.”

“O father!”

“That you will neither write to him, nor see him.”

“O father!”

“On this I insist. But not with the authority I have over you. I have no faith in that. I ask it of you as a favour. I ask it on my knees, as your father, your dearest friend. Full well, my child, do I know your honourable nature; and that if given, it will be kept. Promise me, then, that you will neither write to nor see him again!”

Once more the young girl sobbed convulsively. Her own father – her proud father at her feet as an intercessor! No wonder she wept.

And with the thought of for ever, and by one single word, cutting herself off from all communication with the man she loved – the man who had saved her life only to make it for ever after unhappy!

No wonder she hesitated. No wonder that for a time her heart balanced between duty and love – between parent and lover!

“Dear, dear child!” pursued her father, in a tone of appealing tenderness, “promise you will never know him more – without my permission.”

Was it the agonised accents that moved her? Was it some vague hope, drawn from the condition with which the appeal was concluded?

Whether or no, she gave the promise, though to pronounce it was like splitting her heart in twain.

Chapter Sixty Five.

Spies

The friendship between Kossuth and Captain Maynard was of no common character. It had not sprung out of a mere chance acquaintance, but from circumstances calculated to cause mutual respect and admiration.

In Maynard, the illustrious Magyar saw a man like himself – devoted heart and soul to the cause of liberty.

True, he had as yet done little for it. But this did not negative his intention, fixed and fearless. Kossuth knew he had ventured out into the storm to shake a hand with, and draw a sword in, his defence. Too late for the battle-field, he had since defended him with his pen; and in the darkest hour of his exile, when others stood aloof.

In Kossuth, Maynard recognised one of the “great ones of the world” – great not only in deeds and thoughts, but in all the Divine attributes of humanity – in short, goodly great.

It was in contemplating Kossuth’s character, he first discovered the falsity of the trite phrase, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” Like most proverbs, true only when applied to ordinary men and things. The reverse with men truly great.

To his own valet Kossuth would have been a hero. Much more was he one in the eyes of his friend.

The more Maynard knew of him, the more intimate their relationship became, the less was he able to restrain his admiration.

He had grown not only to admire, but love him; and would have done for him any service consistent with honour. Kossuth was not the man to require more. Maynard was witness to the pangs of his exile, and sympathised with him as a son, or brother. He felt indignant at the scurvy treatment he was receiving, and from a people boastful of its hospitality!

This indignation reached its highest, when on a certain day Kossuth, standing in his studio, called his attention to a house on the opposite side of the street, telling him it was inhabited by spies.

“Spies! What kind of spies?”

“Political, I suppose we may call them.”

“My dear Governor, you must be mistaken! We have no such thing in England. It would not be permitted for a moment – that is, if known to the English people.”

It was Maynard himself who was mistaken. He was but echoing the popular boast and belief of the day.

There were political spies for all that; though it was the supposed era of their first introduction, and the thing was not known. It became so afterward; and was permitted by this people – silently acquiesced in by John Bull, according to his custom when any such encroachment is made – so long as it does not increase the tax upon his beer.