Ellen Middleton—A Tale

CHAPTER XV

One morning, after we had been a few days at Hampstead, I felt the greatest wish to slip quietly out of the house and stroll about alone for an hour or two. I had been in the habit of doing so at Elmsley, and I found nothing so effectual as this in subduing agitation, and recalling my mind to a state of composure. After making the tour of the grounds, walking round the lake, and dawdling some time in the shrubberies, I opened a small gate into a lane which led towards the common. This lane was scarcely wider than a path, and was only divided from the grounds of the villa by a ditch and a slight railing. I was intently occupied in examining an ant's nest, and the various evolutions performed by its black citizens on the sudden fall of a snail among them, which had dropt off a branch of dog-roses while I was gathering it, when all at once a sound as of many people running, joined to loud cries and vociferations, caught my ear. There was something ominous in the noise, and my heart beat quick as I looked with a mixture of fear and curiosity towards the end of the lane which opened on the heath. The noise increased; and suddenly round the corner and into the lane dashed a dog, followed by several men armed with pitchforks, and shouting. The appalling cry of "A mad dog! a mad dog!" struck distinctly upon my ears, and brought a deadly faintness over my limbs, and a cold sweat on my forehead. I tried to run, and my strength utterly failed me. I tried to scream and could not. The animal was coming nearer and nearer. I clung to the railing; the shouts grew louder: "Get out of the way! – a mad dog! – get out of the way!" Two more seconds, and the beast would have been upon me, with swollen tongue, glaring eye, and foaming mouth, when, quick as lightning, across the ditch, and over the railing, sprang Edward, with a face as pale as a sheet, and almost convulsed with terror. The dog was close to me; he seized it, flung it across the hedge into a pond on the other side, and dragged me to the grounds, and up to a bank, on which he placed me. For a moment I closed my eyes, overpowered by the terror I had felt, and the sense of escape from it; but I heard Edward murmur, in a tone of anguish, "Good God, what shall I do?" I opened my eyes and looked up into his face; it was so dreadfully pale that I exclaimed, "You are ill, very ill; for God's sake sit down."

"No," he answered, "no; now that you are better, it is all right; I will go home and send somebody to you."

"I can go now," I said; "I can walk." But what was it I saw at that moment on the ground before me? There were spots of blood on the gravel! There was blood on Edward's sleeve! Sudden as the flash that rends the skies, as the bolt that blasts the oak, the truth burst upon me! I neither shrieked nor swooned; the very excess of anguish made me calm. On Edward's hand was the fatal scar. I seized his arm, and so quickly and suddenly, that he neither foresaw nor could prevent the act. I pressed my lips to it, and sucked the poisoned blood from the wound. When he tried to draw his hand from my grasp, I clung to it and retained it with the strength which nothing but love and terror can give.

When, at last, by a violent effort he disengaged it, I fell on my knees before him, and clinging to his feet, in words which I cannot write, with passion which no words can describe, I implored him by that love which had been the torture and the joy of my life, its bane and its glory, to yield again his hand to me that I might save his life as he had saved mine. As he still refused, still struggled to get away, I seized on the blood-stained handkerchief with which I wiped my mouth, and eagerly clasping it to my bosom I exclaimed, "This, if you leave me, shall make me run the same risks as yourself. If there is poison in this blood it shall mingle with mine."

An expression of intense emotion passed over Edward's face in a moment, and his resolution suddenly changed. He sat down on the bench and held out his hand to me. "Do what you will," he said. "Nothing but death shall part us now."

There was such thrilling tenderness, such intense feeling in these few words, such belief in me, that, as I sank on my knees by his side, and pressed my lips again on that hand, now passive in my grasp, while with the other he supported me as I knelt; as he fixed his eyes in silent but ardent affection on mine, there was such a suspension in my soul of everything but deep, boundless, inexpressible love, which thrilled through every nerve, and absorbed every faculty, that I could have wished to die in that state of blissful abstraction…

The blood had ceased to flow; the task of love was over, and still I knelt by Edward's side; still his arm supported my head; still he murmured words of tenderness in my ear – when we were roused by the sudden approach of Mr. Middleton, who, having heard of the pursuit, and of the death of a mad dog in the immediate vicinity of the grounds, had been anxiously looking out for me. I started hastily from my kneeling position, but Edward still kept his arm round me; and turning to my uncle he gave him, in a few words, an account of what had occurred, of my danger, of his agony, when, from the fishing-house, he saw the imminence of that danger, of my escape through his means, of the bite which he had received as he seized on the dog, and of the manner in which I had drawn the poison from the wound. "She has done by me," he said with a voice which trembled with emotion; "she has done by me what Queen Eleanor did by her husband; but when I suffered her to do so, she had confessed what makes me happier, on this day of terror and anxiety, than I have ever been on any other day of my life. Wish me joy, Mr. Middleton, of the dearest, of the tenderest, of the most courageous, as well as of the loveliest bride that ever man was blest with."

As Edward finished these words, his arms drew me closer to him, and he kissed my cheek, which had grown, during the last few seconds, as pale as it had been crimson a moment before; and it was not love that now blanched my cheek, and made me tremble in a way which made the support of Edward's arm a matter of necessity. It was not the emotion of happiness that kept me as silent as the grave, when Mr. Middleton fondly kissed me, and blessed me for what I had done, and for what I had acknowledged. My uneasiness grew so evident that both my uncle and Edward were suddenly struck with the same fear. It occurred to them both, at the same time, that I was ill from the terror I had undergone, and the exertion I had made; both led me towards the house with anxious solicitude, and with the tenderest care. A change had come over Edward's manner; he too looked dreadfully ill, and the nervous tension of his usually calm features was painful to see. They carried me up to my room, and when I was laid on the bed, Mrs. Middleton's dear voice and tender kisses occasioned me a burst of crying, which relieved the intolerable oppression under which I was labouring. My uncle took Edward almost by force out of the room, and Mrs. Middleton followed them, after placing my maid by my bed-side. She returned in a few moments, and by the direction of the doctor, who had been sent for, she gave me a nervous draught, and kept me as quiet as possible. I grew calmer, but my tears continued to flow in silence. I did not see my way before me; it seemed to me that suddenly, involuntarily, almost unconsciously, I had become pledged to Edward, that our engagement might at any moment be proclaimed to the world, and the dreadful results which I knew would follow, stared me in the face; and yet how to retract – what to say – what to do, was a difficulty which I saw no means of surmounting, and every kind of congratulatory whisper of Mrs. Middleton, which was meant to soothe and gratify me, threw me into inexpressible agitation, as it showed me that Edward, my uncle, and herself, considered me as much pledged to him, and our marriage as much the natural result of the acknowledgment, which in that hour of anguish and of terror had escaped from me, as if the settlements had been signed and the wedding-day named.

Towards evening I fancied that I saw on Mrs. Middleton's countenance an expression of uneasiness, as she came into my room; and, with trembling anxiety, I asked her how Edward was.

"He is not well; but nothing to make us uneasy," she added, as she observed the look of terror in my face. "What you so courageously did, dear child, and the subsequent searing of the scar, which, as a measure of further precaution, was done, have entirely secured him from any danger of that dreadful kind; but the exertion, the agitation, and the operation itself, which was very painful, have brought on some fever, which it will require care and prudence to subdue."

This new anxiety diverted my thoughts, for the time, from the difficulties of my own position, and I roused and exerted myself in order to be allowed to leave my room, the solitude of which I dreaded in my present state of restless excitement; but society seemed to me still more trying when I had to encounter it. I could hardly bear to hear the occurrences of the day discussed. Everybody was informed of what I had done; and the praises which were bestowed on my courage and presence of mind, were uttered with smiles and tones which proved to me, that if they were not aware of all the circumstances of the case, it was at least sufficiently evident that the feelings which had prompted me at the moment had been attributed to their true cause. Rosa, especially, tormented me by allusions and playful attacks, which I could hardly bear with patience; and at last I showed my annoyance in so marked a manner, that she abstained from any farther reference to the subject.

Later in the evening, when the doctor came again, he found Edward's fever much increased; and when this intelligence was brought to the drawing-room, Rosa showed true and warm sympathy in the anxiety which I could no longer conceal.

A few minutes afterwards, Mrs. Middleton beckoned me out of the room, and told me that Edward was in a state of intense nervous irritation, which was the more extraordinary, from its contrast with his usual calm and quiet disposition. "He is quite unlike himself," she continued, "and can hardly be persuaded to submit to the necessary restraint which the doctor prescribes. He says he must see you, and speak to you, this evening; and insisted on getting up and coming to the drawing-room. At last, I persuaded him to lie down again on his couch, by promising that you should come to him. After what passed between you this morning, there can be no objection to it. Only, remember, dear child, that everything you say to him must be calculated to soothe and calm him, for Dr. Nevis says that he could not answer for the consequences of any agitation or sudden emotion at this moment. This it was that determined me to come and fetch you, when I saw him so feverishly anxious to see you; especially, as now, I am sure, that you can have nothing to say to him that will not have a tranquillising effect on his nerves, and help to give him a good night's rest, which is the greatest possible object in his present state."

As my aunt talked on in this manner, while she led the way to Edward's room, I could not summon courage to object to this visit, till when we got near to the door, I drew back and whispered to her, "Indeed I had better not go in; after what occurred this morning, considering all things, it may agitate him to see me. Indeed, indeed, it will be better not." Mrs. Middleton looked at me with surprise, "Have I not told you, Ellen, that he has been working himself into a fever, from his anxiety to speak, to you? The only chance of calming him is by yielding to this wish, and I assure you," she continued in an earnest manner, "it may be more important than you seem to think, to accomplish this. The consequences may be very serious, if this fever and nervous agitation should increase."

As she said these words, without any further discussion she opened the door, and I found myself in another moment seated by Edward's side, his burning hand in mine, and his eyes fixed upon me with that intense and overstrained expression which fever gives.

"Dearest Ellen," he exclaimed, as Mrs. Middleton left the room, "I am unreasonable, and ashamed of myself, but I could not rest, or have a moment's peace, before I had again heard from your lips the blessed assurance, that all that made me so happy this morning, in spite of our fears and anxieties, was not a dream. Say it was not, dearest."

"It was no dream," I answered, in a low voice, "but we must not speak of such dream-like things to-night. When you are well – "

"I am well now," he interrupted, "if you relieve my mind from a vague fear that has haunted me ever since. Ellen, there is no obstacle to our marriage, is there? You will be my wife? You do not answer; you do not speak?"