The Days of My Life: An Autobiography

I started involuntarily – I could see already where the serpent was winding – was this the secret?

“With one boy,” he continued significantly, “called Harry Southern – you see there is not much difference even in the name; this child, as I will show you by a paper executed by your uncle some time before his marriage, he had already chosen for his heir, directing that he should take his name, and, after his death, be called Harry Southcote. It is not to be supposed that after Mr. Southcote married Mrs. Southern, his partiality for the boy should diminish, and this boy I have every reason to suppose is your husband, whom, by politeness, I will still call Edgar Southcote of Cottiswoode.”

I was stunned for the moment – the story looked reasonable, true – it was no exaggerated malicious lie coined on the spot. I looked up with dismay into the hard exultation of this man’s face, but when I caught his cunning, evil eye, my heart revived.

“Had you always reason to suppose this?” I said, keeping my eyes fixed upon him.

For a moment, only a moment, his confident glance fell. “Of course not, of course not,” he said, with a little bustle and swagger, which I could see was to conceal some embarrassment. “When I took steps in the matter, you may be sure I thought I had got hold of the right person; it is only lately that I have found my error out.”

“And how did you find it out?” I asked perseveringly.

“Upon my word, young lady, you try a man’s patience,” cried my respectable adviser – “I did find it out – what concern have you with the how? If you are disposed to take advantage of my information, it is at your service – but I will not be badgered by the person for whose sole benefit I have taken so much trouble. Will that convince you, look?”

He almost threw at me one of the papers in his hand – I lifted it up mechanically – I was so sure what it would say from his description, that I almost fancied I had read it before. It was a will, bequeathing all the personal property of the writer to Harry Southern, the son of the late George Southern, Lieutenant R.N., on condition of his assuming the name of Southcote; I read it over twice, and it struck me strongly enough, that after the first words of the bequest there was a parenthesis, “(if he survives me),” which was repeated every time the name of Harry Southern occurred. I held it out – holding it fast, however – to Saville, and asked him what it meant.

“A mere point of law,” he answered indifferently, “what could it be else! Ladies, I know, never understand business; but these trifling matters have nothing to do with the main question – you see very clearly who this child was, there can be no mistake about that.”

“I see nothing to identify him with Edgar Southcote,” I said.

“You are sceptical,” said Saville – “let me see if I can convince you there are some papers which throw light upon the matter.”

These papers were letters – three of them bearing dates very near each other – all referring in terms of tender fondness to some little Harry; the first was signed “Maria Southern,” the other two “Maria Southcote,” but little Harry had quite as much part in the former as in the latter, and these documents were evidently true. I was greatly disturbed; – could it be so? could it be so? Was my husband only the heir, and not the son of Brian Southcote? The evidence was very startling to my unused and ignorant eyes. I kept the papers closely in my hand, resolved not to give them up again. I did not know what arguments to use to myself to cast off this fear; – at last I cried abruptly – “If this was the case he could not be like the Southcotes, he would be like your family – but he is like Edgar the Scholar; I found out the resemblance at once.”

“It is easy to find resemblances when your mind is turned to it,” said Saville. “Is he as like now? – and suppose he had been introduced to you as Harry Southern, would you ever have cared to examine who he was like?”

Harry Southern! the idea was intolerable. I started from my seat – I could not bear it any longer. “I will think over this, and let you know what I will do,” I said hurriedly. “It is very startling news – I must have some time to accustom myself to it, and then I will be able to tell you what I can do.”

“Be so good as to return me my papers then,” said Saville; “by all means think it over – it is no joke – you had best be prudent; but, in the meantime, let me have my papers – they are my property, not yours.”

“I will not give them back – they concern me too nearly,” said I. “Stay – if you try to take them I shall call your brother. I will not endure your touch, sir; – stand back – these letters are Miss Saville’s – I will undertake that no harm shall happen to them, that you shall come to no loss – but I will not give them back.”

I did not move, but stood within the reach of his arm, fixing my eyes full upon him as I spoke. He could not bear an honest gaze; he stared at me with impotent fury, but he dared not resist me. I saw his terror at the thought of summoning his brother, and how he lowered his voice and drew back his hand at the very mention of the Rector’s name.

“You are a bold young lady – but I like your spirit,” he said, with a scowl which belied his words. “Well, I consent that you shall keep the papers – that is to say, I trust them to your honor; – shall I have your decision to-morrow?”

“I cannot tell – I must have time,” I said, growing nervous at last, and drawing nearer the door; “have you ever mentioned this? – does Mr. Southcote know?”

“You will not tell him?” cried Saville fiercely, starting and following me, “you will not be so foolish as to show him your hand before the play begins? I knew women were fools in business, but I did not expect this from you – from you, Mrs. Southcote! you do not mean to pretend you are so loving and true a wife. No, I am not a likely person to have mentioned it – I know my man too well; small evidence I should have had, if it had ever come to his knowledge – I will not permit you to risk my papers in Edgar South – in Harry Southern’s hands.”

As he advanced upon me, I retreated – as he grew vehement, I threw the door open and walked hastily away – he followed me with great strides, yet restrained by a strange cowardice which I knew how to take advantage of – and when his sister suddenly appeared from the next room, he stopped short, and threw a look of cowardly threatening, and yet entreaty upon me. “Do not let him follow me,” I whispered to her – but I knew they would take care of that – and though I managed to leave the house at a decorous pace, whenever I got into the lane I began to run. I had always been swift-footed from a child – now I flew along the solitary lane, scarcely feeling that I touched the ground, holding the papers close under my mantle. When I came to Cottiswoode, flushed, and eager, and breathless, I did not pause even to throw back my hood, but hastened to the library. There was no one there – I hurried out disappointed, and asked for Mr. Southcote. He had gone out some time ago, I was told, and had left a message for me with Alice. I ran upstairs – the message was that he was suddenly called to Cambridge, and could not expect to return till late at night – and he hoped I would not think of waiting up for him – it was sure to be very late when he came home.

I cannot tell, indeed, whether I was most relieved or disappointed to hear this; though I think the latter – yet now, at least, I would have time to think over this tale, to try if it was a fable, a monstrous invention, or if it could be true. It was late, and I got little leisure till baby was asleep, but when he was laid down to his rest, and Alice left the room, I sat down by her little table and unfolded my papers. My heart beat loud while I read them over – my fears sickened me. I had no longer the presence of Saville before me, strengthening me in disbelief and opposition. Alas, poor perverse fool! this was a fit conclusion to all the misery I had made; this long year of troubles ever since my marriage I had been bitterly and cruelly resenting the discovery that my husband was Edgar Southcote – now how gladly would I have hailed, how wildly rejoiced in, an assurance that he had indeed a title to that name. The more I examined, the more I pondered, the more my fears grew upon me. If Edgar was an unwitting, involuntary impostor – the thought was terrible – and still more terrible it was to think that Cottiswoode would then be mine. I thought I could have borne to leave a wrongful inheritance with him, had it been pure loss to both of us; but that I should be “righted” by his downfall – ah, that was a justice I had not dreamed of! I could not rest – I wanted to do something immediately to settle this question; but that it was so late, I think I would have followed him to Cambridge – but that was not to be thought of now; so I wandered up and down from the library to my own room, always returning to the letters – and tried to conceal from myself how the hours went on, and how the household was going to rest. I still hoped that I might have gone to him at once on his return, and it was only when Alice, with a sleepy face, came calling me to baby, that I yielded at last, and went to bed, but not to sleep. Through all the dreary midnight hours after that I lay still and listened, hearing every sound, and supposing a hundred times over that I heard him return. Now and then I started up after a few moments’ sleep, and went to the door to look out and listen – but there was still the dull light burning in the hall, the silence in the house, the drowsy stir of the man who waited for his master below – then my restlessness made my baby restless also, and I had to occupy myself with him, and subdue my anxiety for his sake. It was a dreary night; but I had nothing for it but to submit – lying still, sleeping in snatches, dreaming, thinking – thoughts that ran into dreams, and longing, as only watchers long, for the morning light.

THE NINTH DAY

I WAS astir by dawn; but before even Alice came to me I was aware that my husband had not returned. The sleepy light in the hall still burned through the early morning darkness, and the watcher still stirred the fire, which had not gone out all night. When I made sure of this I hastened down to relieve the man from his uncomfortable vigil, and on my way met Mrs. Templeton, newly roused, who began immediately to assure me that “something very particular must have detained master – it was a thing he had never done before all his life, – but she hoped I would not be uneasy, for he’d be sure not to stay from home an hour longer than he could help.” I do not know how it was, but this speech of the housekeeper’s roused me into unreasonable anger. I was offended that any one should suppose my husband’s conduct wanted defence to me; or worse still, that any one should presume to know him better than I did. I answered briefly, that I was aware Mr. Southcote had business to detain him, and hastened to my room to complete my dress. Almost unconsciously to myself, I put on a dark, warm travelling dress; the morning was brisk, frosty, and cheerful, and for the moment I was roused with the stimulus of having something to do. Somehow, even his absence and the long watch of the night did not dismay me – all at once it occurred to me, not how miserable, but how foolish our discords were; the ordinary view – the common sense of the matter flashed upon me with a sudden light. I blushed for myself, yet I was roused; half-a-dozen frank words on either side, I suddenly thought, would set us right at once. I moved about my room with a quickened step, a sentiment of freedom; Saville’s papers, my own fears, all the dismay and anxiety of the night, united, I cannot tell how, to give an impulse of hearty and courageous resistance to my mind. There was something to do; I forgot my own guilt in the matter, and all the deeper feelings which were concerned. I thought of it all with impatience, as I have sometimes thought of the entanglements of a novel, which a spark of good sense would dispel in a moment – I forgot – though I was about the last person in the world to whom such a forgetfulness should have been possible – that good sense could not restore love, nor heal the bitterness of wounded affection. I determined for my own part not to lose a moment, not even to think it over, but to go direct to my husband at once, and say those same half-dozen sensible, frank, good-humored words which should put an end to it all; strange enough, my mind never misgave me as to the result.

I breakfasted in tolerably good spirits. I made no account of the anxious looks of Alice; I was occupied with thinking of everything we could do, of the world of possibilities which lay before us, if we were but right with one another; how I could have lulled myself into ease so long, I cannot tell. I awoke out of it all with a start and cry when I heard the great clock strike twelve, and looking out – out of my lonely chamber window, out of my new dreams – saw the broad country lying under the broad, full, truthful sunshine; the morning mists dispersed and broken, and the day come to its noon.

Noon! my bright figments perished in a moment: he had not come home, he had not written nor sent any message; had he forsaken me, as I forsook him?

I got up from my seat at once, feeling nevertheless as if some one had stunned me by a sudden blow. Though Alice was in the room, I did not make her my messenger, as it was my custom to do, but rang the bell myself, ordered the carriage instantly, and put on my bonnet. Alice came to help me without saying anything; my fears caught double confirmation from her silence. Something must have happened! she never asked where I was going, nor if she should accompany me, yet helped me to get ready as if I had told her all my thoughts.

“Where did he say he was to go?” I asked under my breath.

She told me; he had gone to a lawyer’s in Cambridge, about some justice business – nothing that could detain him; I said nothing more, except to bid her be careful of baby, whom I had never before left so long as I most likely should leave him now. Then I hastened away. The winter noon was bright, the road crisp and white with frost, the air exhilarating and joyous. I leaned forward at the carriage window, looking out eagerly, if perhaps I might meet him returning; but the only person I saw was Saville, his enemy, pacing up and down the lane between the rectory and Cottiswoode, waiting, as I supposed, to see me. The sight of this man brought my emotion to a climax. Any one who knows what anxiety is, will readily know that I had already leaped the depths of a dozen calamities – accident, illness, death itself – which might have happened to my husband – and when it occurred to me now, that I might be going to his sick-bed or his death-bed, with these papers which pretended to prove that he was not what he seemed, folded into my hand, I scarcely could bear the intolerable thought. I could not venture to anticipate how he would receive me if downfall came to him. I had deprived myself of all that generous joy of helping and lightening which might have given a certain pleasure to a good wife even in her husband’s misfortune. I! – I dared not be generous to Edgar – dared not appear to come closer to him in his humiliation, if humiliation there was. I went on blindly in a kind of agony, scarcely venturing to think how I should speak, or what I should do. If anything had happened to Edgar – any of those physical misfortunes which people speak of, as calling forth the disinterested and unselfish devotion of women, what could I do, who, all these weary months, had been resenting so bitterly his disinterested affection for me? And if Saville was right – if I, and not Edgar, was the true heir after all, how would it become me to rejoice as any other wife could have done, in the certainty that all that was mine, was his as well. In a moment our positions were changed. I thought of my husband – Edgar – Harry! as a poor man, having no title to anything save through his wife. I thought of him solitary and in suffering, able to make no exertion for himself, depending for all care and tenderness upon me. Heaven help me! this was the recompense I had labored to secure for myself; our positions were changed; and how could I dare to offer to him the same love and benefits which I had rejected so bitterly when he offered them to me?

Yet we still went on at full speed to Cambridge. When we came to our destination I alighted breathlessly, half expecting to encounter him at once, and without the faintest notion of what I was to say, or how to account for my errand. But he was not there – he had left this house, and, indeed, had left the town, early in the previous evening. I turned away from the door, sick to the heart. I asked no more questions. I would not betray my ignorance of his movements to strangers. He had left Cambridge to go home, but he had not come – had he left me? – had something happened to him? – what could I do?

And there stood Joseph at the carriage door asking where we were to go next. How could I tell? When I recollected myself, I bade him go to our old house, my father’s house, and to drive slowly. I do not know why I wished to go slowly – perhaps with some unreasonable idea of meeting Edgar on the way.

When I reached the house this time, I alighted and went in; for the first time since my father’s death. That strange old, dreary, silent house where dwelt the past – what had I to do there? I went wandering about the rooms, up and down, in a kind of stupor, looking at everything with dull curiosity, – noticing the decay of the furniture, and some spots of damp on the walls, as if I had nothing more important on my mind. I cannot account for the strange pause I made in my agony of anxiety, fear, and bewilderment. I did not know what to do – I could not even think – there seemed a physical necessity for standing still somewhere, and recovering the power of myself.

I was in the library, looking round, seeing everything, yet only half aware where I was – when I started almost with superstitious terror to hear in the passage behind a well-known alert footstep, and the rustle of Mr. Osborne’s gown. He had seen the carriage at the door as he passed – for he lived so near that he could not go anywhere without passing this way – and came to me in haste when he heard I was here. He came up anxiously, took my hand, and asked me what was the matter? I looked ill, I suppose.

And my heart yearned to have somebody to trust to – the sound of his voice restored me to myself. “I am in great trouble,” I said; “have you seen Edgar, Mr. Osborne? – is he here?”

“Here! it would indeed have been a strange place to find him.”

“I do not mean in this house,” said I, with a little impatience; “is he in Cambridge? have you seen him? – I want to know where he is.”

“It is a strange question, Hester, yet I am glad to hear you ask it,” said Mr. Osborne; “I presume, now, you are both coming to your right mind.”

“No – soon I shall not care for anything, right or wrong,” said I. “Edgar – he is a man – he should have known better – he has gone away.”

Then immediately I contradicted myself in my heart. He could not have gone away! And yet – and yet! – “Where is he?” I cried. “I have to speak to him: I have a great deal to say. Mr. Osborne! – he had better not do what I did; he is not a fool like me; he was not brought up like me, among ghosts in this house: he ought to know better than I!”

Mr. Osborne took my hand again, made me sit down, and tried to soothe me. Then I told him of Edgar’s absence. It was only one night; it was no such great matter; he smiled at my terror. But, at the same time, he bade me wait for him here, and went out to make inquiries. I remained for some time alone in the house – alone, with recollections of my father – of myself – of Harry – of all those young thoughts without wisdom, hopes without fear! I started up with renewed impatience. I could not, would not, suffer this unnatural folly to continue. Ah! it was very well to say that; but what could I do?

When Mr. Osborne came back, he looked a little grave. I penetrated his thoughts in a moment; – he thought some accident had befallen Edgar. He advised me to go home immediately and see if there was any word – if I did not hear before to-morrow he would come out and advise with me, he said. So I went away again, alarmed, unsatisfied – reluctant that Mr. Osborne should come, yet clinging to the idea, and full of the dreariest anxiety to know what news there might be at home. As I drove along in the twilight of the sharp winter night, I tried to settle upon what I should do. Saville! If Edgar had left me, what could I do with this man? for I made up my mind to destroy the papers, and that my husband should never know of the doubt thrown upon him, if he had really gone away.

We were very near Cottisbourne on the Cambridge side, driving rapidly, and it was now quite dark. The first sharp sparkles of light from the village windows were just becoming visible along the dreary length of road, and a few cold stars had come into the sky. My heart was beating fast enough already, quickening with every step we advanced on the road home, when some one shouted to us to stop. We did stop after a moment’s confused parley, in which I could only distinguish that it was the Rector’s name which induced the coachman to draw up. Mr. Saville! It was his office to communicate calamities – to tell widows and orphans when a sudden stroke made them desolate. A sudden horror overpowered me. I leaned out of the window speechless, gazing into the darkness; and when I saw the light of the carriage lamps falling upon the Rector’s troubled face, I waved my hand to him imperiously, almost fierce in my terror. “Tell me!” I cried; “I can bear it. I can bear the very worst. Tell me!” He drew near with a fluttered, agitated air, while I tried to open the carriage door. With a sudden pang of joy and relief I saw that he did not understand me – that he had no worst to tell; but was holding back by the arm the other Saville, the enemy of our house.

“Here! I have something to tell you,” cried this man, struggling forward. “Do you call this keeping your word, young lady? What do you mean by keeping my papers, and then running away?”

“Mr. Saville,” I said, hastily appealing to the Rector, “I have nothing to say to him yet. The papers are not his, but Miss Saville’s. When I have anything to say to him I will come to the Rectory. Just now I am very anxious to get home. Oh, I beg of you, bid them drive home!”

“Don’t do anything of the sort, William,” said Saville. “Stop, you fellow! So your precious husband’s run away; I thought as much. Stop, do you hear! I’ve something to say to the lady. Why, Mrs. Southcote, have you forgotten the appointment you made with me to-day?”

“Is he mad?” cried I – for he had jumped upon the step, and stood peering in at me through the open window. I was not frightened now, but I was very angry. I shrank back to the other side of the carriage, disgusted by his near vicinity, and called to Joseph. “No, ma’am, he’s not mad, he’s only drunk,” said Joseph. While they struggled together, the coachman drove on again, and Saville was thrown to the ground. The poor Rector! he stood by, looking on with dismay and fright and horror – thinking of the disgrace, and of his “position,” and of what people would say; but the only way to save him as well as myself, was to hasten on.

And there was Cottiswoode at last – the open door, the ruddy light; but Edgar was not standing by to help me – my husband had not come home! I had begun to hope that he had – I stepped into the hall with the heaviest disappointment; I could have thrown myself down on the floor before the servants in an agony of self-humiliation. It was all my own doing, he had gone away.

Just then, Mrs. Templeton made her appearance in considerable state, holding a letter. No doubt she, as well as myself, concluded what it was – a leave-taking – a final explanation – such a wretched letter as I had once left for him. “This came immediately you were gone, ma’am,” said Mrs. Templeton, who looked as if she had been crying. “It ought to have come last night; but I gave the fellow such a talking to as he won’t forget yet awhile. Please to remember, ma’am, it wasn’t master’s fault.”

I took no notice of this – my whole mind was on the letter. I hastened in with it, without a word, and closed upon myself the door of the library. With trembling hands I tore it open – after that I think I must have fallen down on my knees in the extreme thankfulness which, finding no words, tried to say by attitude and outward expression what it could not say with the lips – for this was all that Edgar said: —

“My Dear Hester, – I have met with an old friend unexpectedly, and have engaged to go with him to look after some business of importance. I am grieved to be absent without letting you know, and I have no time now to explain. I shall endeavor to be home to-morrow night. Affectionately,