Hannah/Chapter 10

For the second time Hannah fled away from her brother-in-law's presence into her own room, and tried to realize what had happened. Something which would forever prevent their two lives from going on together as before—a distinct mutual acknowledgment that they did not love one another like brother and sister, that he would have married her if he could, and that if he had asked her she would not have refused him.

This confession on her part had been unintentional, wrung from her by the emotion of the time, and by the ​direct question which had been put to her, and Hannah was the kind of woman who never thought of compromising or playing with the truth. Still, when it was made, and henceforth irrevocable, it startled her. Not that she felt it in the least wrong; the idea that to love or marry her sister's husband was a moral offense had now entirely left her mind; but it was such an absolute ignoring of her own past—her dear, cherished, sacred past—that it at first almost overwhelmed her. She sighed, as if it had been an unrequited instead of a fondly sought attachment which she had confessed.

For it had crept into her heart unawares, and not in the ordinary guise of love at all. Pity, affection, the tender habit of household happiness, had drawn her day by day to Rosie's father, chiefly because he was a father and a widower, scarcely a young man in any sense regarding her, supposing she had considered herself still a young woman, which she did not. It was only when her youth forced itself up like an imprisoned stream, when the great outery for love arose and would be heard, that Hannah recognized how painfully, piteously young she was still.

And yet in one sense this love was as different from the love of her girlhood as autumn is from spring. It did not seem in the least to interfere with the memory of Arthur. True, she had been only eighteen when she last saw his dear face, scarcely twenty when he died; but Hannah was one of those sort of people with whom to be "off with the old love and on with the new" was a thing not needing argument, it was simply impossible. She had never dropped willingly a single thread of love in her life; the threads which God had broken here were only temporarily invisible; she could follow them still, in spirit, to the unseen land. Yet to her intensely constant nature any change was at first a kind of pain.

"Arthur, Arthur!" she sighed, and kept turning his ring round and round upon her finger. "You are not angry with me? I could not help it. He needed me so!"

Yes, there was the secret, as it is of so many marriages, ​so many lasting loves: people become necessary to one another before they are aware. Propinquity, circumstances, do a great deal; but more is done by the strong, gradual, inner want, the sympathy which grows day by day, the trust which, feeling its way step by step, may be slow of advancing, but never retrogrades. Whether such a love be as perfect as the real passion, "first-born and heir to all"—the lovely dream of youth and maidenhood, which if man or woman ever realizes and possesses must be the crown of existence—I do not say. But such as it is, it is a pure, noble, and blessed affection, the comfort and refreshment of many lives—that is, if they accept it as it is, and do not try to make it what it never can be, nor seek to find among the August roses the violets of the spring.

"Arthur, Arthur!" Hannah sighed once again, and then said to herself, in a solemn, steadfast, resolute tenderness, the name she had never yet uttered, even in thought, for it seemed like an unconscious appropriation of him—"My Bernard!"

And the word was a vow. Not exactly a love-vow, implying and expecting unlimited happiness-she scarcely thought of happiness at all—but a vow that included all duties, all tendernesses, all patience; a pledge such as a woman makes to the man unto whom she is prepared to resign herself and her own individuality for life.

It was a change so sudden, total, and overwhelming that beyond it she could at first see nothing, did not recognize the future as a real thing at all. She went asleep like a person half bewildered, and woke up in the morning confused still, until Rosie came in as usual, while Tannie was dressing, requiring all sorts of "pitty sings to play wid" in her usual sweet exactingness. Then slowly, slowly, Hannah realized all.

"My darling, my darling! my own forever!" cried she, snatching up Rosie in a passion of tenderness. And not even Bernard's fond look of last night, as he put to her and she answered that solemn question, thrilled to Hannah's heart more than the embrace of the child.

​Carrying the little one in her arms, she went down stairs and met him in the hall. A meeting just the same as on all mornings, except that there was a glow, a radiance almost, in his countenance which she had never seen before, and his voice whenever he addressed her had a reverential affectionateness which gave meaning to his lightest words. Also he called her "Hannah," never "Aunt Hannah," again.

There is a pathos in all love; what must there be, then, in a love such as this, conceived in spite of fate, carried on through all hinderances, at last betrayed rather than confessed, and when confessed having to meet the dark future, in which its sole reward must be the mere act of loving? These two, forbidden by destiny to woo and marry like ordinary people, were nevertheless not a melancholy pair of lovers. No outward eye would have recognized them as lovers at all. By no word or act did Bernard claim his rights, the happy rights of a man to whom a woman has confessed her affection. He neither kissed her nor said one fond word to her. No servant coming in and out, nor even the innocent little tell-tale, who was just at that age when she was sure to communicate every thing to every body, could have suspected any thing or betrayed any thing concerning these two, who knew they were henceforward not two, but one till death.

They were neither afraid nor ashamed. At the first sight of Bernard every lurking feeling of shame went out of Hannah's heart. Every thought, too, as if her loving the living were a wrong to the dead. Arthur's ring was still on her finger, Rosa's sweet face still smiled from over the mantel-piece upon the two whom in life she had loved best in the world, and Rosa's child clung fondly unto Tannie's faithful breast. Hannah shrank from none of these things, nor did Bernard. More than once that morning he had named, incidentally but unhesitatingly, his child's mother, calling her, as he always did from this day forward, "our" Rosa; and though he was so quiet, he went about cheerfully, as he had not done for long, like a man ​who has recovered his own self-respect and his interest in life; to whom the past brings no pain, and the future no dread.

Passion is a weak thing; but love, pure love, is the strongest thing on earth; and these lovers felt it to be so. Though neither said a word beyond the merest domestic commonplace, there was a peace, a restfulness about them both which each saw in the other, and rejoiced to see. It was like calm after storm—ease after pain. No matter how soon the storm arose, the pain begun again—the lull had been real while it lasted.

They began arranging their day's work, as usual; work never very light. This Monday there seemed more to settle than ever.

"What should I do without you?" said Bernard. "Such a wise, sensible, practical woman as you are! always busy, and yet forgetting nothing. Stay—have you forgotten we were to dine at the Grange to-night?"

The invitation had come a week ago, and Adeline had repeated it last evening. Still Hannah hesitated.

"Must we go? Nay, ought we?"

"Why not? Because of—of what we said last night? That is a stronger reason than ever why we should go. We should not shrink from society. I am not ashamed of myself. Are you?"

"No." She dropped her head, faintly blushing; but when she saw that Bernard held his erect she took courage.

"What Lady Rivers says does not apply to Melville Grange. My sister is mistress in her own house, and Melville, though he is fond enough of his sisters-in-law, is not really so likely to be influenced by his mother-in-law as by his own mother. She is a very good and wise woman, Mrs. Melville. I wanted to have a little talk with her to-night."

Hannah looked uneasy. "Oh, be careful! I would much rather not a word were said to any one."

"About ourselves? No; I have not the slightest intention of telling any body. It is our own affair entirely till we see our way clear to—to the rightful end; for, Han​nah, I need not say that must come about, if it be possible. I can not live without you."

He spoke in a low tone, grasping her hand. He was not nearly so calm as she; yet even Hannah felt her heart beating, her color coming and going. Is it only for young lovers, passionate, selfish, uncontrolled, that society must legislate? or criminal lovers, who exact an excited pity, and are interesting just because they are criminal? Is there no justice, no tenderness, for those who suffer and are silent, doing no wrong?

"We will never do any thing wrong," said he. "We will neither fly in the face of the law, nor offend my own people, if possible; but we will be married if we can. I must take legal advice on the subject. Till then let all go on as usual. Is it not better so?"

"Yes."

They stood at the hall door, Rosie sitting queen-like on Tannie's arm, to watch papa away. He kissed his little girl, and then just touched with his lips the hand that held her. No more. No love-embrace, no thought of such a thing; but there was a gleam in his eyes, like the January sun through the winter trees, showing that summer days might yet come.

It warmed Hannah's heart with a quiet, serious joy as she went through her household duties, especially those which concerned the child. She had her darling with her almost all day, and never had Rosie's innocent companionship been so satisfying and so sweet.

Among the magnificent literature in which Tannie and Rosie indulged happened to be an illustrated fairy-tale book, wherein the usual cruel step-mother figured in great force. And she herself should be a step-mother, perhaps, one day! In the glee of her heart Hannah laughed—actually laughed—to think how different fiction often was from reality.

​Bernard came home only just in time to dress, and they did not meet till he put her into the carriage. Half their drive passed almost in silence, but by-and-by Bernard spoke in a business-like way, saying he meant to go up to London, and take counsel's opinion there. It would not do to consult any one here. On what subject he did not say, but it was easy to guess.

"Mrs. Melville might give me information—only, of course, I could not ask her direct. I can only find it out in a quiet way, as I have already found out a good deal. It seems till 1835 these marriages were legal—at any rate not illegal, unless an ecclesiastical suit should find them so, which it never did. It was in 1835 that was passed the ridiculous bill confirming all marriages prior to 31st August, and making those unlawful which happened on or after the 1st September."

"Then they are unlawful now?" said Hannah, feeling silence worse than speech.

"Nobody seems quite to understand whether they are or not. On the Continent, nay, in every country except ours, they are certainly legal. Our colonies have several times passed a bill legalizing such marriages, and the mother country has thrown it out. Many persons go abroad to be married, come back again, and live unblamed; but they risk a good deal, and"—he hesitated—"it is not for themselves alone."

Hannah drew back into her dark corner, glad of the darkness. It was a strange and sore position for any woman to be placed in. Betrothed, yet having none of the honors and happinesses of an affianced bride; sitting beside her lover, yet treated by him in no lover-like fashion, and feeling nothing of the shy frankness which makes the new tie so sweet; obliged to talk with him about their marriage and its possibilities with a mournful candor that would have been most painful to bear, save for her own strong, innocent heart and Bernard's exceeding delicacy—she found her lot as humiliating as it was hard.

Yet she had never loved him so dearly, never recognized ​how well he deserved her love, as when, after their long, dark drive, he said, tenderly, "Now, Hannah, we will forget for the time all these bitternesses—except the love, except the love," handed her out into the bright hall at the Grange, and entered the drawing-room with her on his arm, as at Easterham dinner-parties had been their custom always.

This was a state dinner. All the Moat House people were there, and Mr. Morecamb too. Hannah did not know whether it was pure accident or refinement of ill-nature, but Mr. Morecamb was assigned to her at dinner, and she had no resource but to obey. The poor man evidently knew his fate, and was bearing it like a man. It was either one of the contre-temps in which the unlucky victims can only submit and make the best of things, or done on purpose; but in either case there was no remedy.

Bernard had been placed far down the table; but, whether or not, Hannah knew he could be no shield to her; rather the contrary. She must keep up her own diguity—trust for protection solely to herself. And a nervous consciousness made her look sedulously away from him all dinner-time; nay, as she passed him in the procession of ladies afterward, she kept her eyes fixed so steadily on the ground that Bertha asked, satirically, “if she and Bernard had been quarreling?"

During dinner she had been comparatively safe, even with Mr. Morecamb beside her; afterward there gathered over her the vague coldness which women always know how to show toward another woman who is somehow "under a cloud." The Rivers family indicated it most of all. Scarcely any one of them addressed her except Adeline.

"Don't mind it," whispered the latter, following Hannah into a corner. "We'll stand by you, and people will see you here. Of course it is awkward, very awkward. Easterham is talking about you so much, and my family, of all things, dislike being talked about. But I have thrown dust in every body's eyes by giving you at dinner ​to Mr. Morecamb. Couldn't you like him? Such a nice old fellow, and so fond of you?"

Hannah shook her head, smiling drearily. It was idle to take offense at silly little Adeline, who never meant any harm.

She sat down, turning over the leaves of a photograph book, and bade her young hostess go back to her other guests.

"No, no; I mean to stay with you. I don't feel as my family do. I can't see why they should make such a fuss even if Bernard did want to marry you. People used to do it-my respected mother-in-law, for instance. And sisters—in-law are not real sisters; never ought to be. If the law made this quite clear, a man wouldn't dare go philandering with them in his wife's lifetime. Now—oh dear!—it's so convenient. He can't marry them, so he may flirt with them as much as ever he likes. It's all right, and the wife can't say a word. But she may feel, for all that."

Adeline spoke bitterly; having evidently quite slidden away from the case in point, not thinking of Hannah at all; so there was no need to answer her except in a general way.

"Yes, I dare say it is at times a little vexing. But I am afraid I do not understand jealousy. I can not comprehend how, after people are once married, they feel the smallest interest in any body else. And the conjugal fidelity which has only the law to secure it must be a very shallow thing."

"You ridiculously simple woman! Well, perhaps you are right. Jealousy is silly. We can't stop every young lady out of our house because our husband may one day have the chance of marrying her. Let him! When we are dead and gone we shall not care. Only don't let her come and steal him from us while we are alive. It's all a sham, this nonsense about sisters," added she, stamping with her white satin shoes, and tearing to pieces her hothouse roses. "And, like you, I am beginning to hate shams. Hannah Thelluson, let us be friends."

"We always were friends, I hope," said Hannah, gently, ​pitying the young wife, whose skeleton in the house had been so unconsciously betrayed. She was more than sorry, rather angry, when, as the evening wore on, and the gentlemen came in, Herbert Melville, scarcely noticing his sickly, unlovely Adeline, devoted himself entirely to her blooming sisters, especially to Bertha; who, a born coquette, seemed to enjoy the triumph amazingly. The law which barred some people from happiness did not seem to furnish any security for the happiness of others. Hannah almost forgot herself in her pity for Adeline.

And yet she could have pitied herself too—a little. It was hard to sit there, tabooed, as it were, by that silent ignoring which women understand so well, and hear the others talking pleasantly round her. No one was actually uncivil; the Melvilles were almost obtrusively kind; but there the coldness was, and Hannah felt it. Such a new thing, too; for, in her quiet way, she had been rather popular than not in society; she had such gentle tact in fishing out all the shy, or grim, or stupid people, and warming them up into cheerfulness. But now even they quietly slipped away and left her alone.

It was a heavy night. She asked herself more than once how many more of the like she should have to bear, and if she could bear them. Did Bernard see it or feel it? She could not tell. He came in late. She saw him talking to Mrs. Melville, and afterward to Lady Rivers; then trying his utmost to be pleasant to every body. She was so proud always of the sweet nature he had, and the simple unconscious charm of his manner in society. But in the pauses of conversation he looked inexpressibly sad; and when they got into the carriage, and were alone together, she heard him sigh so heavily, that if his people had been all night long pricking her with pins and needles Hannah would not have complained. The very fact of complaint seemed a certain humiliation.

They scarcely exchanged a word all the drive home; but he took and held fast her hand. There was something in the warm clasp that comforted her for every thing.

​"Dear," he whispered, as he lit her candle and bade her good-night, which he did as soon as possible, "it is a hard lot for both of us. Can you bear it?"

"I think I can."

And so for some days she thought she could. She had that best balm for sorrow—a busy life; each hour was as full of work as it would hold; no time for dreaming or regrets, scarcely even for love, except in the form wherein fate had brought love to her—calm, domestic, habitual—scarcely distinguishable from friendship even yet. She and Bernard did all their customary business together day by day. They had become so completely one in their work that it would have been difficult to do otherwise. Nor did she wish it. She was happy only to be near him, to help him, to watch him fulfilling all his duties, whatever bitterness lay underneath them. That pure joy which a woman feels in a man's worthiness of love, keener than even her sense of the love he gives her, was Hannah's to the core. And then she had her other permanent bliss—the child.

Women—good women, too—have sometimes married a man purely for the sake of his children; and Hannah never clasped Rosie in her arms without understanding something of that feeling. Especially on the first Sunday after the change had come—the great change, of which not an atom showed in their outward lives, but of which she and Bernard were growing more and more conscious every day. This bright morning, when the sun was shining, and the crocuses all aflame across the garden, and a breath of spring stirring through the half-budded lilac-tree, it might, perhaps, have been hard for them to keep up that gentle reticence of manner to one another, except for the child.

Rosie was a darling child. Even strangers said so. The trouble she gave was infinitesimal, the joy unlimited. Father and aunt were accustomed to delight together over the little opening soul, especially on a Sunday morning. They did so still. They talked scarcely at all, neither of the future nor the past; but simply accepted the ​present, as childhood accepts it, never looking beyond. Until, in the midst of their frolic—while papa was carrying his little girl on his back round and round the table, and Tannie was jumping out after them at intervals in the character of an imaginary wolf, Rosie screaming with ecstasy, and the elders laughing almost as heartily as the child—there came a note from the Moat House.

Mr. Rivers read it, crushed it furiously in his hand, and threw it on the back of the fire. Then, before it burned, he snatched it out again.

"My poor Hannah! But you ought to read it. It will hurt you—still you ought to read it. There must never be any concealments between us two."

"No."

Hannah took the letter, but did not grow furious—rather calmer than before. She knew it was only the beginning of the end.

"My Dear Bernard,—Your father wishes particularly to talk with you to-day, as poor Austin, we hear, is rather worse than usual. You will, of course, come in to lunch, and remain to dinner.

"I perceive that, in spite of my earnest advice, Miss Thelluson is still an inmate of your household. Will you suggest to her that I am sorry our pew will be full, and our dinner-table also, to-day

"I wish you were more amenable to the reasonings of your family, but remain, nevertheless, your affectionate mother,

A. Rivers."

"Well?" Bernard said, watching her.

Hannah drooped her head over Rosie's hair; the child had crept to her knees, and was looking with wide blue eyes up at Tannie.

"It is but what I expected—what she before declared her intention of doing."

"But do you recognize all it implies—all it will result in?"

"Whatever it be, I am prepared."

​"You do not know the worst," Bernard said, after a pause. "I found it out yesterday by getting counsel's opinion on the strict law of the case; but I had not courage to tell you."

"Why not? I thought we were to have no secrets."

"Oh, we men are such cowards; I am, anyhow. But will you hear it now? It will be such a relief to talk to you."

"Talk, then," said Hannah, with a pale smile. "Stop; shall we have time? It will be twenty minutes yet before the church-bells begin ringing."

For she knew that the wheels of life must go on, though both their hearts were crushed on the way.

"Five minutes will be enough for all I have to tell you. Only—take the child away."

Hannah carried away little Rosie, who clung frantically to her fond paradise in Tannie's arms, and was heard wailing dolorously overhead for a good while.

"See! even that baby can not bear to part with you. How, then, shall I?" cried Bernard, passionately; and then, bidding her sit down, began giving her in words exact and brief the result of his inquiries.

These confirmed all he had said himself once before in the case of Grace and James Dixon. Of the law, as it now stood, there could be no possible doubt. No marriage with a deceased wife's sister, whether celebrated here or abroad, would be held valid in England. No woman so married had any legal rights, no children could inherit. Thus, even in cases where the marriage was known to have existed, and the wife had borne the husband's name for years, whole estates have been known to lapse to the Crown; but then the Crown, with a curious recognition of the difference between law and equity, had been usually advised to return them piecemeal, under the guise of a free gift, to the children, who otherwise would have been the undisputed heirs.

"Heirship—money! it seems all to hinge upon that," said Hannah, a little bitterly.

​"Yes; because property is the test upon which the whole legal question turns. If I had been without ties—say a poor clerk upon a hundred and fifty a year (I wish I had)—we might have set sail by the next steamer to America, and lived there happy to the end of our days; for England is the only country which does not recognize such marriages as ours. Some countries—France and Germany, for instance—require a special permission to marry; but this gained, society accepts the union at once. Now with us—oh, Hannah, how am I to put it to you?—this would do no good. As I said before, the misery would not end with ourselves."

"Would it affect Rosie?"

"Your heart is full of Rosie. No; but she is only a girl, and the Moat House is entailed in the male line. Austin is slowly dying. I am the last of my race. Do you understand?"

She did at last. Her face and neck turned scarlet, but she did not shrink. It was one of the terrible necessities of her position that she must not shrink from any thing. She saw clearly, that never, according to the law of England, could she be Bernard's wife. And if not, what would she be? If she had children, what would they be? And his estates lay in England, and he was the last of his line.

"I perceive," she faltered. "No need to explain further. You must not think of me any more. To marry me would ruin you."

Wild and miserable as his eyes were—fierce with misery—the tears rushed into them.

"My poor Hannah, my own unselfish Hannah, you never think for a moment that it would also ruin you."

It was true, she had not thought of herself; only of him. A clergyman, prepared to break the canon law; a man of family and position, running counter to all social prejudices; a son, dutiful and fondly attached, opposing his father's dearest wishes! The mental struggle that he must have gone through before there ever dawned upon ​him the possibility of marrying her struck Hannah with a conviction of the depth of his love, the strength of his endurance, such as she had never believed in before.

"Oh, Bernard!" she cried, calling him by his name for the first time, and feeling—was it also for the first time?—how entirely she loved him—"Bernard, you must never think of marrying me: we must part."

"Part!" and he made as if he would have embraced her, but restrained himself. "We will discuss that question by-and-by. At present, hear the rest which I have to tell."

He then explained, with a calmness which in so impulsive a man showed how strong was the self-control he was learning to exercise, that since 1835 many dissentients from the law then passed had tried to set it aside; that almost every session a bill to this effect was brought into the House of Commons, fiercely discussed there, passed by large majorities, and then carried to the Upper House, where the Peers invariably threw it out. Still in the minority were a few very earnest in the cause.

"I know; Lord Dunsmore is one of them."

"Yes; I had forgotten; I seem to be forgetting every thing!" and Bernard put his hand wearily to his head. "I met Lady Dunsmore in London, and she asked me no end of questions about you. She is very fond of you, I think."

"Is she?"

"She wanted to know if you would come and stay with her, and bring Rosie; but I said I could not spare either of you. And then she looked at me inquisitively. She is a very shrewd, clever, good woman, and a strong ally on our side. For it must be our side, Hannah, whatever my people say, whatever I might have said myself once. Any law that creates a crime is mischievous and cruel. There ought to be, as I once overheard Lord Dunsmore say, no bar whatsoever to marriage except consanguinity. Even if I had no personal concern in the matter, it is a wrong, and I would fight against it as such."

​"The Riverses were ever fighters, you know," said Hannah, watching him with a sad, tender smile, and more than ever there darkened down upon her all that he was giving up for her sake.

"But to come to the point, Hannah. I have told you all the ill; now hear the good. Every year public feeling is advancing; this year the bill is to be brought in again. Its adherents are ready for a good hard fight, as usual; but this time they hope to win. And if they win—then—then—"

He seized her hands, and clasped them passionately. It was not the dreamy love-making of a boy in his teens—of her lost Arthur, for instance, over whose utmost happiness hung the shadow of early death; it was the strong passion of a man in the midst of life, with all his future before him—a future that needed a wife's help to make it complete; and Hannah knew it. For a moment, sad, pale, white-lily-like as she was, there came a flush rose-red into her cheeks, and to her heart an eager response to the new duties, the new joys; then she shrank back within herself. It all seemed so hopeless, or with such a slender thread of hope to cling to: yet he clung to it.

"I will never give in," he said, "if I have to wait for years. I will marry you if I possibly can. I will never marry any other woman. You shall not be troubled or harmed—not more than I must necessarily harm you, my poor love, simply because you are my love. But mine you must and shall be. You hear me, Hannah?"

For she stood passive and bewildered. Any one might have thought she did not care until she lifted up her eyes to him. Then he had no doubt at all.

"Oh, give me one kiss, Hannah, to last me all these months and years. It will not hurt you—it is not wrong."

"No;" and she gave it. Then with a great sigh they both sat down.

The church-bells began to ring. "I must go," Bernard said. "But first, what are we to do? Will you go to church to-day?"

​"I must. If I sit in the free seats or in the aisle, I must go to church. It is God's house; He will not drive me from it; He knows I have done nothing wrong." And she wept a little, but not much.

"You are right; we have not done any thing wrong, and we ought not to act as if we had. Then—will you come with me?"

"No; I had rather go alone," said Hannah, gently. "I will bear every thing alone, so far as I can."

"What do you mean? What do you wish?"

"That you should in all things do your duty without considering me. Go to the Moat House, as they desire. If they do not mention me, do not you. What does it matter? they can not harm me—not much. And to break with them would be terrible for you. Keep friends with your own people to the last."

"You truly wish that?"

"I do. Now go. Good-by, and God bless you, Bernard."

"God bless you, my Hannah!"

And with that mutual blessing they parted.