M. E. Braddon

“ I shall always believe there is a bridge between earth and heaven—between the world we can see and touch and the world we can only feel with our hearts and minds. When I hear music like that we heard just now—those long-drawn singing notes on the violin, those deep organ tones of the 'cello—I feel myself carried away to a shadowy world where I know my father and mother are waiting for me. ”

“ I had not the mental stamina, I had not the power of rebound which enables a man to rise superior to the sorrow of his youth. I could not forget my first love. I gave up a year of my life to the search for the girl I loved—who had forsaken me in a foolish spirit of self-sacrifice because she had been told that my marriage with her would be social ruin. She was little more than a child in years—quite a child in ignorance of the world, and of the weight and measure of worldly things. We were both cruelly used, Allan. ”

“ If I am rough and vehement to-night, it is because I am resolute to ask the question that has been burning on my lips ever since I knew you. I will not be put off from that. But once the question asked and answered I have done, and, if it must be so, you have done with me. There shall be no such thing as persecution. I am here at your side, your devoted lover—no better man than Allan Carew, but I think as good a man, with as fair a record, of as old and honourable a race, richer in this world's gear; but that's not much to such a woman as Suzette. It is for you to choose between us ”

“ He stole her love from me—set himself deliberately to rob me of my life's happiness."
"It is cruel to say that, Allan. He is incapable of treachery, of deliberate wrong-doing. He is a creature of impulse."
"Meaning a creature with whom self is the only god. And in one of his impulses he told Suzette of his love, even in plainer words than his Stradivarius could tell the story; and from that hour her heart was false to me. I saw the change in her when I came back—after my father's death."
"You are unjust to him, Allan, in your grief and anger. ”

“ I have loved my only son. Small merits these in a man whose home-life has been cloudless. But I might have done better, Allan. I might have risen superior to that youthful sorrow. I might have taken my dear Emily closer to my heart, travelled over this varied world with her, shown her all that is strangest and fairest under far-off skies instead of letting her vegetate here. I might have gone into Parliament, put my shoulder to the wheel of progress—helped as other men help, with unselfish toil, struggling on hopefully through the great dismal swamp of mistake and muddle-headedness. ”

“ My affection for Allan is only second to my love for you, and I cannot bear to think of his being wounded and humiliated, as he must be if Suzette were to accept you directly after having jilted him."
"And you would have Suzette sit beside the tomb of Allan's hopes for a year or so while I eat my heart out—banquet on joys deferred—sicken and die, perhaps, with that slow torture of waiting. Mother, you don't know what love is—love in the heart of a man. If she had married Allan, I should have shot myself on her wedding-day. ”

“ No touch of romance, no splendour of scenery, no gaiety of racecourse or public garden made the background of our love. A dull London street, a dull London parlour were all we had for a paradise, and God knows we needed no more. You will smile at a middle-aged man's folly in lingering fondly over the record of his own love-story, instead of projecting himself into the ideal world and weaving a romance of shadows. ”

“ At Discombe the long grass walks, the walls of ilex and of yew, the cypress avenues, and marble temples were isolated amidst surrounding woods, nearly a mile away from the traffic of everyday life. There was a sense of quiet and privacy here, compared with which Marsh House and the Grove were scarcely superior to the average villa in a newly developed suburb.
The seasons waxed and waned; the month of May, when the woodland walks round Discombe were white with the feathery bloom of the mountain ash, and golden with the scented blossoms of the yellow azalea ”

“ I thought of the small dark parlour in the Bloomsbury lodging-house, the tinkling old piano, the dull grey street; a weary life for a girl of poetic temperament reared in the country. That letter of Martha's, and the fact of being within an easy walk of Great Ormond Street, broke down my resolution of the last two months. I called upon Martha and her charge on the morning after I left Cambridge. I thought Esperanza looked wan and out of health, and could but mark how the pale, sad face flushed and brightened at sight of me. ”

“ Have there been no more of those—no more concertante duets?"
"Allan, I told you that there should be no more such duets for me."
"You might have changed your mind."
"Not after having promised. I considered that a promise."
"Conscientious soul! And you think me a jealous brute, no doubt?"
"I don't think you a brute."
"But a jealous idiot. My dearest, I don't think I am altogether wrong. A wife—or a betrothed wife—should have no absorbing interest outside her husband's or her sweetheart's life; and music is an absorbing interest, a chain of potent strength between two minds. ”

“ Wornock, when Allan complimented her upon her banquet of bloom; arches of roses, festoons of roses, temples built of roses, roses in beds and borders, everywhere.
"But your men are model gardeners; they neglect nothing."
In this paradise of flowers Allan and Suzette dawdled away two or three afternoons in every week. Discombe seemed to Allan always something of an enchanted palace—a place upon which there lay a glamour and a spell, a garden of sleep, a grove for woven paces and weaving hands, a spot haunted by sad sweet memories, ruled over by the genius of love, faithful in disappointment. ”

“ Why should Allan be all in all to you?"
"He is not all in all. You know you are the first, always the first in my heart; but I am deeply grieved for Allan. If what you tell me is true, he is doomed to be most unhappy. He is so fond of her. He has placed all his hopes of happiness upon his marriage—and they are to be married in little more than a month. It will be heartless to break it off." ”

“ She remembered her mother dimly—a long, last illness, a pale and wasted face, and gentle hands and loving arms that used to be folded round her neck as she nestled against the sick-bed. That sick-room, and the dim light of wintry afternoons, and the sound of the harmonium as her father played soft music in an adjoining parlour, were things that seemed to have lasted for years. ”

“ Oh, his father would have been in earnest, I have no doubt, in any affection; but I doubt if he was ever tremendously in love with Lady Emily. She is all that is sweet and dear in her frank homely way, but not a person to inspire a grande passion. Allan's father must have loved and lost in his early youth. There is a shade of melancholy in his voice and manner—nothing gloomy or dismal—but just that touch of seriousness which tells of deep thoughts. He is a most interesting man. I wish you could have seen him while he was at Beechhurst. I fear he will never leave Fendyke again. ”

“ After dinner Mrs. Mornington established herself in an armchair close to the drawing-room fire, and had so much to say to her brother about Matcham sociology that Allan and his sweetheart, seated by the piano at the other end of the room, were as much alone as if they had been in one of the Discombe copses. No better friend than a piano to lovers who want to be quiet and confidential. Suzette sat before the keyboard and played a few bars now and then, like a running commentary on the conversation.
"You will say all that is kind and nice to Mrs. Wornock for me?" ”

“ My dear Allan, don't be down-hearted. I am resigned to the worst that can happen. I won't say I am glad that the end is near. That would be base ingratitude to the best of wives, to the dearest of sons, and to Providence which has given me so many good things. This world and this life have been pleasant to me, Allan; and it does seem hard to be called away from such peaceful surroundings, from the home where love is, even though through all that life there has run a dark thread. I think you have known that, Allan. ”

“ No man journeying with a passionate heart ever found rail or boat quick enough, and Geoffrey, always impatient, chafed at every stage of the journey, and complained as bitterly as if he had been travelling at the expensive crawl in which a Horace Walpole or a Beckford was content to accomplish that restricted round which our ancestors called the "grand tour." Nothing slower than a balloon driving before a gale would have satisfied Geoffrey's eager soul. ”

“ It isn't because the Herr and his wife were cheats that there is no link between the living and the dead. I know there is a link,' she insisted passionately, her eyes brimming with sudden tears. 'They are not dead—those we dearly love—only removed from us. The clay is gone; the soul is hovering near, blessing, comforting us.'
"She sobbed out her grief, hiding her face upon Martha's substantial shoulder. I could speak no word of consolation; nor would I for worlds have argued against this fond hallucination, the dream of sorrowing love. ”

“ Lady Emily said reproachfully.
"My dear lady, to have done that would have been to lessen his chance of cheerful surroundings, to run the risk of sad looks where it was most needful he should find hopefulness. Besides, at that stage of the disease, one might hope for the best—even for a long life, under favourable conditions."
"And now—what is the limit of your hope?" asked Allan.
"I cannot measure the sands in the glass. Another attack like that of to-day would, I fear, be fatal. It is a wonder to me that he survived the agony of this morning." ”

“ I have let myself be persuaded into an engagement, but I never loved you.'"
"That would break Allan's heart."
"It would be bad to bear, no doubt, but not so bad as the gradual revelation that must come upon him in the years after marriage. She may be able to deceive him now—to delude him with the idea that she loves him; but how about the long winter evenings by their own fireside, and the dull nights when the rain is on the roof? A woman may hide her want of love before marriage; but, by Heaven, she can't hide it after! God help him when he finds that he has a victim, and not a wife!" ”

“ I feel myself thrust far off from you, while he is so near."
"Allan!" cried Suzette, with a smile that was a pale shadow of her old sportiveness, "can you actually be jealous?"
"I'm afraid I can."
"Jealous about a man who is nothing to me except my dear friend's son. You know how fond I am of Mrs. Wornock—the only real friend I have made since I left the convent—and you ought to understand that I like her son for her sake. And I have been pleased to take my part in the music they both love. But that is all over now. I will not allow myself to be misconstrued by you, Allan. ”

“ A stronger character would have risen superior to the sorrow that has clouded my life, Allan. I have no doubt that some of the greatest and many of the most useful men the world has known have suffered just such a disappointment as I suffered in my early manhood, and have risen superior to their sorrow. You remember how Austin Caxton counsels his son to live down a disappointed love—how he appeals to the lives of men who have conquered sorrow? ”

“ The air was crisp and bright, and the wintry landscape basked in the wintry sun between Cambridge and Stratford; but the dull greyness of our metropolitan winter wrapped me round when I left Bishopsgate Street, and there was a thin curtain of fog hanging over my beloved Bloomsbury when my hansom rattled along the sober old-world streets to the solid Georgian church. I sprang from the cab as if I had worn Mercury's sandals, told the man to wait, ran lightly up the steps, pushed back the heavy door and entered the dark temple, hushed and breathless. ”