It was in a lordly chamber of the Chateau de Montemar, about three months after the event narrated in our last chapter, that the only remaining scions of that noble house were seated in earnest and evidently sorrowful converse. The beams of the sun, rendered gorgeous by the richly-stained glass of the antique windows through which they passed, fantastically tinged the oaken floor and walls. The furniture was of ebony, inlaid with silver, interspersed with couches and cushions of tapestry, ancient as the days of Matilda of Flanders, which, though somewhat heavy in themselves, accorded well with the aspect of solemn grandeur pervading the whole apartment.
“Do not refuse me, Louis,” pleaded Idalie, after a long and painful discussion relative to her papers and parchments, which strewed the table, had passed between them; “do not thus entreat me to retain my heritage. Is a broken heart, a sinking frame fit chief for Montemar? I have borne much, suffered much, sought even the court of Charles, which my whole soul loathes, to obtain the transferment to thee of all my earthly possessions, and now do not refuse to relieve me of their heavy charge.”
“But only wait awhile, sweet cousin,” he replied; “sorrow has had as yet no time to expend its force. Do not act so soon on the resolution of a moment’s agony; wait but one brief year, and think well on all you would resign. Has earth no spell to fright away thy purpose?”
“None; it is but the casket, whence the jewel has departed. Nay more, it is filled with hopes I dare not hope, and thoughts I dare not think. I would fly from these.”
“And will a convent aid thee so to do?”
“I know not; yet there at least temptation, which I have no strength to meet, will not assail me more.”
“No strength to meet! Dearest Idalie, the martyr at the stake might envy thee thy strength.”
“Not now, Louis, it has all gone from me,” and for the first time her voice quivered, and she buried her face in her clasped hands. A fierce malediction on Montgomeri was bursting from the lips of Louis, as he looked on the faded form, and seemed to feel for the first time the full extent of his cousin’s agony. Young, buoyant, and ever joyous himself, Idalie’s perfect calmness since her return had deceived him; but the tone in which those few words were said strangely and suddenly revealed the whole, and the young man’s whole heart spoke in his half-uttered curse.
“No, no; curse him not, Louis!” passionately implored Idalie. “Promise me, by the sweet memories of our childhood, still to be his friend. In these awful times, when the poisoned draught and midnight dagger are ever near these persecuted men, be near him to warn, shield, save.”
“I will, I will, for thy sweet sake,” he replied, earnestly. “Yet why fear such danger for him? he never will be rash enough to return to France.”
“Louis, he is even now in France, and therefore is it I so conjure you to be his friend. He is here, may be near me still, even as he hovered close beside me in my passage home. He thought to be unknown, even to me; me, whom he was there to guard, protect to the last, speaking not one word to betray himself, or give me again the torture of farewell. I knew him close beside me; I heard the disguised accents of his voice, and yet we were as if the grave had parted us. Oh, Louis, Louis! the strength which then upheld me has departed from me; I dare not look upon his face and listen to his voice again. Only the convent walls can shield me from a broken vow, a dead father’s curse; and wilt thou keep me from their refuge? No, no; relieve me from this fearful heritage, and let me be at peace.”
One week after Louis de Montemar had been acknowledged by all the vassals of his cousin as their suzerain or feudal lord, to whom and to his heirs they had sworn undying allegiance, Idalie stood within the convent church of our Lady of Montemar, preparing to take those awful vows which severed her from earth, and all its cares and joys, and hopes and woes, for ever. It was midnight, but the large waxen tapers burning on the high altar and many shrines completely illuminated the main body of the church, while the deep shadows of the aisles and more distant arches of the nave heightened the effect of light, and rendered the building larger in appearance than in reality. Clouds of incense floated on the air, from the rich silver censers held by six beautiful boys, clothed in white, standing on either side the altar. Behind, and exquisitely illuminated by a peculiarly softened light falling full upon it, hung a picture of the Saviour kneeling in the garden of Gethsemane, his countenance powerfully expressive of the words, “Nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt.”
The church was crowded in the nave and aisles, the choir and chancel being left for the relations of the novice and those of higher rank. As Idalie had but few of the former, and had particularly wished the ceremony to be as private as possible, these parts of the building were comparatively unoccupied, except by monks and priests.
Clothed with unwonted gorgeousness, Idalie stood beside the altar. A rich robe of grey Genoa velvet descended to her feet, sweeping the marble ground in heavy folds, girded round the waist with a broad belt of large rubies and opals; glittering stars of the same clasped down the stomacher, and looped the wide sleeve of richest lace, and braids of diamonds glistened in the dark tresses of her hair, and sparkled on the high, pure brow, which, marble pale, seemed all unfitted for their weight. Her eyes were raised, her lips slightly parted, her thin white hands crossed upon her bosom, as in the heartfelt utterance of voiceless prayer. Silence, deep as the grave, had succeeded the priest’s prayer, lasting but a moment, for Idalie sinking noiselessly on the ground, the black pall was thrown over her, and the distant discharge of cannon, mingled with the muffled toll of the convent bell, proclaimed far and near that Idalie de Montemar was now an inmate of the tomb. A groan so deep and hollow at that instant reverberated through the building, that all present started, and shudderingly drew nearer each other, unable to trace whence or from whom it came, until a tall shrouded figure was discovered leaning against one of the pillars supporting the arched roof of the choir; his face was buried in his cloak, but he was seen to shiver, as by some rudely-passing wind. The organ swelled forth in thrilling tones the requiem for the dead, sweet childish voices prolonged the solemn strain, till it faded softer and softer in the distance, swelling, falling, then dying all away. Removing the pall, the priests waited for Idalie to rise and kneel before the altar, that the ceremony might continue. They waited, but there was no movement. She lay even as she had fallen. A cry of terror burst from the aged priest, and at the same instant, heedless of the personal danger inseparable from discovery, bareheaded and unshrouded—heedless of all save one agonizing fear—Gabriel de Lorges rushed forward, and knelt beside her.
“Idalie! loveliest! dearest! speak to me, answer me; say that I have not murdered thee! Answer me, in mercy, but one word!”
He spoke in vain. Louis de Montemar, priests, and many others crowded round him. They sought to withdraw her from Montgomeri’s convulsive hold, to wake her from the seeming trance. But all was useless; she had passed to heaven in that music swell. The broken-hearted was at rest.[4]
4. The after-fate of the unfortunate but guiltless regicide belongs to history.
Lady Gresham’s Fête. A TALE OF THE DAY.
It was near the end of May, beautiful May, that month of strange contrarieties in our lovely land. In the haunts of Nature, robed with such gorgeous beauty, bringing such a lavish garniture of tree and shrub, and flowers; such fresh and dewy mornings; such glorious sunsets; and those soft sweet hours of twilight, so fraught with spiritual musings; and those lovely nights, when the mind loses itself in the infinitude of thought, in the vain yearning to grasp something beyond our present being, in itself evidence of Immortality! In the city, in the proud metropolis, seat of empire and wealth, fashion and beauty, luxury and pleasure, crime and famine, misery and desolation, clothed as May still is with her natural beauty, we know her not, save as the “Season!” and in that word what a host of thoughts spring up—enjoyment, luxury, fêtes, balls, dinners! These were once, and but a few years back, its sole association; but now a mighty spirit is abroad, and over the festal halls a dim cloud is hovering, breathing of oppression born in that very thoughtless joyance. Through the gay music, the silvery laugh, the murmur of glad voices—aye, through every tone that tells of luxurious pleasure only—a thrilling cry is sounding! the voice of suffering thousands, claiming brotherhood with Joy; demanding a portion of that which a beneficent Father ordained for ALL—rest, recreation, homes.
In the drawing-room of one of the smaller mansions of the aristocratic west, a young lady was sitting near an open window, inhaling the delicious scent of the beautiful flowers, which filled the balcony in such profusion that, shaded in the background as they were by the magnificent trees of the park, they looked as if the goddess May had brought a garden from her most sylvan haunts, to mark her presence even there.
Lucy Neville, the sole inmate of this pleasant room, was neither very young nor very beautiful, yet she had charms enough to occasion some degree of wonderment that she should have passed through four London seasons and attained the venerable age of three-and-twenty, and was Lucy Neville still. She had the advantage of mingling with some of the most highly gifted and most learned patriots of the age; for her brother, Lord Valery, of whose house she was sole mistress, was one of the most influential men of his day. She went into society also continually; and, altogether, it was a constant marvel to all those who had nothing to do but to talk of their neighbours, why she had never married. Lucy Neville might not have had regular beauty, but she had something better—she had MIND, and a heart so full of good and kindly feeling that she was an exception to the general idea, that we must know sorrow ourselves before we can feel for others. She was indeed, only just putting off mourning for a young and darling brother; but she had begun to think years before that, and the six months of quietude had only deepened, not created, the principles on which she acted.
“Visitors so late! why it is just six o’clock!” passed through her mind, as a loud impetuous ring announced a carriage; and a party of young ladies, of ultra-fashionable exterior, hurried into the drawing-room, all talking at once, and of something so very delightful, that Miss Neville had great difficulty in comprehending their meaning.
“Now, Lucy, don’t look so bewildered. You are quick enough at comprehension sometimes, and I really want you to understand me with a word now, for I am in a terrible hurry. I ought to have come to you by eleven this morning, but really this short invitation has given me so many things to think about, I could not.”
“But what am I to understand, Charlotte?” replied Miss Neville, laughing so good-humouredly, that it was difficult to discover why those of her own age and standing so often kept aloof from her, as having so little in common. “Laura—Mary—have pity on my obtuseness.”
“Why, Lady Gresham’s long-talked-of fête is fixed at last; and of course you will go. Your invitation was enclosed in mamma’s last night. Absolutely her ladyship condescends to entreat her to introduce you. I cannot imagine the reason of this sudden empressement—she could have visited you long ago, had she wished it.”
“She did wish it individually, I believe; but an unfortunate misunderstanding between her brother and mine prevented it. Edward has long wished the estrangement to cease, so I shall be very happy to meet her half-way, and accept the invitation. When is it?”
“Next Monday.”
“Monday! Why, to-day is Friday! You must mean Monday week.”
“Indeed I do not. How she will manage I cannot tell, except that when people have more wealth than they know what to do with, they can do what they please. Her villa at Richmond, too, is just the place for a fête champétre; and the novel shortness of the invitation, and being the day before a drawing-room, will crowd her rooms, depend upon it. It is something unusually exciting, the very bustle of the thing.”
“But I thought it was not to be until—”
“Until Herbert Gresham returned. Nor will it. He arrives to-morrow night, or some time on Sunday, quite suddenly, not having been expected for several weeks yet. What with his foreign honours, his promised baronetcy, and last, not least, his distinguished appearance, he will be sought and fêted by all the money-loving mammas and husband-seeking daughters for the remainder of the season.”
“The worst of its being a fête champétre is, that we must have complete new dresses,” rejoined Laura. “And how to coax papa for the necessary help, I know not; my last quarter was all gone before I received it, and my debts actually frighten me. But what is to be done? go I must.”
“And then the shortness of the notice!” continued Mary; “really Lady Gresham might have given us more time. Who can decide what to wear, or even what colour, in three days?”
“Come, Lucy, decide! But of course you will go!” exclaimed Charlotte, impatiently. “It will be your first appearance in public this season, and so you can have nothing to think about in the way of expense. Nothing but the trouble of seeing about a new dress.”
“Which will prevent my going, much as I might wish it,” replied Miss Neville, very quietly, though the faint tinge rising to her cheek, and the quiver of the lip, might have betrayed some degree of internal emotion.
“Prevent your going! What can you possibly mean?” exclaimed her guests together.
“That as it is now six o’clock on Friday, and you tell me Lady Gresham’s fête is three o’clock on Monday, I have not sufficient time to procure all I want (for having been so long in mourning, I have literally nothing that will do), without breaking a resolution, and sacrificing a principle, which I do not feel at all inclined to do.”
“Sacrificing a principle! Lucy, you are perfectly ridiculous! What has principle to do with a fête champétre? Your head is turned with the stupid cant of oppressing, and the people, as if we had not annoyances, and vexations, and pressure too, when we want more money than we happen to have! And as for time, what is to prevent your sending to Mrs. Smith to-night, (by-the-bye, how can you employ an English artiste?) and get all you want by ten o’clock on Monday morning? Why, I cannot even give, an order till after the post comes in to-morrow. I must wait to know what was worn at the Duchesse de Nemours’ fête champétre the other day. One feels just out of the ark, in England.”
“And I am sure I cannot decide what to wear till then,” languidly remarked Mary.
“And as for me, I am in a worse predicament than either of you,” laughed Laura, but her laugh was not a gay one. “Raise the wind I must, but it requires time to think how.”
We have no space to follow this conversation further. Persuasions, reproaches, and taunts assailed Miss Neville on all sides, but she did not waver. Charlotte left her in high dudgeon; Mary marvelled at her unfortunate delusion, quite convinced that she was on the verge of insanity; and Laura wishing that she could be but as firm. Not that she comprehended or allowed the necessity of the principle on which she acted, but only as it would save her the disagreeable task of thinking how to get the necessary costume when both modiste and jeweller had refused to trust her any more.
For nearly half an hour Lucy remained sitting where her visitors had left her, her hands pressed on her eyes, and her whole posture denoting a painful intensity of thought. Herbert Gresham returning! His mother’s unexpected and pressing invitation! Could it be that the bar between the families was indeed so entirely removed, that she might hope as she had never dared hope before? Sir Sydney’s hatred to her brother, from some political opposition, had been such, it was whispered at the time, that he had obtained his nephew some honourable appointment abroad, only because he feared that he not only loved Lucy, but leaned towards Lord Valery’s political opinions. Four years had passed since then, and Herbert Gresham was no longer a cipher in another’s hands. He had formed his own principles, marked out his own course; and Lucy heard his name so often and so admiringly from her brother’s lips, that the dream of her first season could not pass away, strive against it as she might, for she knew not whether she claimed more than a passing thought from him who held her being so enchained. And now he was returning; and to the fête to welcome him she was invited, with such an evident desire for her presence, that her heart bounded beneath the thronging fancies that would come, seeming to whisper it was at his instigation. And why could she not go? Was it not, indeed, a quixotic and uncalled-for sacrifice? How could the resolution of one feeble individual aid in removing the heavy pressure of over-work from the thousands of her fellow-creatures? There was time, full time, for all she required, if she saw about it at once. It was but adding an atom to the weight of oppression, which, whether added or withheld, could be of no moment; and surely, surely, for such a temptation there was enough excuse. How would Herbert construe her absence, if, indeed, it was at his wish the invitation came? Why might she not——
“Lucy, seven o’clock and not ready for dinner! Why, what are you so engrossed about?” exclaimed her brother, half-jestingly, half-anxiously, the latter feeling prevailing, as she hastily looked up. A few, a very few words, and he understood it all.
“And yet I know, even under such circumstances, you will not fail,” he said; and how powerful is the voice of affectionate confidence in the dangerous moment of hesitation between right and wrong? “You may, indeed, be but one where there needs the aid of hundreds; but if all hold back because they are but one, how shall we gain the necessary muster? To check this thoughtless waste of human life, this (in many) unconscious crushing of all that makes existence, is WOMAN’S work. Man may legislate, may theorise, but he looks to his female relatives for its practical fulfilment. Dearest, do you choose the right, and trust me, useless as the sacrifice now seems, you will yet thank God that it was made.”
Lady Gresham’s fête was brilliant, recherché—crowded as anticipated. The weather was lovely, the gardens magnificent, the arrangements in the best taste that an ultra-fashionist of some thirty years’ experience could devise. Youth, beauty, rank, wealth, all were there, and the female portion set off to the best advantage by an elegance of costume and an extreme carefulness of attire, without which all knew an entrance into Lady Gresham’s select coterie could never be obtained. A despot in the empire of dress and appearance, she little knew, and still less cared, for all the petty miseries (alas, that such a word should be spoken in the same breath with dress!) which her invitations usually excited. The resolve to outvie—the utter carelessness of expenditure while the excitement lasted—the depression, almost despair, at the accumulated debts which followed—the rivalry of a first fashion—the petty man?uvres not to give a hint of the intended costume, and the equally petty man?uvres to discover it—the mortification when, after all the lavish expense, all the mysteries, others appeared more fashionable, more recherché—the disgust with which, in consequence, the previously considered perfect dress was henceforth regarded—these, and a hundred other similar emotions had been, during the “season,” called forth again and again; and in beings destined for immortality! was it marvel they had no thought for other than themselves?
That this fête was in commemoration of Herbert Gresham’s return, and that he was present, the hero of the day, not a little increased its excitement and importance. But he moved amongst his mother’s guests with native and winning courtesy indeed, but as if his mind were engrossed with other and deeper things. In the four years of his absence many changes, powerful in themselves, but still only invisibly working, had taken place in the political aspect of his country. By means of private correspondence with the most influential men of the day, and through the public journals, he had felt the deepest interest in these changes; and from the very fact of his looking on from a distance, and not mingling with the contending waves of party, he had formed clearer views concerning them than many on the spot. He had returned, determined to devote the whole energies of his powerful mind to removing invisible oppression, so lessening labour that MIND might resume her supremacy, and create for every position its own immortal joys. He was no leveller of ranks; no believer in that vain dream, equality. He had travelled and thought much, and felt to his heart’s core the superiority of England as a nation, both for constitution and morality; but this conviction, instead of blinding him to her faults, quickened his perceptions, not only regarding the evils, but their causes, and increased the intensity of his desire to remove them.
It was not, however, only the habitude of thought which, on this occasion, had given him a look of abstraction. He was disappointed. His mother had told him that, in compliance with his desire, all foolish coolness between his family and that of Lord Valery should cease—she had condescended to make advances to Miss Neville, which were coldly rejected. She did not tell him that these advances had been merely an invitation to her fête (of whose sudden arrangement Herbert was himself unconscious), and did not know herself, and certainly would never have imagined the real reason of Lucy’s refusal. Before the day closed, however, her son was destined to be enlightened.
He was standing near a group of very gay young ladies and gentlemen, conversing at first on grave topics with a friend, when his quick ear was irresistibly attracted by the mention of Miss Neville’s name, coupled with much satirical laughter.
“She will become a second Mrs. Fry, depend upon it,” was the observation of one. “I should not be at all surprised that at last we shall find her making pilgrimages through the streets of London, to see if all the shops are closed at a certain hour, and the released apprentices properly employed. She should set up an evening school for drapers’ assistants and milliners’ apprentices. Why don’t you propose it to her, Miss Balfour?”
Charlotte, whose superb Parisian costume gave her the triumph of being almost universally envied, laughed, and declared it was too much trouble.
“You stand in rather too much awe of both her and Lord Valery,” was her brother’s rejoinder. “It is a pity, though, that Miss Neville has imbibed such outré notions, otherwise she would be a nice girl enough.”
“And did she really refuse to come only because the notice was too short for her to get a proper costume without injuring or oppressing—as the cant of the day has it—the poor milliners? How perfectly ridiculous! I am sure the artistes who come for our orders are in the finest condition both as to health and wealth.”
“And the shopmen—they are sleek, gay, care-nothing looking fellows. As for their needing greater rest, more recreation, opportunities to cultivate the mind, one has only to look at them to feel the pure romance of the thing. What are some people born for but to work?”
“And just imagine how dull London would be if all the shops were closed by seven or eight o’clock! I should lose half my enjoyment in walking to my club.”
“I should like to know what good Miss Neville and her party of philanthropists think they will accomplish by giving so much liberty and leisure. We shall have to build double the number of taverns, for such will be their only resort. What can such people know of intellectual amusement!”
“And if they did, what do they want with it? We should have a cessation of all labour, and then what is to become of us, or the country either?”
“It is pure folly. Some people must have a hobby to make a noise about; and so now nothing is heard but oppression, internal slavery, broken-hearted milliners’ apprentices, and maimed drapers’ assistants! Really, for so much eloquence, it is a pity they do not choose a higher subject!”
“And I wish the present subject may never drop till the work is done,” interposed Herbert Gresham, joining the conversation with a suddenness, and speaking with such startling eloquence, that it caused a general retreat of individual opinion. He would have been amused had he felt less interested, to see the effect on both sexes of his unexpected interference. He spoke very briefly, for he was too disgusted with the littleness, the selfishness, of all he had heard to attempt anything like argument. And the effort to excuse former sentiments—to dare say he was right, but they had not reflected much about it—thought it a pity to alter things which had been going on so long—could not understand, even granting there was a good deal of misery, how could it be helped, but if Herbert Gresham thought it might be, no doubt there was more in it than they believed, and very many other similar speeches, only excited his contempt.
We must change the scene, for our space will not allow us more than a slight sketch: a momentary glance, as it were, on things passing daily, hourly around, and yet seen, known of, by how few! Four or five days after Lady Gresham’s fête, Miss Neville might have been seen entering one of those small, close, back streets, found even in the aristocratic west, and whose dilapidated dwellings present almost as great a contrast with the proud mansions which surround and conceal them as the inhabitants themselves.
It was a poor old needlewoman whom Lucy was visiting, and, surprised at finding her usual sitting-room empty, and fearing she was ill—for there was no sign of work about, and Mrs. Miller was infirm and ailing—she gently entered her sleeping apartment. The rough bed was occupied indeed, but not by its usual inmate, who was sitting by its side, tears rolling down her withered cheeks, and her attention so fixed that she did not perceive Miss Neville’s entrance. She was watching the painful, restless movements of a girl, who, in a high state of delirium and fever, was lying on the pallet; she was very young, and had been beautiful, but suffering had scarcely left any trace but its own. Earnestly and pityingly, Lucy entered into the sad, but only too common tale, her inquiries elicited; but the old woman’s narration being garrulous and unfinished, we will give it in our own words.
Fanny Roberts and Harry Merton, born and nurtured in the same village, had been playmates, schoolfellows, friends, and at last lovers—not only faithful and affectionate, but prudent and thoughtful. The parents of both were poor, even in their humble village, but the wishes and interests of their children were their first object, and to see them somewhat higher in the world than themselves their sole ambition. To set up an establishment in the neighbouring town, combining linen-draper, dressmaker, and milliner, had been their day-dream from the time they had conned their school lessons and taken long walks together, instead of joining their playmates on the green; and to fulfil this earnest wish, their parents, by many sacrifices, which, measured by their love, seemed absolutely nothing, gathered together sufficient to send them to London, and apprentice them there. Harry was then nineteen and Fanny two years younger. Hope was bright for both. Their only drawback seemed the impossibility of meeting more than once a week; and six days of entire separation was a weary interval to those accustomed to exchange affection’s kindly words and looks each day. Only too soon, however, did the oppressive reality of the present absorb the rosy hues of the future. On the daily routine of unmitigated work, the exhausting labour, the deadened energies, the absorption of every faculty in the depressing weariness, we need not touch. It was no distaste for work, for both had set to their respective duties with hearts burning to conquer every difficulty—to do even more than was required of them, the sooner to gain the longed-for goal; and had it not been for the fearful burden of over-work, the absence of sufficient rest, of all wholesome recreation, how brightly and nobly might these young loving beings have walked the path of life, by mutual exertion creating a home, and all the joys, which, in England that one word speaks! Alas! ere eighteen months elapsed, every thought of buoyancy and joy seemed strangely to have deserted Fanny. She could not tell why, for outward things seemed exactly the same as they had been at first. Harry was still faithful, still fond. Her heart intuitively felt that he was altered. Why, she would often ask herself, could she no longer feel happy? Why should every thought of her own dear home cause such a sickly longing for fresh air and green fields, that the hysteric sob would often rise choking in her throat, and more than once, nothing but a timely burst of incomprehensible tears had saved her from fainting as she sat. She could not satisfy herself; but in reality it was the silent workings of insidious disease, seeming mental, because impossible to be traced as physical, save by the constant sensation of weariness, which she attributed merely to sitting so long in close and crowded rooms; but though happiness seemed gone, she retained the power of endurance; woman can and will endure, but in nine cases out of ten, men cannot. In the one, suffering often purifies; in the other, it but too often deteriorates.
Harry Merton had entered on his work joyfully and buoyantly, determined to make the best of everything, and be good friends with everybody. Naturally lively, with the power of very quick acquirement, and a restless activity of mind as well as body, a very few months’ trial convinced him that if he had not entirely mistaken his vocation, he certainly must do something to make it more endurable. He had heard of institutions for the people in London, of amusements open even to the most economical; he had pictured enjoying them with his Fanny, and gaining improvement likewise. He found it all a dream. There were, indeed, such things, but not for him or her. The hour of his release found not only every wholesome amusement closed, but himself so weary, that mental recreation was impossible, and yet with the yearning for some pleasure, some relief from wearisome work, so natural in youth, stronger than ever. His convivial, unsuspecting disposition led him to join the most seemingly attractive, but in reality the most dangerous, of his companions. The consequences need scarcely be narrated. He became intemperate, gay, reckless, looking back on the pure, fresh feelings of his early youth with wonder, and retaining but one of their memories, his love for Fanny; but even that was no longer the glad, hopeful feeling which it had been. He was constantly told, and he saw, that it must be years before they could marry. He was laughed at for imagining that either he or she would retain their early feelings. He heard her beauty admired, and then pitied as a most dangerous gift, which must eventually and most fearfully separate her from him; and the most furious but most unfounded jealousy took possession of him, and so darkened every hour of meeting, that poor Fanny at length anticipated them with more dread than pleasure. It was long, indeed, nearly three years, before things came to such a crisis; but the gradual conviction of the deterioration of her lover’s character was to Fanny the heaviest suffering of all: that she still loved him, surely we need not say. She saw the circumstances of this miserable change, not the change itself. Her woman’s heart clung to him the more, from the very anxiety he inspired. So intensely did she mourn for his long, wearisome hours of joyless toil, that she scarcely felt her own; though, when he was released at ten or eleven, she was often working unceasingly till two in the morning. The choking cough, the shortened breath, the aching spine, she scarcely felt, in the one absorbing thought of him.
Whenever she could be spared, which in the “season” was very seldom, it was Fanny’s custom to go to Mrs. Miller (her only friend in London) Saturday night and remain till Sunday evening. Two or three days before the invitations were out for Lady Gresham’s fête, a note was given to her from Harry, the perusal of which occasioned deeper suffering than anything she had yet endured. Snatching half an hour from the scanty time allowed for sleep, the following was her reply:—
“Harry! Harry! this from you! when you so fondly promised you would never doubt me more! Yes, he did seek me that Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, for it was one o’clock; and I would not have gone there, had you not made me promise that I would not disappoint you, and that you would take me home. Why were you not there? Why did you leave me to the chance of such a meeting? And then upbraid me with putting myself in that bad man’s way! Oh, Harry! Harry! by the memories of our early home, our early love, spare me such unjust suspicion! You tell me writing will not satisfy you, you must see me, hear from my own lips my version of this cruel and most false tale. How can I see you till Saturday night, the earliest, if then? Sunday if I can only crawl to Mrs. Miller’s, indeed I will come, pain as it is now to move. Only trust me till then, dearest, dearest Harry. Do not add to your burden and mine by thoughts like these. You know that I am innocent; that I never have loved, never can love, any one but you.”
The Sunday came, but Fanny was unable to keep her engagement. Madame Malin was so overwhelmed with orders for Lady Gresham’s fête, that even the Sabbath day was compelled to be sacrificed. The peculiar trimmings which it was absolutely necessary for Miss Balfour to have to complete the Parisian costume (the details of which never arrived till eleven o’clock, Saturday, and then all the materials had to be purchased) were Fanny’s work; and, from her delicate taste, she, of all the assistants, could the least be spared. In fact, extra hands were hired; for to complete twenty or thirty full dresses from the noon of Saturday to ten o’clock Monday, in addition to those already in hand for the drawing-room the following day, was an unusual undertaking, even for the indefatigable Madame Malin. Hour after hour those poor girls worked,—through Saturday night, the yearned-for Sabbath, again late into the night, till many fainted on their seats, and the miserable toil was continued in a recumbent posture by those unable to sit upright. A dead weight was on poor Fanny’s heart, a foreboding misery; but the sufferings of the frame were such as almost to deaden the agony of mind. The hour of release came at length, inasmuch that, ill as she was, she craved permission to take home some of the dresses, that she might call at Mrs. Miller’s on her way back, and learn some news of Harry, and beseech her old friend to seek him, and tell him the reason of her forced absence. Exhausted and most wretched as she was, she had to wait till the dresses were tried on—the capricious humour of the young ladies proved, by altering, realtering, and final arrangement as they were originally—to bear with petty fault-finding—until her whole frame seemed one mass of nerve; and so detained, that she only entered the street leading to her old friend’s abode, as the carriages whirled off their elegantly-attired inmates to Lady Gresham’s fête.
What a tale awaited her! Harry, restless, miserable,—almost maddened by the false reports against her,—and from the great pressure of business in his master’s shop, from the innumerable visits of modistes’ assistants to procure the necessary materials so needed for the costumes of Mrs. Gresham’s fête, not released till past one o’clock Sunday morning, had perambulated the streets all night, in the vain hope of meeting Fanny, encountering one of his jovial companions, who, half intoxicated, swore he had seen her entering a coach with—Merton knew whom—and when collared and shaken by the infuriated lover till he recovered his more sober senses, declared he could not tell exactly, but he thought it was her: at all events, Harry would know to-morrow, if she had gone as usual to Mrs. Miller’s.
There she was not. Never before had six o’clock on Sunday evening come without her presence; and really anxious, Mrs. Miller (though not believing a syllable against her) conjured the unhappy young man to call himself at Madame Malin’s, and inquire if she were ill or detained. He did so. The well-instructed lacquey declared the family were all at evening service, and if the apprentices were not with their friends, he supposed they were there also; he knew nothing about them; but he was quite sure his mistress never permitted them to work on Sundays. Harry was in no state coolly to consider his words. He rushed back like a madman to Mrs. Miller, uttered a few incoherent sentences, and darted away before she had time or thought even to reply. That very evening he enlisted, and the Monday found him marching to Southampton with other troops about to embark for India. A few lines to Mrs. Miller told her this, and accompanied a parcel directed to Fanny, in case she should ever see or hear of her again. The poor girl had just strength to tear it open, to discover all her letters and formerly treasured gifts, even to some withered flowers, returned, with a few words of stinging reproach, bidding her farewell for ever, and dropped lifeless at the old woman’s feet. One or two intervals of coherency enabled her, by a few broken phrases, to explain the reason of her absence; but brain fever followed, and even when Miss Neville saw her, all hope was over. Vain was the skill of the gifted and benevolent physician Lucy called in. Disease had been too long and too deeply rooted for resistance to a shock which, in its agony, would have prostrated even a healthy constitution. A few, a very few days of intense suffering, and the crushed heart ceased to beat, the blighted frame to feel, and misery for her was over. But for poor Harry—for the parents of both—what might comfort them? We have seen the deterioration of Harry’s character. There were many to mark and condemn the faults, but none to perceive their cause. And when he absconded from his apprenticeship, it did but bring conviction as to his determined depravity. Who may tell the agony of those two humble English homes, when the post brought the miserable news of death to the one, and of sin and utter separation to the other? They had not even the poor comfort of knowing the cause of their son’s change; their own bold, free, happy, loving Harry,—how could his parents associate him with sin?—or Fanny, the healthy, rosy, graceful Fanny, with suffering and death? And what caused these fearful evils, amongst which our tale is but one amongst ten thousand? Lucy Neville buried her face in her hands as she sat by the lowly pallet, where lay the faded form whence life had only half an hour before departed, and thanked God that the temptation had been indeed resisted, and that she had not made one at Lady Gresham’s fête. It had not, indeed, been the primary, or even the secondary cause. It did but strike the last blow and shiver to atoms the last lingering dream of hope and joy which, despite of oppression, misery, despair, will rest invisibly in the youthful heart, till driven thence by death.
“Lucy!” exclaimed Lord Valery that same day, stopping the carriage unexpectedly as it was about to drive off from that part of St. James’s where it usually waited for her (she shrunk from the notice which a nobleman’s carriage, seen in such localities as Mrs. Miller’s, would inevitably produce),—“Lucy, an old friend wishes to recall himself to your memory; will you give him a seat in your carriage, and take me on the box? We both pine for fresh air, and a drive in the Park will revive us for dinner, which, whether he will or no, I intend this gentleman to partake.”
The words were the lightest, but the tone which spoke them betrayed the truth at once. It was Herbert Gresham by his side. Herbert Gresham, whose earnest eyes were fixed on hers, with an expression in their dark depths needing no words to tell her that his early dream, even as her own, was unchanged—that the first action of his now unshackled will was to seek her, requiring no renewal of acquaintance, again to love and trust her. And though the suddenness of the meeting, the rapid transition from sorrowing sympathy to individual joy, did so flush and pale her cheek, that her brother looked at her with some alarm, there was neither hesitation nor idle reserve. Her hand was extended at once, and the pressure which clasped it was sufficient response. Whether they continued so silent, when Herbert did spring into the carriage, and took his seat by her side, indeed we know not. Certain it is that, had it not been for Lord Valery, the footman might have waited long enough for orders to drive “home;” and equally certain that no day had ever seemed so short to Lucy,—short in its fullness of present enjoyment; in its retrospect, could it have been but one brief day?
“And that poor girl is really gone?” inquired Lord Valery, just as Herbert Gresham was about taking his departure, most reluctantly warned to do so by a neighbouring clock striking midnight. “Another victim to that hateful system, desecrating our lovely and most noble land!”
“Dear Edward, hush!” interposed Lucy, gently, as her eye rested on her lover.
“Do not check him, dearest, though I prize that fond thought for me. I know the whole tale—that the fête welcoming my return, by misdirected zeal and thoughtless folly, has added incalculably to the general burden, and to individuals brought death and a life-long despair. The past, alas! we cannot remedy—the future——” and his arm was fondly thrown round Lucy, and his lip pressed her brow—“dearest, let us hope next season there will be another Lady Gresham’s fête fraught with happiness for all.”
“I have no hope in loving thee,
I only ask to love;
I brood upon my silent heart,
As on its nest the dove;
“But little have I been beloved—
Sad, silent, and alone;
And yet I feel, in loving thee,
The wide world is my own.
“Thine is the name I breathe to heaven—
Thy face is on my sleep;
I only ask that love like this
May pray for thee and weep.”
L. E. L.
“We know not love till those we love depart.”
L. E. L.
“Why will you sing that old-fashioned song, dear Annie, when you have so many much better suited to your voice?” expostulated Reginald de Vere, as he led the young songstress from her harp to a more retired seat. “I do not like your throwing away so much power and sweetness on a song which, of all others, I hate the most.”
“Do not say so, Reginald. You are not usually fastidious, or I would say, had that sweet melody Italian words instead of English, you would acknowledge its beauty, and feel it too.”
“Perhaps so, as it is not the melody, but the words I quarrel with—‘Home, sweet home.’ What charm has home ever had for me? Change the words, dear Annie, English or Italian, I care not, only remove all association of home, and I will learn to love it more.”
“Nay, Reginald; to banish such association would be to banish its greatest charm. One day you, too, may feel its truth.”
“Never, never!” he answered, passionately; “there is a blighting curse around me, which it were worse than folly to resist. I must toil on, lonely, and unblessed by one sweet tie of home—seeking for no love, and receiving none—isolated in a world! There are many others whose destiny is the same. Bound by the iron chain of fate, he is but a madman who would seek to break it.”
“Destiny—fate! I thought you had long ere this banished their baneful influence,” said Annie, in a tone of mild reproach.
“From your ear, my gentle friend, because I saw you loved not their expression; but not from my own heart. Yet you, too, believe all things to be pre-ordained; that not a sparrow falls to the ground unmarked. Then, why so start at me—is not our creed the same?”
“It cannot be, Reginald. I am not wise enough to know wherein the difference lies, I can only judge from effects; and when they are so opposed, I fancy the cause must be so also. I do believe that all things are ordained, but yet I am no fatalist.”
“Will you try and explain the distinction, for your words seem somewhat contradictory.”
“I fear they do,” she replied, simply; “and I am over bold to speak on this weighty subject at all. Your creed appears to me to consist in this: that before your birth, your path was laid down—your destiny fixed; that you are, in consequence, bound in chains, enclosed in walls, from which no effort of your own will can enable you to escape; that you must stand the bursting of the thunder-cloud—for you have no force or energy to seek shelter, no free will to choose—swayed by an irresistible impulse, and, consequently, not a responsible being. Such seems to me the creed of a fatalist.”
“And you are right. Now, then, for yours; less difficult, I should imagine, to explain, than that in which you have no interest.”
“I differ from you, Reginald. It is comparatively easy to define the subject of a passing thought or an hour’s study; but that which we feel, feel to our inmost soul, is not so easily clothed in words. I believe that an eye of love is ever watching over me—a guiding arm is ever round me; that nothing can happen to me, unless willed for my good by my Father in heaven; but I do not believe my lot in life marked out before I saw the light. Such a creed at once changes the law of love into a dark and iron-bound necessity, from which my whole soul revolts. Where would be the comfort of prayer in such a case—the blessedness of pouring forth one’s whole soul in the hour of affliction? for how could prayer avail us were our lot marked out?”
“And do you think prayer ever does? Do you believe that you are answered?”
“I do, indeed, dear Reginald; not always as our own will would dictate, but as a loving Father knows it best. I was not answered as my heart implored when my only parent was taken from me; but I was answered in the strength that was granted me to feel that he was happy, and God’s will kinder and better than my own. I am not here because it is my destiny, but because it is better for me than the calm and quiet life I have hitherto enjoyed.”
“Your creed is indeed that of a gentle, loving woman, Annie,” said her companion, more playfully; but he smiled not, for he knew how chillingly a smile will fall on young enthusiasm. “But it is too visionary, too ethereal, for cold-hearted man; perhaps not for some, but for me there are no such dreams. My heart was once full of hope and faith, and all things bright, and fond, and beautiful; but now crushed, blighted, trampled on, how may it dream again? but this is folly,” and with a strong effort he subdued emotion, and spoke more calmly. “Let us talk of something else. You alluded but now to your change of life, and I thought, sadly. Are you not happy?”
“I shall be in time, Reginald,” answered Annie, on whose fair sweet face a shade had flitted at her companion’s bitter words. “All are kind to me. My mother was Lord Ennerdale’s favourite niece, and he loves me for her sake, and so pets me that I cannot but love him most dearly.”
“And Lady Emily?”
“I shall learn to love as soon as she will let me. I fancy she thinks me but a simple romantic girl and I have not courage to undeceive her—that I can love and reverence other things besides poetry; but it is the change of circumstances that sometimes makes me sad. Clair Abbey is so far removed from Luscombe Cottage, that time has not yet reconciled me to the great change.”
“Time is slow in effecting changes in you, Annie; yet ere we meet again, trust me, you will have learned to love Clair Abbey, or changed it for another home as high in sounding, and yet more dear.”
“Changed it ere we meet again? What can you mean, Reginald?” said Annie, startled yet more by his tone than by his words, but she was not answered; for Reginald turned away directly he had spoken, his attention called by Lord Ennerdale; and another quadrille being formed, her hand was claimed, and she was led off almost unconsciously—so strangely was she preoccupied—to join it.
There had been nothing in the quiet yet earnest conversation of Reginald de Vere and Annie Grey to cause remark amongst the light-hearted group who were that night assembled in Lord Ennerdale’s hospitable halls. They had been intimate from childhood, and as Annie was almost a stranger to all present, and merely regarded as a simple country girl hardly emerged from childhood, no one was surprised that she should prefer Reginald’s society; though there were some young men who, attracted by the timid yet intelligent style of her beauty, half envied De Vere the privileges of intimacy which he so evidently enjoyed. Annie’s place seemed not amidst the followers of fashion; the long, rich, chesnut hair owned no law but that of nature, and flowed at will from her pale, high brow over a neck and shoulders, whose exquisite form and whiteness were displayed to advantage by the simple fashion of her plain black dress; the eye so “darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,” the fair soft cheek ever varying in colour, revealed every thought and feeling that stirred within. The world’s lesson of concealment and reserve she had not yet learned, for living in perfect retirement with a kind and judicious father, of whom she was the idol, her enthusiasm had been regulated, not chilled, and every high and poetic sentiment raised up to and purified in the only rest for such minds—the religion of the Bible and of Nature. Her life had passed in a small cottage on the banks of Windermere, diversified only by occasional visits to an old relation in Scotland; where, in fact, the first six months of her mourning had been passed. And there, had it not been for one cogent reason, she would have preferred remaining, as more congenial to her taste and feelings, than the form and grandeur which she imagined must surround the dwelling of an Earl.
Lord Ennerdale and his family had often sought to draw Sir Edward Grey from his seclusion, anxious to notice his child; but fearing to disturb Annie’s tranquil happiness by an introduction to a mode of life and pleasures which her very limited fortune must prohibit her enjoying, he had invariably declined these solicitations. Yet when Lord Ennerdale, notwithstanding his age and infirmities, made a rapid journey from London to Luscombe Cottage, purposely to soothe his dying hours by the assurance that his Annie was amply, even richly provided for, and therefore there could be no objection to her making Clair Abbey her future home, Sir Edward placed his weeping child in the arms of her aged uncle, and died with a prayer for both upon his lips.
But much as Annie loved and venerated her father, it was scarcely so much his last wish as the restlessness of her own heart, which, even while she preferred the simple mode of living at Kelmuir, yet reconciled her to a residence at Clair Abbey. She was restless because her quondam playmate and chosen friend, Reginald de Vere, was far away in his own most wretched home, with none to sing or smile him into peace, or cautiously and gently argue away his fits of morbid sensitiveness or overwhelming gloom. That Lord Ennerdale not only sympathised in the young man’s causes of depression, but loved his better qualities, admired his talents, and regretted his failings, was sufficient to excite the warm affections of his great-niece towards him. No spell is so powerful in opening the heart as sympathy, with regard to the character of those we love.
Clair Abbey’s great attraction, then, to Annie Grey was, that there she should constantly see Reginald; his concluding words, therefore, had both startled and pained her; but she vainly waited for their solution. She looked earnestly for Reginald to return to her; but he was constantly engaged in apparently earnest conversation with one or other of Lord Ennerdale’s guests. She was too guileless to believe he shunned her merely because he failed in courage to tell her more.
The evening closed at length; and passing along the corridor leading from the library to the stairs, a well-known step suddenly sounded behind her, and the voice of Reginald de Vere called her by name.
“I thought you intended to retire without even wishing me good night,” she said, playfully, her spirit rallying with his appearance. “What do you mean, sir, by such treatment? Be better behaved to-morrow, and I will be merciful, and forgive.”
“You must forgive me to-night, dearest Annie; for to-morrow will see me many miles on my road to Portsmouth, thence speedily to embark for Spain.”
“Portsmouth—Spain!” repeated the bewildered girl; and her hand so trembled, that the lamp she held dropped from it, and was instantly extinguished.
“Yes, Annie, to Spain!” he answered, struggling for calmness. “I am of age now; poor, but not so utterly dependent as I have been. My father’s house I will never enter more. You start, Annie, but do not—do not condemn me. Judge me by no reasoning but that of your own kind gentle heart. I can bear no more than that which I have borne. Boyhood must submit to a parent’s tyranny; but manhood owns no such law. You know how I would have loved my father, and how he has spurned me. Still I lingered, vainly striving to elicit one softer feeling, hoping—idiot that I was—that he would yet love me. But the dream is over! He drew the reins still tighter, and so snapped them; there is a measure to endurance even in a son. Do not weep thus, Annie,” he continued, conquering his own emotion to soothe hers, and passing his arm round her, as he had so often done in earlier years, when as a brother he had soothed her griefs and shared her joys. “I will not burden you with the final cause of my present resolution. I have neither means nor influence to tread the path to which my inmost soul aspires; and to toil for lingering years behind a merchant’s desk or tradesman’s counter my spirit will not bear. I have obtained a commission amongst the brave fellows now about to join General Mina in his gallant defence of the young queen; and with him these restless yearnings may be stilled in the activity of martial service, or the quiet of the grave. And who will mourn for me?” he continued, rapidly and bitterly; “who, in the wide world, will think of me, or shed one tear for me, save thine own sweet self? Oh, Annie, speak to me! Tell me you will think of me sometimes. I know there will be many, very many, to supply my place to you; but, oh, who will ever be to me as you have been?”
“And yet you have decided on this plan, endured more than ever, and told me not a word. Reginald, was this kind?” she said, struggling with the tears that nearly suffocated her.
“You were in grief already, Annie; how might I ask your sympathy in mine? I know it never was refused me. I know it would not be, even in your own sorrow; but oh, Annie, I felt if I waited to look on you again, I should fail in courage to leave England. Yet why should I linger? Changed as your prospects are, loved as you will be by those so much more deserving, what could I be to you?”
“Reginald!” murmured poor Annie, wholly unconscious of the nature of her own feelings, yet unable to utter another word.
“I know you will not forget me, Annie, dearest Annie, your nature is too good, too kind, too truthful for such change; but, fated as I am, how dare I ask for, hope for more than a sister’s love? Say you will sometimes think of me, love me as—as a brother, Annie, darling! and life will not be so wholly desolate.”
Her reply was almost inarticulate, and passionate words rose to Reginald’s lips, but they were not spoken. He led her to the door of her apartment without another word, wrung both her hands in his, bade “God bless her!” and was gone. Annie stood for a few minutes as if stunned; mechanically she loosed the wreath of white rosebuds from her hair, the fastening of her dress, which seemed to stifle her very breath, and then she sunk on her knees beside the bed, and the hot tears gushed forth; and long, long she wept, as that young guileless girl had never wept before.
Reginald de Vere was the youngest son of a private gentleman of moderate fortune, residing in a populous city in the north of Yorkshire. It is not necessary to dilate on feelings which Reginald’s own words but too painfully portrayed; the “iron rule” of tyranny is best described in the effect which it produces. The Calvinistic principles of the elder De Vere found no softening of their natural austerity in the acidity and moroseness of his temper; the evil had been increased by his union with a young Spaniard—lively, frivolous, and a Roman Catholic. How this marriage had ever come about, nobody succeeded in discovering. Strange unions there are, but seldom between such antipodes in character and feeling as were Mr. and Mrs. De Vere. Their large family grew up amidst all the evils of domestic dissension, and its subsequent misery—a father’s unjustifiable tyranny, and a mother’s as blamable weakness. Basil de Vere sought to instil his peculiarly stern doctrines in the minds of his children; his wife prayed, in their hearing, that they might be saved from such cold, comfortless belief; they shrunk from the one, and learned no religion from the other. To shield them from the father’s tyranny, the mother taught them deceit, lavished on them weak indulgences, which were to be forfeited if ever revealed. Ever witnessing and suffering the effects of dissension, what affection, what harmony could exist between themselves? The ill effects of this training were more discernible in some of their matured characters than in others; some pursued an honest course, as soon as their departure from their father’s house permitted the influence of their better qualities, but these were mostly dwelling in foreign lands; some had married with, some without his consent; and in his old age Basil de Vere found himself master of a deserted hearth, with none of his once blooming family beside him but one, and that one was Reginald. The weak indulgence of his mother had never softened for Reginald the tyranny of his father. She died in giving him birth, and he had to battle through his unhappy childhood alone. Shrinking almost in agony from his father’s voice, yearning, with all the clinging confidence of childhood, for love, but finding none, he turned in loathing from the continued scenes of discord which characterised his home. He spurned with contemptuous indignation offers of indulgence and concealment, to act as he saw others do, and thus constantly drew upon himself the enmity of his more wily brothers and sisters. He shrunk, in consequence, more and more within himself, striving to keep peace with his father, but in vain; for De Vere often raged at his children without knowing wherefore, and the calm, dignified bearing of his youngest son would chafe him into greater fury than palpable offence. But there were seeds of virtue, aye, of the “nobility of genius,” in the disposition of Reginald, that bloomed and flourished despite the unhealthy soil and blighting atmosphere in which he moved; perhaps the kindly notice of Sir Edward Grey assisted their development. The pale, silent, suffering boy had appealed irresistibly to his kind heart, and for Reginald’s sake he condescended to make acquaintance with his father.
As long as they remained in Yorkshire, Sir Edward permitted Reginald to share much of the instruction which he himself bestowed upon his Annie; a kindness so delicately and feelingly bestowed, that Reginald by slow degrees permitted his whole character to display itself to Sir Edward, and allowed himself to feel that, with so kind a friend and so sweet a companion, he was not utterly alone. Even when Sir Edward removed to Windermere their intercourse continued; for there was ever a room prepared and a warm welcome for Reginald, who turned to that cottage as a very Eden of peace and love.
As Reginald increased in years, felt more fully his own powers, and through Sir Edward’s friendly introductions associated with other families, his morbid feelings did not, as the baronet had fondly hoped, decrease, but rather strengthened, in the supposition that his fate alone was desolate. He saw happy homes and kindly hearts; no exertion, no effort, no sacrifice could make such his, and he believed an iron chain of fate was round him, dooming him to misery. The kindness of Sir Edward, of Lord Ennerdale, and others, only deepened the vain, wild yearnings for home affections—the peace, the confidence of home. A peculiarly fine organization of mind and an acute perception of character caused him to shrink with pain from general notice. The talented and gifted he admired at a distance, feeling intuitively that such would be his chosen friends; yet, from a sense of inferiority, refusing to come forward and permit his fine talents to be known; at the same time shrinking from the common herd, convinced that amongst them he should meet with neither sympathy nor appreciation. A happy home would have been all in all for Reginald; there the incipient stirrings of genius would have been fostered into bloom, and the morbid feelings too often their accompaniment regulated into peace.
The death of Sir Edward Grey and the future destination of his daughter were, however, the final cause of his determination to leave England. He knew it not himself; and if a light did flash upon the darkness, it only deepened the gloom around him, by the conviction that his doom was ever to love alone. More and more earnestly he sought to soften his father’s temper, even to conquer his own repugnance to the path of life his parent might assign him; but in vain. To enumerate all the petty miseries this struggle cost him would be impossible. The mind rises purified and spiritualized from great sorrows; but there is no relief from the trial of an unhappy home, no cure for the wounds of words. If domestic love and peace be ours, we can go forth with a firm heart and serene mind to meet the trials of the world; alas! alas! for those who have no such haven, no such stay!
Never did Reginald De Vere make a greater mistake than in the supposition that a military life would bring him the happiness for which his parched soul so thirsted. He could not associate the favourite pastime of his childhood, carving in wood, stone, or whatever material came first to hand, with the feverish yearning for exertion and excitement, which possessed his whole being. He could not feel that the one sprang from the other, or rather that the power which urged the former was secretly working in his mind, and causing an utter distaste for all mechanical employment. He was too unhappy to examine the source of his restlessness, and knew no one who could explain it for him.
Lord Ennerdale and his sons were all men of worth and talent, and firm encouragers of art and literature; but not themselves children of genius, they failed in the subtle penetration which could discover its embryo existence. Had Sir Edward lived he would have seen further; but still all his friends had dissuaded Reginald from entering on a military career, but he was firm; and in less than a week after his agitated parting with Annie, a fair wind was rapidly bearing him to the shores of Spain.
Days and weeks passed, and Annie Grey sought with persevering effort to regain her former calm and happy temperament; and she succeeded so far as to conceal from her relatives the secret of her heart. The agony of that parting moment had transformed her, as by some incomprehensible spell, from the child to the woman; and so sudden had been the transition, that she felt for days a stranger to herself. Reginald had always been dear to her, but she knew not, imagined not how dear, until that never-to-be-forgotten evening; his words returned to her again and again, and sad, desponding as they were, she would not have lost one of them. She who had been so constantly active, flitting like a spirit from one favourite employment to another, now seemed to live but on one feeling; but her mind was too well regulated to permit its unrestrained indulgence. Young as she was, dependent on herself alone for guidance in this new and absorbing state of being, thrown in quite a new position for luxury and wealth, as a cherished member of her uncle’s family, yet her character, instead of deteriorating, matured, uniting all the outward playfulness of the child with the inward graces of the woman.
Lord Ennerdale’s domestic circle formed a happy contrast to that of the ascetic Basil De Vere. His children were all married except his eldest son, Lord St. Clair, and eldest daughter, Lady Emily; but the ties of family had never been broken, and happy youth and blooming childhood were almost always round the earl. With all these Annie was speedily a favourite; and easily susceptible of kindness and affection, Clair Abbey soon became endeared to her as home.
By a strange contradiction, Annie’s interest and affection were, however, excited the strongest towards the only member of Lord Ennerdale’s family who retained reserve towards her. What there was in Lady Emily St. Clair to attract a young and lively girl, Annie herself might have found it difficult to define; for not only her appearance, but her manners were against her. Stiff, cold, even severe, she usually appeared; and when she would at times relax, and seem about to enter with warmth and kindness into Annie’s studies or pursuits, she would suddenly relapse into coldness and reserve. Sometimes, when eagerly conversing with Lord St. Clair, on the exquisite beauty of nature, or of some favourite poem, when the spirit of poetry breathed alike from her eyes and from her lips, Annie would catch the eye of Lady Emily fixed upon her sadly and pityingly; or if she smiled, the smile was peculiar, it might be even satirical; yet she was never satirical in words, nor did it seem in character—too feelingly alive to the dictates of kindness ever willingly to inflict a wound. To discover her real character was difficult; Annie judged more by her habits than her words. Lady Emily never said that her love of flowers amounted to a passion, that to have them around her in their freshness, to seek them alike from the garden and the wild, to collect, dry, and arrange them in such tasteful groups and such brilliancy of colouring, that the choicest paintings looked dim beside them, was her favourite pleasure, but Annie was ever ready with some newly discovered plant, or the moss and weed she needed—ever the first to remove the dying buds, and supply their place around her boudoir with the freshest and fairest she could select. Lady Emily never spoke of poetry, never acknowledged that she could either admire or enter into it; but there were extracts in her writing, attached sometimes to drawings, sometimes to her books of flowers, that betrayed such a refinement of taste, and acute perception of the pure, the beautiful, and the spiritual, in nature and in man, that Annie suspected she was herself a poet; but yet how could she reconcile the unimpassioned coldness of her usual mood with the light and life of poetry? Yet though fairly puzzled, Annie so judiciously assisted her researches, that Lady Emily often wondered how a mark could come so exactly in the place she wished, when the thought, for whose echo she looked, had been breathed to none; but even had these attentions escaped her notice, it must indeed have been an icy heart to withstand the sweetness of Annie’s manner; whenever her cousin’s mood was irritable, her temper somewhat ruffled, there seemed a magic around Annie not only to bear with irritation, but to reconcile the subject of that irritation to herself and all around her; and when so languid and weak as really to be ill, though she would never allow it, who so active as Annie to prevent all annoyance to the invalid, or interfere with the only pursuits she could enjoy? Yet no show of affection acknowledged these attentions; but by very slow degrees the Miss Grey changed into Anne, and finally into the pretty denomination by which she was always addressed; and the smile and tone with which she spoke to her, satisfied the orphan that she had not worked in vain.
Even if Annie’s conduct had failed to rivet the notice of Lady Emily, it had gained for her the interest and sincere affection of another. Lord St. Clair was devotedly attached to his sister, and all who had the good sense to appreciate her were sure to obtain his esteem; then in the prime of life, he foresaw no danger in his intimate association with and admiration of his young cousin, a girl but just seventeen; and it was a pleasure to him to draw her out, and repay by every kindness on his part her attention to his sister. A disappointment when very young had caused him to remain single. “I do not say I shall never marry,” he often said, in answer to his father’s solicitations on the subject; “for then I should consider myself bound not to do so, however my heart might dictate; but it is unlikely.”
Annie Grey had not, however, been domiciled many months in Clair Abbey, before Lord St. Clair’s sentiments on this subject underwent some change.
From the time of Reginald’s departure the public journals became suddenly endowed with an interest to Annie, equal to that of the most ardent politician. The disturbed state of Spain, the constant marchings and counter-marchings of General Mina’s army, prevented any regular communication from Reginald; once or twice she had heard from him direct, and treasured indeed were those letters, honourably as the young man kept to his resolution, never by one word to draw Annie into an engagement, or even an avowal that she returned his love. In the papers she often read his name among the bravest and most daring of the British soldiers. One anecdote, officially reported and communicated to Lord Ennerdale, afforded her still dearer food for fancy. The service in which he was engaged was exposed to all the horrors of civil warfare; slaughter and desolation followed in the train of both armies. Young De Vere, at the head of a picked band, had thrown himself in the very midst of a mêlée, determined on saving the unoffending women and children, and aged peasants of the opposing party, all of whom were about to be sacrificed to the misguided rage of the royal troops; the village was in flames, and the peasants, neutral before, swore to be avenged. The exertions of the young Englishman, however, worked on both parties; he calmed the excited spirits of his own men, and promised protection and safety to the oppressed. One group particularly attracted him; a young mother, clasping an infant tightly to her breast, and two fine boys, twining their arms round her, as to protect her with their own lives. Reginald did not know that it was her infant he had saved from a brutal death, but his look was arrested by the intense feeling glistening in her large dark eyes, and by the impotent passion of her eldest boy, who, clenching a huge stick, vowed he would join his father, who was a Carlist soldier, and revenge the insults offered to his mother. De Vere jestingly laid his hand on the stripling’s shoulder, declaring he was a young rebel and his prisoner. The agonized scream of the poor mother changing on the instant into the wildest accents of gratitude, as she recognised in Reginald her baby’s preserver, and to the earnest supplication that he would send them on in safety, removed all feelings of mere jest. Reginald soothed her fears, and selecting a guard of his own countrymen, on whom he could depend, sent her and her children under their care to the outposts of the Carlist camp. General Mina smiled sadly when this anecdote was told him. “The age of chivalry is over, my young friend,” he said, mournfully. “Your act was kind and generous, but I fear of little service. The Carlists are not likely to check their career of devastating warfare because we have spared one insignificant village; nor will you have any demand upon their favour should you unfortunately fall into their hands.”
“Chivalry and its romance may be over,” thought Annie, as again and again her mind reverted to its one fond theme. “But my father once told me ‘a deed can never die;’ and, even if indeed it were to do no good, surely his motives will meet with the appreciation and admiration they deserve; there must be some among the good and noble to do him justice.”
How the young heart revels in every proof, however trifling, on the worth of him it loves. The restlessness of a scarcely acknowledged passion merged into a species of glowing happiness, the basis of which Annie might have found it difficult to define. In its indulgence she forgot the distance between them, the darkening aspect of his future, the despondency breathing in his last farewell—forgot all but the passionate words, “Who will be to me as you have been?” And what will so elevate the character and purify the heart, and shed such sweet rosy flowers over every thought, and act, and feeling, as the first fresh feelings of all-hoping, all-believing love? Annie’s beauty, matured beneath the magic of such dreams, excited universal admiration; but the young girl knew it not.
“No breakfast for loiterers!” exclaimed Lord St. Clair, playfully holding up his hand, as Annie sprang through an open French window into the breakfast-room one lovely summer morning, her cottage bonnet thrown back, her luxuriant hair somewhat disordered, her cheek and eye bright with health and animation, and laughing gaily at Lord St. Clair’s threat.
“Here has Emily been looking starch and prim for the last half-hour, thinking unutterable things of the folly and romance which can be the only reason of young ladies’ early wanderings in the lonely districts about Keswick Lake. Ah, you little fox, prepared with a bribe to ward off the weight of her displeasure,” he said, as Annie laid the fruit of her researches, a rare and exquisite plant, on the table by her cousin, and Lady Emily half smiled.
“And there’s my father in a complete fever fearing that his blooming little niece had been carried off, or eaten up by one of the wild men or monsters of the mountains, and threatening to search for her himself, directly after breakfast.”
“Thank you, my dear, kind uncle,” replied Annie, gaily, bending over Lord Ennerdale to kiss his forehead. “Never be anxious about me. I have suffered no further inconvenience than extreme hunger, which I satisfied at Nanny’s cottage, by a slice of her brown bread and a cup of warm milk. No romance in that, Lord St. Clair, at least.”
“A fortunate occurrence for you, as it may save you from a lecture on the impropriety of indulging love-lorn dreams in solitude. Why, Annie, you are actually blushing; if it were not an utter impossibility for romantic young ladies to feel hungry, I should say your very looks pleaded guilty. Look at her, Emily—you had better begin.”
“No, I thank you, Henry; I never give lectures, even when deserved, in public,” was his sister’s quiet reply.
“Well, the offence brings with it its own punishment, for here come the contents of the postman’s bag, and so a truce to our sage converse; and you, Miss Annie, must eat your breakfast in meditative silence.”
“Or in perusing what she likes better. Here, my little politician; your eyes are pleading, though your lips are silent,” said Lord Ennerdale, gaily throwing to her a packet of newspapers without opening them.
“You are much too young to be a politician; besides, I hate women to dabble in politics, so give me a better reason for being the first reader of all the papers, or you shall not have them,” interposed Lord St. Clair, keeping firm hold of the packet, which he had caught.
“On my honour, I never read a word of politics,” replied Annie, half playfully, half eagerly, but blushing deeply as she met Lord St. Clair’s penetrative glance. He relinquished them with a half sigh, and bent over his despatches. Silence ensued for several minutes, each seemingly engrossed with his occupation. Lady Emily was the first to move, and after carefully sorting and arranging the flowers Annie had brought her, was about to leave the room.
“Annie, my dear child! what is the matter?” she exclaimed, in a tone which electrified her father and brother, so utterly was it unlike her usually measured accents; and startled out of all stiffness and dignity, she was at the poor girl’s side in an instant. Annie’s cheek, lips, and brow were cold and colourless as marble, and there was such rigid agony imprinted on every feature, that Lady Emily well-nigh shuddered as she gazed. “Speak to me, Annie, love! What is it? Try and speak, dearest; do not look at me with such a gaze,” she continued, as Annie slowly raised her eyes, which were bloodshot and distended, and fixed them on her face; she evidently tried to speak, but only a gasping cry escaped, and that terrible agony was lost for a time in an unconsciousness so deep that it almost seemed of death.
Lord St. Clair stood paralysed, but then he snatched up the fatal paper, and one glance sufficed to tell him all, all that he had suspected, all that for his own happiness he had feared; but he could only think of Annie then, and perceiving how ineffectual were all the usual efforts to restore animation, he threw himself on horseback, and never rested till he had found and dragged back with him the medical attendant of the family, whose skill was finally successful. Annie woke from that blessed relief of insensibility to a consciousness of such fearful suffering, that as she lay in the perfect stillness enjoined by the physician, she felt as if her brain must reel, and fail beneath it. It was not alone the death of him she loved, that the idol of her young affections was lost to her for ever, but it was the horrid nature of his fate which had so appalled her. In the gallant defence of a royal fort he had been left almost alone, all his companions falling around him; severely wounded, and overpowered by numbers, he was taken by the Carlists, dragged to their camp, and twenty-four hours afterwards shot, with other ill-fated men, literally murdered in cold blood. Three times Annie’s eyes had glared on the paragraph, reading again and again the list of the unfortunate men who had thus perished, as if Reginald’s name could not be amongst them; alas! it was there, pre-eminent, from the courage, the youth, and the official rank of the bearer. And in that dreadful stillness the whole scene rose before her, vivid as reality—ghastly figures flitted before her; and then she saw Reginald as they parted; and then full of life and excitement in the field; and then covered with blood and wounds. She seemed to see him bound and kneeling for the fatal stroke, and the shot rung in her ears, clear, sharp, and strangely loud, till she could have shrieked from the bewildering agony: she tried to banish the vision, to escape its influence, but it gained strength, and force, and colouring, and before midnight Lady Emily watched in grief and awe beside the couch where her young cousin lay, and raved in the fearful delirium of a brain fever.
Many weeks elapsed ere Annie could again take her place amongst her family; alternate fever and exhaustion had so prostrated her that her life was more than once despaired of. Had she been aware who it was so constantly and gently tended her, teaching her voice to forget its coldness, her manners its reserve, to soothe and comfort those hours of agony, she would have felt that some simple “deeds indeed could never die;” and that to her own sweetness of temper, and forbearing and active kindness, she owed the blessings of a sympathy and tenderness almost equalling a mother’s. But it was long before she was conscious of anything, or even capable of rousing herself from the lethargic stupor which still lingered even when sense and strength returned. That she sought earnestly to appear the same as usual—to evince how gratefully she felt the kindness lavished on her—to return to her employments, was very evident; but it seemed as if bodily weakness prevented all mental exertion. She shrunk in anguish from the thought that she had betrayed her love, though by neither word nor hint did her companions ever allude to the immediate occasion of her illness.
“Would she but shed tears—but speak her grief,” exclaimed Lord St. Clair to his sister, one day, after vainly endeavouring to excite a smile, “she would suffer less then; but she has never wept since; and before, the most trifling emotion, even of pleasure, would draw tears. Could you but draw forth her confidence—but make her weep. Is there no possible way?”
“I fear none: she shrinks from the slightest approach to the subject. I feel as if I dared not speak poor Reginald’s name.”
Chance, however, did that for which even Lady Emily’s courage failed. Annie was reclining, one morning, in a favourite boudoir, her eyes languidly wandering over the beautiful landscape, which stretched from the window. When last she had noticed it, the trees were bending beneath the weight of their glorious summer dress, and the gayest and brightest flowers were flinging their lavish beauties on the banks of the small but picturesque lake. The scene was still lovely, but it had changed; the trees which still retained foliage were all in the “sere and yellow leaf,” the ground was strewed with fallen leaves, the flowers were all gone, and Nature herself seemed emblematical of the change in Annie’s heart. Lady Emily watched her some time in silence, and then gently drew her attention to some beautiful groups of flowers which she had lately arranged. Annie turned from the window with a heavy sigh, and bent over the flowers; while Lady Emily continued her employments without further notice. She forgot that amongst those groups there was the plant, to find which Annie had rambled over hill and dale that fatal morning. From its extreme rarity and beauty she had placed it alone upon the page; and as Annie gazed upon it, a rush of feeling of the bright, sweet memories which had thronged her mind during that solitary ramble came back upon her—the dreams of hope, and joy, and love—with the force, the intensity of actual presence; as if they might still be realized, and the intervening time had been but a dark and troubled blank. She pushed the flower from her, and her head sunk on her clasped hands.
“My poor child, I forgot that flower was amongst them!” exclaimed Lady Emily, in a tone at once of such self-reproach and earnest sympathy, that Annie, with an uncontrollable impulse, suddenly sprung up, and folding her arms round her neck, burst into a passion of tears. All her cousin’s previous kindness she had attributed to pity for bodily suffering. That she could sympathise in her mental affliction, she had fancied—as the young are too prone to do of the colder and more experienced—was impossible; but the tone, the allusion to that little flower, betrayed that she, too, could believe in and understand the association of the material with the immaterial world; and Annie now wept upon her bosom, in the consoling consciousness that, cold as that heart seemed, it could yet feel and weep for her.
Lady Emily trembled; for the deep emotion she beheld recalled passages of equal suffering in her own life, which she had thought buried and at rest for ever. She trembled, lest in this appeal to her inmost soul her long striven-for calmness should fail, and her weakness should increase rather than soothe Annie’s anguish. Her hand shook, and her lip so quivered, that it was some minutes ere she could speak. We need not linger on the words which followed. The ice, which had seemed to close round Annie’s heart, dissolved—Reginald’s name was spoken—the fond secret of her life revealed; and from that day she found more strength to struggle with depression—to leave no effort untried to regain serenity, and conquer that worse foe to happiness, indifference, which the human heart contains. Once convinced, by the representations of affection and experience, that it was her duty actively to do, as well as passively to endure—to prove her resignation to the blow, which, though heavy, was still dealt by a Father’s hand, she did not fail. A yet more earnest desire to seek the happiness of others, and complete disregard of self—a calm and still serenity of word and look, were now her outward characteristics; while, within, though her spirit had gained new strength in its upward flight—new clinging love for that world where all is peace, the thought of the departed yet remained, gaining, it seemed, increase of power with every passing month. It had lost its absorbing anguish; but not its memories. Too truly did she feel, with that sweet chronicler of woman’s heart—
“We dream not of Love’s might,
Till Death has robed, with soft and solemn light,
The image we enshrine. Before that hour
We have but glimpses of the overmastering power
Within us laid.”
There were times when the thought would come, and so vividly, she could scarcely believe it only a thought, that Reginald might yet live, the public records be deceivers. But Lady Emily’s assurances that her father and brothers had made every inquiry, but that all the information obtained only confirmed the first statement, proved the utter fallacy of the dream.
“Ah! let the heart that worships thee
By ev’ry change be proved.”
L. E. L.
“I could forgive the miserable hours
His falsehood, and his only, taught my heart;
But I can not forgive that for his sake
My faith in good is shaken, and my hopes
Are pale and cold, for they have looked on death.
Why should I love him? he no longer is
That which I loved.”
L. E. L.
“Thou livest! thou livest!
I knew thou couldst not die!”
De Chatillon—Mrs. Hemans.
Nearly two years had elapsed since the death of Reginald De Vere ere any event of sufficient importance occurred in Annie’s life for us to resume the thread of our narrative. A shock like that, and on such a disposition, could never be forgotten, though time, the softener of all ills, had restored her to some degree of her wonted animation, and though the elastic spirits of the young girl had given way, the woman had become yet more attractive and lovable. The first London season after Reginald’s death she had not accompanied her uncle’s family to the great metropolis, but spent the period of their absence quietly in Scotland. The second, she did not refuse to join them; but scenes of festivity were so evidently distasteful, that her friends did not urge her entering more into society than her own inclinations prompted. But in her uncle’s house she was seen and known only to be admired and loved, receiving, to her extreme astonishment, an unexceptionable offer of marriage before she had been two months in London. It was declined gratefully, but so decidedly as to give no hope. Some weeks afterwards, Lord St. Clair one morning entered Annie’s room. She was alone, so intently engaged in drawing as not to observe the very peculiar expression of countenance with which he regarded her some minutes without speaking.
“I would give something to read your thoughts, cousin mine,” she said, playfully, at length raising her eyes to his face, which instantly resumed its usual kind and open expression. “I could hardly believe you were in the room, you were so silent.”
“I was thinking how very wise the world is, Annie. It knows and vouches for so many things concerning individuals, of which they are utterly ignorant themselves.”
“Why, what is the report now?”
“Only—” he paused for a second, then rallied so quickly, that the huskiness of his first words was unperceived, “that you and I are engaged in marriage, and that I only wait till you are of age, that the disparity of years may seem less.”
“The world must think much too highly of me for such a report to gain credence,” replied Annie, simply, yet gravely, though she did start at the intelligence.
“What can you mean?”
“That they must hold me in much greater respect than I deserve to unite my name, even in thought, with yours.”
“My dear Annie, can you mean that you are undeserving of the regard of any man, however high his worth? How little do you know yourself! Believe me, it is I who should feel proud that the world should believe this so strongly that not even the disparity of years between us is considered an objection.”
“Do not talk so, dear Henry, or I shall fear I am losing one of the truest friends I have. You have always treated me with such regard as never to flatter me; pray do not begin now.”
“Indeed you do me injustice, Annie; might I not return the charge, and accuse you of flattering me?”
“No, dear cousin. How can I do otherwise than look up to, and venerate your worth, associating with you at home, as I have done for nearly three years, and receiving such constant kindness, that had I been your own young sister you could not have shown more? Do I not see you as a son and brother? and if I did not venerate you, should I not be the only one, either at home or in the world, who did not do you the justice you deserve?”
“And may I not equally have learnt to know and love you?”
“Yes, as a child, a sister, but not as the wife you need.”
“Is the disparity of years, then, in your mind so great an obstacle? Do you think it quite impossible a man of eight-and-thirty can love a girl of twenty?”
“No, not impossible.”
“But impossible that a girl of twenty could love a man of eight-and-thirty; is that it?”
“Far less unlikely than the other case,” replied Annie, half smiling, for her complete unconsciousness caused her to be amused at her companion’s pertinacity.
“Then why should the world’s report be so utterly without foundation, dearest Annie?” inquired Lord St. Clair, with such a sudden change of countenance and tone that it startled her almost into consciousness. The arch and playful look vanished, her cheek paled, and the tears started to her eyes, and laying her hand confidingly on his arm, she said, with quivering lip—
“Dearest Henry, do not let me lose the kind brother, the true friend I have so long believed you.”
“You shall not, Annie,” he answered fervently, “even if to retain such appellatives makes me more miserable than you imagine.”
“Do not, do not say so! my thoughts are all memories, and were the world’s report indeed true, would be faithless every hour; could this make your happiness?”
“But must this always be? Is devotion to the departed a higher duty than giving happiness to the living? So purely unselfish as you are, would you not in time better secure your own peace by giving inexpressible happiness as the beloved and cherished wife of the living, who would never expect you to love as you have loved, than by indulging in the luxury of memory and devotedness to one who is in heaven? Is not this a question worth considering, Annie?”
“Not now, not now! oh, do not urge me now!” she implored, bursting into tears; and her companion on the instant banished every word and thought of self to soothe and calm her.
A month or two afterwards Lord St. Clair, to the astonishment of his friends, by whom he was regarded as a particularly quiet stay-at-home sort of person, accepted a diplomatic embassy to the courts of Germany and Russia, likely to detain him twelve or eighteen months. He had besought and received Annie’s permission to correspond with her. Letters from a mind and heart like his could not be otherwise than interesting. His words returned repeatedly to her thoughts; she loved him sufficiently to feel a degree of pleasure in the idea of adding to his happiness, and six months after he had left England, her answer to a letter from him, in which generalities had merged into personalities, contained the following words:—
“If, dearest Henry, the gratitude and reverence of one whose best affections still linger with the dead are indeed of sufficient worth to give you the happiness which you tell me rests with me, I will not refuse to become yours, if a twelvemonth hence you still desire it. Give me that time. The painful feelings with which I now look to marriage, as almost faithlessness to one who, though the actual words never passed his lips, I do believe loved me most truly, will then perhaps, in some degree at least, have subsided, and I may be able to give you all that your wife should bestow. I know and feel that time is the comforter as well as the destroyer, and that though it is actual agony to think that my heart will ever so change as to feel less acutely the loss I have sustained, I know it will and must, and that it is right and best it should do so. Give me but time then, dearest Henry—let the memories of the dead be so softened that I may do my duty lovingly as well as faithfully to the living; and till that may be, let us continue as we have been to the world and to each other.”
Lord St. Clair did not hesitate to accede to this request. Even his letters did not change their tone; he was still the friend more than the lover; but he contrived to shorten the period of his voluntary banishment, and eleven months after he had quitted England beheld his return.
There was a change in Annie, however, which alarmed and pained him; she was pale and thin, and strangely and feverishly restless. Lady Emily, from being constantly with her, had not remarked the great alteration, but acknowledged, in answer to St. Clair’s anxious queries, that she had seemed more unhappy the last four months, that the calm and tranquil cheerfulness which had characterised her had given place to alternations of fitful gaiety and more frequent depression; but what had occasioned it she could not tell; she thought it might be physical, as she had had a slight cough hanging about her for weeks, which nothing she took seemed to remove. Four months previous! was it possible that she might regret the promises she had so ingenuously given? Lord St. Clair more than once caught her glance fixed with a degree of pleading earnestness upon him, as if she failed in courage to speak; and as he was not one to encourage painful doubts where a word might solve them, he took an opportunity of kindly and affectionately inquiring why she was so changed.
The cause was soon revealed. About ten days after she had written to him, as we related, she had seen, amongst other despatches directed to Lord St. Clair, which were lying on the library table waiting to be arranged and forwarded, a single letter, the writing of the direction of which had caused such a sudden thrill and subsequent faintness, that it had been with difficulty she refrained from involuntarily tearing it open, to know from whom it came. She said that she had endeavoured to conquer the strange fancy; to reason with herself, that the resemblance to a writing she but too well remembered was mere accident. Yet so powerful had been its effect, that even when she recalled the superscription, the same feelings of heart-sickness returned as had overpowered her when it first met her eye. It had been put up with other public despatches—the family having before its arrival closed and sent more private letters; that as he had never alluded to it, she had struggled to believe it could have been nothing of interest to her, and yet the subject would not leave her mind, allowing her neither sleep at night nor rest by day. She knew it folly, she said, but conquer it she could not.
And that fearful state of internal restlessness was fated to continue; for, most unfortunately, the packet of despatches in which that was had been lost, in the overflow of a river which the messenger who bore it had to ford, and Lord St. Clair had never alluded to it, for his letters to Annie had been shorter than he liked, from the annoyance and increase of trouble which the loss of this very packet had occasioned him in his political employment. That the post-mark seemed Italian was all she could tell him, and his anxiety became as great as hers, though that it could really be what it was easy to discover Annie really imagined it, he believed impossible.
Meanwhile, the poor girl’s health—under a suspicion which, however imaginary, was very fearful—did not improve, and her relatives rested not till a skilful physician had been consulted; his opinion instantly decided them, and, despite of Annie’s resistance, a tour on the Continent was resolved on, Lord Ennerdale desiring her not to let him see her again, till she could bring back her own rosy smiling self.
The party consisted of only Lord St. Clair, Lady Emily, and Annie; and, making only a brief stay at Paris, they proceeded in a south-easterly direction, crossed the Jura, and fixed their residence for some weeks in the vicinity of Geneva. The complete change of air and scene seemed so to renovate Annie, that physical strength gradually returned, and with it more apparent calm of mind. Congeniality of taste in our companions is indispensable for the real enjoyment of travelling, and this Annie fully possessed; those three years of intimate association with the apparently cold and passionless Lady Emily had deepened Annie’s regard, but not altered her cousin’s chilling manner. But this delicious commune with nature, uninterrupted by intercourse with the world, caused her more than once so to relax as to excite even Annie’s surprise, and convince her more than ever that Lady Emily had not always been what she then was.
They were sitting one evening under the projecting roof of a jutting gallery belonging to a cottage in the beautiful valley of Chamouni; Lord St. Clair had that day left them to join a party of excursionists, in an expedition somewhat too fatiguing for his companions. The cottage, situated on a projecting mount or cliff, commanded a more extensive view than the parish of Prieuré itself permits. The rich luxuriance of the vale stretched beneath them, intersected with cliffs covered with foliage and large patches of emerald moss, and variously-tinted lichen clothing the grey stones. Here and there a true Alpine cottage peeped through dark woods of fir and larch, and the blue and sparkling Arve glided noiselessly along, still more lovely in the evening hour, as the glowing rays of sunset are contrasted with the deep shadows falling all around. Above them towered mountains of every form, blending their separate charms in a whole so sublime and extensive that height and breadth were lost in distance; misty vapours, or light fleecy clouds, were ever wreathing their snow-capped brows, while Mont Blanc itself stood alone in its sublime grandeur, and in the unsullied purity of its snowy robe. The sun itself was invisible, but its glowing rays were shed upon the mountain, dyeing it with a deep, rosy flood of light peculiar to that locality, and only to be described by its thrilling resemblance to that fearfully brilliant flush sometimes traced on the countenance of mortal beauty, when life is fading imperceptibly away, and the strange yet perfect loveliness rivets not alone the eye but the imagination with a species of fascination which we have no power to resist. The period of its continuance might have been from fifteen to twenty minutes, when it suddenly changed into a pale greyish tinge, of a shade and appearance so peculiar that it affected the heart and mind with the same species of awe as that with which we regard the sudden change from brilliant life to the ashy hues of death.
An exclamation of admiration, even of delight, broke so naturally from the lips of Lady Emily St. Clair, that her young companion looked up in her face with astonishment.
“Have I not surprised you, Annie?” she said, with a quiet smile. “Are you still amongst those who believe that one so cold and silent as I am now can have no feeling for enjoyment, can see no beauty in nature, no poetry in the universe?”
“No,” replied Annie, earnestly; “I know so much of you that mere superficial observers can never know, that I can well believe there is still more which my inexperienced eye can never reach. I wish,” she added, after a short pause, and with some hesitation, “that I were worthy to know you as you are, that you loved me sufficiently to unveil sometimes that which is so studiously concealed.”
“Do not do me such wrong, dearest Annie, as to doubt that I love you, because I am to you, in general, as to indifferent persons. I cannot change the manner acquired by months, nay, whole years of suffering, even to those whose affections I would do much to win. There is little of interest and much of suffering in my past life; but you shall hear it if you will.”
“Not if it give you pain, my kind friend,” said Annie; but she looked inquiringly as she seated herself on a cushion at her companion’s feet, and rested her arm on her knee. Lady Emily paused, as if collecting firmness for the task, then briefly spoke as follows.
“Few, who have only known me the last fifteen or sixteen years, would believe that I was once, Annie, far more enthusiastic and dreamy, and what the world calls romantic, than you were when I first knew you. An ardent love for the exalted and the beautiful, alike in man and nature; a restless craving for the pure and spiritual; an almost loathing for all that was mean and earthly: these were the elements of my romance, but carried to an excess, that instead of being beneficial, as they might have been, became indeed the height of folly, which is the world’s meaning for such feelings. I was a poet, a visionary, an enthusiast, feeding a naturally vivid imagination on the burning dreams of minds whose wings soared even higher than my own. By my family I was regarded with admiration and love, as one whose talents would raise me far higher than my rank. I had the advantage of association with the genius and the student; and their opinion of my powers, their sympathy, urged me on till I was astonished at myself. But there was a blank in the midst of pleasure; I soared too high in the moments of excitement. My mind, unable to sustain itself in the airy realms of an ill-regulated imagination, was fraught, on its return to earth, with a gloom and void even more exquisitely painful than its precious mood had been joyful. Yet had poetry been my only gift, its pains and pleasures might have been confined to my own breast; but the powers of satire, mine in no ordinary degree, were far more dangerous to myself in their baneful influence upon others. I indulged in the most cutting irony, careless whom I might wound, regardless of any feeling but my own pleasure; I knew religion only as a name, whose every ordinance was fulfilled by attending public service once a week. I heard and read that, to some minds, poetry vitalizes religion, for every throb unanswered upon earth lifted up the whole soul to that world where all was love and all was joy. I laughed at such romance, as I termed it, for I could not understand it. In the gloom and void occasionally felt, pride and triumph at my own superiority to my fellows were the constant occupants of my heart, urging me but too often to level the dart of venomed satire on those whose more worldly sentiments and coarser minds excited my contempt; even the young and gentle often bled beneath that cruel lash, if in the merest trifle of word or manner they differed from my idea of excellence. My own family loved me too indulgently to be aware of the dreadful extent of this vice; Henry, the only one whose noble nature and judicious feeling would have guided me aright, was a student in Germany, and I had no one whose counsels might have spared me, in some measure at least, the bitter self-reproach which heightened the chastisement preparing for me.
“But I am lingering. Amongst the numerous guests at my father’s was one, combining noble birth, genius, light and ready wit, with all the fascination of sparkling features, graceful form, and a manner whose elegance I have never yet seen equalled. He courted my society; he did not flatter, for that I ever scorned, but he appreciated. His manner always evinced respect for me, and pleasure at having found one to whom he could converse on nobler subjects than the mere chit-chat of a fashionable world. It needs not to enlarge upon our intimacy, or the means he took to make me believe, without in the least committing himself, that I was to him the object not of esteem or admiration alone.
“Why should I hesitate to speak that which is now as if it had never been? I loved him, Annie, how deeply and passionately! till my whole soul was wrapped in his image, and my very nature so changed, that I looked on this world with gentler feelings, and believed that the earth which contained him could not be as little worth as I had deemed it. All this would be useless to repeat; the blank in my heart was filled up; my woman’s soul, which neither fame nor talent could satisfy, was at rest; the actual words had not passed his lips indeed, but yet I did not, could not doubt him. That is not love in which a doubt can enter. I was visiting a mutual friend, and daily in expectation of his arrival; to relieve the yearning restlessness of anticipation, I had taken my tablets to a concealed nook in the garden, and was pouring out my whole soul in burning words, when his voice arrested me. The remark preceding his words I had not heard, but all which followed is written on my brain.
“‘Propose to Emily St. Clair!’ he said, in a tone which, while it retained its beautiful harmony, was so changed in expression that I only knew it his by the agony thrilling through my whole being at the words, ‘Percy, you are mocking me! Marry a blue—a wit! worse still, a poet. Pray procure me an admission into a lunatic asylum the very hour I make the proposal; for, at least, were I sufficiently mad to say, Will you have me? certain as I am of being accepted, I should escape being rendered more so. No, my good fellow, the lady is agreeable enough as long as I am unchained; but once fettered, her folly and romance would send me to heaven much sooner than I have the least inclination for. Why, were I in such a predicament as marriage with her, how do you suppose I could live for ever the actor I am now, when conversing with her, drawing her out as it were, to afford me amusement afterwards? The very idea is exhaustion!’”
“‘It is well her brothers have not seen the progress of your attentions,’ was the reply. ‘You might have to answer for such species of amusement.’”
“‘Nonsense, man! Were the Courts of Love in vogue as they were once, she could allege nothing against me to make me her prisoner for life. Why, it was the very effort to keep up the liaison, and yet not say one word which her romantic fancy could construe into an offer, that was so fatiguing. Her delight in my society was so evident, that I was obliged to be on my guard; words meaningless to others would have misericordia!’”
“‘Out upon your consummate self-conceit; she never forgot her self-respect,’ was the reply, and the voices faded in the distance.”
“And you heard this!” exclaimed Annie, indignation compelling the interruption. “Gracious heaven! can there be such men?”
“Be thankful you can still ask such a question, dearest Annie. I did hear—and more, remained outwardly calm; at that moment I believe I was conscious but of one feeling, not indignation; no, he might have spoken yet more cruelly, more contemptuously. I heard but one, felt but one truth—that he did not love me—that the deep whelming passion he had excited was unreturned—that he scorned those gifts which I had lately only valued as I believed them valued by him. My brain reeled for the moment; but sense and energy returned, as gradually, but with fearful distinctness, his every word and tone resounded in my ear. Anguish, which had been the first feeling, was as nothing, literally nothing, to that chaos of misery which followed—to disrobe the idol my heart had so madly worshipped of the bright colouring of honour and worth, to teach myself he was unworthy, had deceived, wilfully deceived. What was the suffering of unrequited love compared with this? He had said, too, that my preference was so evident, I would have grasped the faintest whisper of an offer. I knew the charge was false as himself; but that he should have believed it, added its bitter pang. How was I to act? My brow was burning, my pulses throbbing, yet return to my own home I would not; I would not feign illness, though God knows it would have been little feigned. I would meet him, pass in his company the period I had promised to my friend, and then I cared not.”
“And you did this?” asked Annie, clasping Lady Emily’s, hand in both hers, and almost startled at its coldness—the only proof that the narrator told not her tale unmoved.
“I did more, my child. Though poetry and satire were now to me but fearful spectres, from which a tortured spirit shrank—though that very hour I burned every fragment of composition once so precious, yet, during three long weary weeks, I was to him and to all around me as I had always been; perhaps even more sparkling, more animated, and far more joyous. Without any visible effort, I so far changed in bearing towards him, that instead of finding in his conversation as before an echo to my own, I questioned, I doubted, and more than once I saw him quail beneath my glance or tone, compelled, ere we parted, to doubt the influence which he had boasted he possessed. But what availed all this? It did not, could not quench the burning fever within; and when I returned to the quiet of my father’s roof, the tight-strung cord was snapped, and overwrought energies so gave way, that for months, nay, years, the effects of that struggle were visible in a state of health so precarious, so exhausted, that I have seen my poor father pace my chamber hour by hour in silent agony, without the power to address him. For many months all was to me a blank; yet I believe I was not wholly insensible nor always under the influence of fever. Ere I recovered sufficiently again to mingle with the world, he who had so deceived me became the husband of another; and that other, one who had been my dearest friend, and who has shunned me since as if she too had deceived, and had courted me from policy, not love. I have had no proof that this really was the case, but my faith in all that was good, and beautiful, and true was so shaken, I believed it as a thing that must be, for such was human nature. This marriage sufficiently accounted to my family for my mysterious illness. Indignation was so generally felt, that had I been awake to outward things, my mind might have been perfectly at rest that I had given him no undue encouragement: and his manner had indeed been such as to give, not alone to myself, but to all who had observed, no doubt of his apparent meaning; but I knew nothing of all this. While chained to my couch by bodily exhaustion, memories of my past life rose to appal me, and to add the bitter agony of unmitigated self-reproach to that of unrequited affection. Precious gifts had been intrusted to me, and what account could I render of them at that awful throne, before which daily, almost hourly, I expected to be summoned? They had estranged me from my God, and from His creatures. I learned to feel His words were true. Unguided by either religion or reason, what could I have been but the idle follower of folly and romance. No throb of kindness or of gentle feeling had interfered to check the contempt I felt for, and breathed in cutting satire upon, others. I had wilfully trampled on many a young kind heart, and it was but just that I should have been thus trampled on myself. Presumption and self-conceit caused me to smile, to scorn the censure of the world, and in all probability my manner had been too unguarded. This bitter self-humiliation only increased the struggle to forget that I had loved. In reproaching myself I ceased to reproach him; the pride that had supported me was gone. These thoughts continually pressing on heart and brain were, I am well aware, the sole sources of my long and incurable disease, but I had no power to shake them off; and, fearfully as I suffered, I have never ceased to bless the gracious hand that sent the chastening and recalled me, ere it was too late, unto Himself.”
Lady Emily paused; the quivering of her voice and lip betraying emotion which she evidently struggled to suppress. Annie’s tears were falling on her hand, and ere she spoke again, she bent down and kissed her forehead.
“You now know, dearest Annie, more of me than I ever breathed to mortal ear,” she resumed, in her usual calm and quiet tone, “more than I ever thought could pass my lips. But do not weep for me, my child; I am happier, safer now, than I could have been had the wild, misguided feelings of earlier life continued. It was no small portion of my suffering so to control myself as never to give vent to the satirical bitterness that, when I rejoined the world, tinged my words and thoughts more darkly than ever. The determination never to use that dangerous gift, gave to my words and manner a stiffness and cold reserve which have banished from me all those whose regard I would have done much to win. Many young loving hearts have shrunk from me, perceiving no sympathy in their warm imaginations and glowing feelings; and I dared not undeceive them, for I felt no confidence in myself, and feared again to avow sentiments I had buried so deeply in my own heart. Others again shunned me, because terrified at a semblance of austerity, which they could not know was exercised only towards myself; and frequently have I wept in secret at the loneliness which seemed to characterise my path on earth. Even you, my Annie, gentle and forbearing as you were, till I could not but love you, have often checked your animated words beneath the cold, withering influence of my glance or smile.”
“Do not call it cold and withering, my dear, kind friend,” replied Annie, warmly. “I learned to love you long before I dared hope to win your regard; but could I doubt you in my hour of anguish? Though even then I did you wrong; for I thought I was alone in my misery—and you had suffered doubly more.”
“You needed not such awful chastisement, my love; I brought it on myself. But you are right; fearful as is the death of a beloved one, it is happiness compared to the death of love, to the blasting of our belief in the good and true; the disrobing an idol, till we ask what it is we have loved. My dearest Annie, bless God that this you have been spared.”
Annie was silent several minutes, and then raising her head, she abruptly and strangely asked, “Aye, this; but there are other trials. Oh, Lady Emily, what must be the agony of that heart, who, sacrificing for the sake of the living the memories of the supposed dead, finds too late, that circumstances, not death, have come between her and the object of her first affections; that they love each other still, yet must be strangers, parted more completely than by death. What must be her duty then?”
“You ask me a difficult question, my dear child. If the heart clings to such a thought, better never wed.”
A bright gleam, as of relief, flitted over Annie’s features; but, changing the subject as abruptly as she had entered upon it, she asked, with hesitation, “And that poetic talent to which you have alluded, do you never exercise it now?”
“Never,” replied Lady Emily, taking her companion’s arm, and entering the house. “On my first recovery I dared not, for my sinful abuse of the power had been too recent; though I do believe, that as my taste had completely changed in the poets which I read, so too would my writings have done. But year after year passed; gradually I destroyed every memorial of my passed life, and found peace and happiness in the employment which you have seen and aided, until at length even the inclination to write passed away; and I forgot, even as you must, dear girl,” she added, with a smile, “that I had been a poet, and one of no mean grade.”
The silent pressure of Annie’s hand was sufficient guarantee for Lady Emily that her confidence had not been misplaced; and she was happier, for she no longer feared that, misunderstanding, Annie would at length shrink from her.
We will not linger with our travellers while en route. They visited all of interest in Naples and Rome, and resolved on passing the winter at Florence. Many weeks had passed in their delightful tour; Annie’s health was decidedly renovated; but there were still times when her spirits seemed to sink beneath a weight of depression for which neither of her relatives could account. Each month that passed diminished the time specified by Annie as the term of mourning, and yet Lord St. Clair vainly tried to rejoice; he saw that, instead of decreasing, the memory of Reginald became stronger—that the extraordinary impression made by the superscription of the letter would remain—and ardently he wished that Annie had followed her impulse, and opened it ere it was sent on. He never spoke of love, he never recalled her promise, and Annie so blessed him for his forbearance that, could she but have realized the universal belief in the death of Reginald, she would at once have given him her hand, glad to exchange the torturing doubts which engrossed her for the tranquil calm which must, she thought, attend devotion to one who so nobly proved the love he bore herself.
The many interesting works of ancient art in Florence, so riveted the attention and occupied the time of our English travellers, that the one subject engrossing the whole attention of the Florentines was for some little time unheeded. The town was full of the unrivalled success of a young sculptor, who had burst into fame, no one knew how or where. He had been studying the last two years, amidst the superb specimens of art, in the galleries of Florence, but so silently, so unassumingly, that he was only known as famous. His copies of Canova and other celebrated sculptors had been pronounced perfect by able judges; but it was not till he had completed an original group that he at all seemed to sue for notice, and when that did appear, the easily-excited Italians received it with such universal admiration, that the unknown artist was sought for on all sides, courted, flattered, and, better far, appreciated by those whose opinions were of value. Italy is indeed the country where talent may rise to eminence, fostered and cherished by the encouragement for which it so thirsts. In this case, however, the interest excited originally by genius was heightened by the reserved manners of the young sculptor, who rather shrunk from than courted notice, except from the Italians themselves. It was rarely an English soirée could obtain the favour of his presence. His appearance and name declared him Spanish, a supposition which, as he never contradicted it, gained universal belief. That he spoke English, French, and Italian as fluently as Spanish, and was intimately acquainted with their literature, only proved that his mental capabilities were not confined merely to his art. How he found time to execute all the orders for busts, ornamental groups, etc., which he received, was a mystery to the idler, and a wonder even to the brethren of his craft, greatly heightened when his first original group appeared. It was not alone the execution, but the daring boldness of his subject which had occasioned such universal notice. Boldly leaving the beaten path of classic subjects, his group, though consisting only of three figures, embodied a striking incident in the earliest stage of the French revolution. A young and beautiful girl had flung herself before an aged parent, clasping his neck with one hand, and by the attitude of the other, combined with the expression of the face, was evidently imploring life for him, even by the sacrifice of her own. On the touching and, to the Italian eye, somewhat peculiar beauty of the face, the matchless grace of the attitude, and exquisitely modelled limbs, the sculptor appeared to have lingered till he had out-done himself. The countenance of the father breathed but admiring love for the heroic being whom his arm encircled, as if every thought centred in her, to the total exclusion of all terror for himself. Before them, in a crouching attitude, as in the act of filling a goblet with the loathsome fluid which deluged the streets, was a half-naked form, whose ruffian features and muscular limbs contrasted well with the graceful beauty and nobleness of form in the other figures. The head was upraised, a withering sneer upon the lips, a combination of triumph and barbarity on the whole countenance, which so explained the tale it recorded, that, as an animated Italian told Lord St. Clair, the heart of the gazers throbbed, and the cheek paled, as if life itself were before them. It stood in an apartment of the Palazzo Vecchio, where he entreated his English friends to go and see it. “I will not only see this wonderful group, but make acquaintance with its artist,” he replied; “for, after hearing all this, know him I will.”
“That you will find some difficulty in doing,” was the rejoinder. “He shrinks from all you English; besides, he is, I believe, now at Bologna, and his return is uncertain.”
“Never mind, trust me for making acquaintance with this lion, shy though he be.”
“There is but one fault in his female figure,” observed a gentleman who had joined the group, and was greeted with much warmth by Lord St. Clair, “a fault which we English ought to consider a virtue, but yet is in contradiction to Signor Castellan’s apparent reserve towards our countrymen. The beauty of the female is too English for a French incident and purely French characters. It is very lovely, I grant, but the loveliness is our own.”
The observation naturally produced a warm discussion, which ended as most discussions do, in each party retaining his own opinion, and Lord St. Clair taking his newly-found old friend home with him, introduced him to Lady Emily and Annie.
“And are you settled down at last, Kenrich, tired of wanderings and adventures? though last time I heard of you, you were actually enjoying the wars and cabals of Madrid.”
“I am not very sober yet, St. Clair; but I was fool enough to join the Carlists three or four years ago, and their barbarity to my own countrymen so sickened me of war, that I threw up my commission, and have never drawn sword since.”
“What barbarity?” asked Lord St. Clair, catching almost by instinct more than look the expression of Annie’s face.
“Why, you must have heard—the English papers were full of it—that fine fellow Captain De Vere was amongst them. He and eight or ten others were taken prisoners, and were all murdered—for it was nothing else.”
“But are you sure he was amongst them? We all knew and loved De Vere, and long hoped he might have escaped, and only been reported amongst the killed.”
“Escaped, my dear fellow! how was that possible? Besides, he was so terribly wounded, that he could not have survived, even had they not so cruelly dealt with him. I could not save him, but I saw him decently interred, and from that moment loathed military service, and left Spain.”
“It was full time, I think,” quietly rejoined Lady Emily. “Annie, will you try if you can match this shade for me among the chenilles in my room? I cannot finish this leaf without it, and your eyes are better than mine.”
Annie took the chenille designated from the frame, over which her cousin was bending so intently in seeming, that she did not even look up as she addressed her, and quietly left the room. The moment she did so, Edward Kenrich burst into lavish praises of her beauty, declaring that was the exact style of Castellan’s figure, and therefore he was right, and it must be too English for perfect art, so running on in his usual wild strain, that Lord St. Clair had great difficulty in bringing him back to the point from which he had started, and gathering from him every particular of the death of Reginald De Vere.
Annie did not reappear, and Lady Emily’s great desire to finish her leaf seemed to have subsided with her absence, for she made no effort to recall her. Just before dinner, however, Lord St. Clair, noticing the flutter of her white dress between the orange trees, which almost concealed the balcony leading from the drawing-room, hastily rejoined her. She looked up in his face without a word, but he answered her thoughts, tenderly and gently repeating all the information he had gained. There could be no doubt, and for one brief minute the poor girl’s head sunk on his arm, with a sudden burst of tears.
“I know it is all folly, Henry. I had no right to hope; forgive me, I do but distress you; and yet that writing—that strange writing, whom could it have been from?”
“Not from Reginald, dearest, or it would have been to you, not to me. Has that never struck you, Annie?”
It had not till that moment, and it convinced her. She remained alone that evening, in deep meditation and earnest prayer; and the result was a firm conviction that nothing but a new and solemn duty would restore her to the calm of mind for which she yearned—that devotion to another well worthy of it must draw her from herself. A sleepless night confirmed this resolution, and the very next day the promise passed her lips to be the wife of Lord St. Clair, within a week of their return to England. A few days afterwards they went to the celebrated church of Santa Croce, during vesper service. The magnificent interior, heightened in its effect by the light and shadow flung by huge waxen tapers, the superb monuments, the white-stoled monks and dark dresses of the officiating priests, the kneeling and standing groups, silent and motionless as the marble monuments around—the deep-toned organ, and swelling voices of the choristers, completely enchained the imagination of our travellers. It was strange, excited almost to pain as she was, that Annie at length found her whole attention unconsciously fixed on a single figure, who was leaning against the tomb of Michael Angelo. His face was turned from her, but there was something in his bearing and his attitude which riveted her as by a spell, and the longing to look on his face became strangely and indefinably intense. The soft light of a taper burning over the tomb brought out in good relief the stranger’s uncovered head, whose small and classic shape was shaded by clustering hair of glossy black.
“There he is! there is our sculptor, Renaud Castellan!” whispered one of the Italians who had accompanied them, directing Lord St. Clair’s attention to the very figure on whom Annie’s gaze was so strangely fixed; but even as he spoke, the young man moved his position, and disappeared in one of the aisles, leaving Annie’s desire to see his face ungratified, and only permitting Lord St. Clair to catch the outline of his figure.
“Was not Mrs. De Vere’s maiden name Castellan?” St. Clair asked of Annie, as they walked together from the church to the house of their Italian friend, who had claimed them for a petit souper, and some music. The answer was in the affirmative, and Lord St. Clair remarked it would be strange if this young Spaniard proved to be of the same family. “I must seek him out.”
“See his group first,” was the rejoinder of one of the party; while to Annie the words seemed to disperse the miserable doubts again thronging round her—being of the same family might account for a casual resemblance.
It was with some little difficulty Annie was prevailed upon to sing; but when once seated at her harp, timidity gave place to her real love of the art, and the simple purity, the touching pathos of her style charmed all who heard. The entrance of a guest had not interrupted her, nor disturbed the listeners. Lord St. Clair was amused at the look of admiring perplexity with which he regarded Annie, not himself perceiving that, where the Italian stood, the light fell upon her countenance, so as to give it a different appearance and expression to that which was generally perceivable.
Approaching her, as soon as the buzz of admiration had somewhat subsided, he engaged her in animated conversation; nor was Lord St. Clair’s curiosity lessened by hearing him inquire “if the signorina were not acquainted with the young sculptor, of whom all Florence raved?” Much surprised, she answered in the negative.
“But surely you have been introduced to him, have you not?”
“No,” replied Annie, smiling at his earnestness. “I never even heard of him till I came here; and he has been at Bologna, till this evening, ever since.”
“Then he has seen you, signora, either in his sleeping or waking dreams,” was the rejoinder, in so animated a tone that it arrested the attention of the whole party; “for never did marble and life so resemble each other as the beauty of your face and of his creation. Surely you must all see it,” he continued, turning to his friends with the sparkling vivacity peculiar to his countrymen when excited. “Why, it is not feature alone, but the character, the grace, the similarity is perfect!”
“I told you so, but you would not believe me,” bluntly answered Kenrich. “I told you it was an English face and English character; but you all denied it. I am glad my lovely countrywoman has opened your eyes.”
“Why this is better and better, Annie; do not blush so prettily about it,” whispered Lord St. Clair, as, attention once aroused, the similarity was universally acknowledged. “If the resemblance be chance, it is something to marvel at; if intentional, why I shall be jealous of the sculptor.”
“You need not, Henry,” was the reply, in a tone so sad that it pained him.
“Well, well, we will go and see it at least, love, and judge of its merit with our own eyes.”
The next day accordingly they went, and (the most convincing proof of the perfection of the work) were not disappointed. Neither its beauty nor its eloquence had been exaggerated, and the resemblance to Annie was so extraordinary that the eyes of all the spectators within the room were attracted towards her; but the expression of the countenance of the father in the group riveted her attention far more than the female figure. It was with a heavy sigh she turned from it, and was pale and silent during their way home; but St. Clair was so engrossed by the beauty of the work, the strange resemblance, and his resolution to leave no stone unturned to gain the acquaintance of the young artist, that it passed unnoticed even by him.
“Why, what ails you, Annie? are you not well, dear?” kindly inquired Lady Emily, some hours later. Wondering why her young companion did not join her as usual, she had sought her in her own room, and found her with her face buried in her hands, and her whole attitude denoting suffering. “Henry has gone to seek out this Signor Castellan, to find out, if he can, in what this strange similarity originated, and who and what he is.”
“Shall I tell you?” answered Annie, in a tone so strange that it startled almost as much as the whiteness of her face. “Reginald Castellan De Vere! Was not his mother’s name Castellan? and has he not often and often boasted his descent from Spanish heroes, and from this feeling fought for Spain in preference to any other country? Did he not always love the art of sculpture? Can it be chance that has marked the father and daughter of that group with the characteristics of the revered friend and favourite companion of his youth? No, no, no! Oh! Lady Emily, you bade me once thank God that I had never been deceived; teach me how to bear this.”
“Bear what, my poor child?” replied her companion, soothingly, as Annie threw herself on her neck in fearful agitation. “If this be indeed as you say, what can there be but happiness for you? It is for another we must feel.”
“Happiness for me! and he has never even so far thought of me as to tell me the report of his death was false, and he still lived—never recalled himself to one whom, when he departed, he so loved—loved! how know I that? he never said it; why should I believe him different to others?”
“My dearest Annie, this is not like yourself. Why, if he have ceased to love you, should the work of his hand—a work which must have employed his mind and heart long days and nights—bear the impress of your face and form?”
“Memory, association, mere casualty—the days of his boyhood may be dear to his mind; but how can affection, even a brothers, have inspired that group, when—when he has allowed me so long to believe him dead?”
“It is all a mystery, my dear child; but I feel convinced it will be solved, if we can really prove his identity. May he not have written, and the letter miscarried?” Annie wildly raised her head. “May he not have been deceived? perhaps—for we can never trace rumours—but may he not have heard that of you which, to a mind like his, would cause him to shrink from recalling himself? He left you such a child, how might he build on having so won your regard that you would remain single for his sake? Dearest Annie, if this indeed be not all imagination, and Reginald really lives, trust me you will be happy yet.”
How will a few judicious words change the whole current of thoughts and feeling! Before Lady Emily ceased to speak, Annie was weeping such blessed tears. The proud, cold mood which, had her companion spoken as her own experience of man’s nature must have dictated, might have been retained, and made her miserable for life, dissolved before returning trust and hope. She dared not define what it was she hoped; but it was not till she heard Lord St. Clair’s voice, and she tried to spring forwards to meet him and know the truth, that a sudden revulsion of feeling so completely overpowered her that she sunk back upon the couch. How dared she rejoice, even if Reginald lived? what could he be to her who was the promised bride of another?
“Emily!” exclaimed Lord St. Clair, in utter astonishment, as, on his entering the drawing-room, his cold and dignified sister hastily met him, and taking both his hands, tried to speak, but failed: and leaning her head against him, he felt that she was in tears. “What is the matter, love? something very dreadful for you to weep.”
She controlled herself with a strong effort, and entered at once into the recital of the scene between her and Annie. “Could it possibly be as she supposed?”
“It may be,” was the reply, in a calm firm tone; “there is nothing impossible in it. I went to his lodgings, but, as I supposed, he was either out or too much engaged to be seen; but I am to meet him to-night at the Contessa Corsini’s, and this strange mystery will be unravelled.”
“And you, dear Henry—” she could say no more, so holy seemed his feelings.
“And I, my dear sister, will act as that man should whose aim is not the gratification of his own desires, but the happiness of one far dearer than himself. I do not tell you I shall not feel, and deeply; but does the warrior shrink from the battle before him because he may be wounded? You may love me more, my Emily, if you will,” he continued, fondly passing his arm round her, and kissing her cheek, “for affection is always balm; but I will have no tears—they are only for the unworthy. Where is Annie? poor child, she must be overwrought, from many causes; let me see her, she will be calmer then.”
He was right. What passed between them it needs not to relate. Our readers can little enter into the high character of Lord St. Clair, if they cannot satisfy themselves as to the manner, as well the nature and extent, of the sacrifice he made. He was not one to wring the gentle heart he so unselfishly resigned, by the betrayal of personal suffering; he coveted the continuance, nay, the increase of her regard, and nobly he earned it.
It was a brilliant scene on which, a few hours later, he entered, introduced by the same Italian, Signor Lanzi, who had been the first to trace the resemblance between Annie and the female figure of the group. But neither loveliness nor talent, both of which thronged the halls, had at that moment attraction for Lord St. Clair; his glance had singled out a tall, slight form, leaning against a marble pillar, and half shaded by the drapery of a curtain. His head was bent down; he seemed in the act of listening and replying to the smiling jests of the countess, who was sitting near him; the cheek and brow were very pale, and the mouth, when still, somewhat stern in expression; but it was a fine face, bearing the stamp of genius too visibly ever to be passed unremarked.
“You may smile, and look incredulous, signor,” were the words that first met the ears of the English nobleman, from the young countess, in Italy’s sweetest tone; “but since you deserted us for Bologna, a living likeness has appeared of your beautiful Améle.”
“Mademoiselle de Sombreuil herself, perhaps,” he replied, half smiling. “Fancy would indeed have served me well, had such a chance occurred.”
“You are quite wrong. I doubt whether Mademoiselle de Sombreuil would herself resemble your fancy statue, as much as la bella Inglese does.”
“La bella Inglese! who may she be?” inquired the young sculptor, somewhat agitated.
“A lovely girl, who only appeared in Florence as you left it. Lanzi informed me the resemblance was so perfect, he imagined she must know you; but she had never even heard of you till she came here.”
“And what may be her name.”
“As you seem so interested, I regret that I cannot tell you. It is so truly English that it will bear no Italian accent, therefore I cannot remember it; but find Lanzi, I expect him here to-night, and he will tell you all about her.”
The arrival of new guests, and the attention of the countess called for from himself, the sculptor hastily turned, as in the act of seeking the individual she had named. He had not advanced many yards when he started violently, and with a sudden impulse retreated into a small withdrawing room, near which he had stood.
“Why shun me, Signor Castellan?” inquired a frank kind voice in English; and Lord St. Clair’s hand was extended, and, after a moment’s visible hesitation, accepted and almost convulsively pressed. “Why this long, mysterious concealment, my young friend? were there none, think you, to rejoice that you were still amongst the living?”
“Was not your lordship aware of my existence, insignificant as it is, more than a twelvemonth since? My own hand and signature were surely sufficient guarantee,” he answered, in a cold proud tone.
“Then you did write, and Annie was not deceived! Little did I know the precious intelligence contained in the packet, lost on its way to me in Russia, and the want of which, in a political view, caused me such annoyance. But why wait so long, my dear fellow, to give us tidings so many would have rejoiced to hear?”
“So many! There were more, then, to mourn me dead, than to love me living? But forgive me,” he continued, less bitterly; “Your family would have been my friends, and therefore was it I wrote to tell you that I lived.”
“But was there not one, Reginald, who deserved an earlier notice at your hands? why leave her so long to mourn you as dead, and then to learn such joyful tidings from others than yourself? The ties of early youth, of fond associations, I should have thought sufficient of themselves alone to prevent such wrong.”
Reginald’s very lip grew white as he replied, “Was not her husband the fittest person to give Lady St. Clair such tidings?”
“Her husband, Reginald? You speak enigmas.”
“How!” gasped the young man, as he laid his cold and trembling hand on his companion’s arm. “Is not Annie Grey your wife?”
“No!” replied Lord St. Clair, the peculiar expression clouding his noble countenance for the moment passing unnoticed; “her heart was with the dead!”
Reginald De Vere struggled with bursting emotion, but his trembling limbs refused to support him; and sinking powerlessly on a sofa, he covered his face with his hands, and wept such tears as only spring from manhood’s unutterable joy.
It still wanted an hour to midnight, and Lady Emily was in vain endeavouring to prevail on Annie to retire to rest.
“You are feverish and worn out already, Annie. How will you be able to support the excitement of to-morrow without rest to-night?”
“It would be no rest if I lie down; I cannot sleep. Only let me know he lives!” and she twined her arms round Lady Emily’s neck, and looked so appealingly, so mournfully, no heart could have urged more.
There was a pause of several minutes, and then Annie started up.
“It is Henry’s step!” she exclaimed and would have sprung forward, but her feet felt rooted to the ground; another moment Lord St. Clair was at her side.
“Promise me to bear the shock of joy better than you did the shock of grief, or I can tell you nothing,” he said, gently; but there was no need for another word. Faint as she was, every object in the room seeming to swim before her eyes, every word to be indistinct, yet one figure was visible, one voice calling her his own, own Annie—beseeching her to forgive and bless him! reached her heart, and loosed its icy chains, till she could breathe again. She felt not that strength had entirely deserted her, for she was clasped to the heart of Reginald De Vere, and the deadly faintness passed in the gushing tears that fell upon his bosom.
Mysterious as was Reginald de Vere’s silence, its causes may be summed up in a few words. To his own generous deed, recorded in the early part of our tale, he owed the preservation of his life. When bleeding and exhausted he was led a prisoner to the Carlist camp, he was instantly recognised by the poor woman whose child he had saved, and whom he had sent on to her husband. The tale of his kindness, his generosity, his bravery had been repeated again and again by the happy wife, and created amongst the common soldiery a complete sensation in his favour; so that very many were found eager and willing to aid Juan Pacheco in his resolution to return the good conferred, and save his wife’s benefactor at the hazard of his own life. He had already been disgusted with his life in the camp; the beauty of his young wife had exposed him and her to insults which, as he had no power to retaliate, urged him to seize the first opportunity to desert. One by one the prisoners had been led to execution, and one by one had fallen. Reginald, unable to support himself from wounds and exhaustion, though quite conscious he was placed there to die, was loosely bound to a post, as a better mark to the soldiers who fronted him. They fired—the girthings which bound him gave way, and a dead faint succeeded; but they had fired with harmless weapons, and when Reginald awoke from what he fancied death, he found himself in a covered cart, carefully watched and tended by the young mother and her boy, whom he recognised at once; his captain’s uniform placed on the body of a young Spaniard who had fallen in battle, and whose features were not unlike those of De Vere, no doubt causing Edward Kenrich’s belief in his being really Reginald, and his having been in consequence honourably interred. Juan Pacheco’s knowledge of the wilds and intricate windings of his native country enabled him ably to elude the pursuit to which, as a deserter, he was liable; but De Vere suffered so dreadfully from alternate fever and exhaustion, during the journey, that many times his kind preservers feared their care would be in vain, and death would release him ere earthly rest and shelter were obtained. But at length the goal was gained—a small cottage belonging to a monastery of Saint Iago, situated in so retired a pass of the Pyrenees that none but mountaineers knew of its existence. Under the skilful medical aid of one of the fathers Reginald slowly regained health; but it was not till nearly a year after his supposed death that he regained the elasticity and entire use of his limbs, such as he had previously enjoyed. The severity of monastic discipline did not characterise the monks of Saint Iago. They were but few in number; old and respectable men, who had turned from the distracting turmoils of their unhappy country, and sought peace in study and deeds of kindness. In one of these aged men Reginald discovered an uncle of his mother—one who had always mourned her departure to another land, and union with a heretic, but who had loved her to the end, and was willing to receive with affection any of her children. The fearful sufferings and deep melancholy of the young Englishman had attracted him, even before the picture of his mother, which Reginald constantly wore discovered the relationship between them. For nearly two years De Vere remained in this solitude; the fear of drawing down ruin and misery on his preservers prevented his writing to his commanding officer, to state his escape—Padre Felipo alleging the state of the country was such, that his letter might not only be seized and himself retaken, but Pacheco exposed to the danger of execution as a deserter and abettor of his escape. After the first year he made many attempts to communicate with his friends in England—Annie Grey amongst the number—but he never heard in return; therefore concluded, and with justice, that his letters had never reached a post.
But the two years of solitude, instead of being a mental blank, was the hinge of circumstances on which his whole after-career turned. To amuse his confinement and please the children, he resumed the favourite amusement of his boyhood, carving in wood and stone, and with such success as to astonish himself. He found an admirer and instructor where he little expected it, in one of the monks; and under his guidance, and emboldened by encouragement, made such rapid progress, that his whole soul became wrapt in the desire to visit Italy, and study there. His pantings for fame were now defined—a flash of light seemed to have irradiated his whole being, and to burst the chains of destiny, which still cramped energy and life. It was the consciousness of genius, the proud conviction that he might indeed win the object of his love; win, and be worthy of her, and give her a name proud as those of the men of genius whose lives they had read and venerated together.
The days when all the fortunes of the monks were devoted to their abbeys or to a patron saint were over, and Padre Felipo rejoiced at possessing the means effectually to aid his young relative. He settled on him a sum more than sufficient to gratify all his desires, and Reginald hesitated no longer to concentrate all his energies on this one pursuit. He went to Italy, adopting the name of his benefactor, which was also that of his mother; and the wish not to be known in England, until he had perfected himself in his art, caused him to retain it, even when no danger was attached to the acknowledgment of his existence.
But once in Italy, the yearning to hear of his family and friends became intense, while a strange feeling of dread withheld him from again addressing Annie. It was two years and a half since they had parted, two since he had been reported dead. What might not have occurred in that interval? He had left her free, and so child-like, so simple in character, that how could he, how dared he indulge the hope that she had so returned his love, as to remain single for his sake? He had never spoken of love to her; his affection was so pure and true, that it had withheld him from linking, by a too impetuous avowal, her fate with one so gloomy as his own. His genius seemed now to promise a fairer destiny, but his heart, still darkened by the fearful creed of fatalism, believed that his very promise would be dashed with gloom, and from the ascendency of this unhappy feeling, failing in courage to address Annie herself, he wrote to one of his sisters, beseeching a speedy reply, with information of his father, and all she could learn of Miss Grey. The reply was many weeks before it came, pleading the usual excuse for unjustifiable silence—stress of occupation and dislike to letter-writing. Basil De Vere was in America, and Miss Grey on the eve of marriage with Lord St. Clair; the whole London world was full of it, on account of the disparity of years between the parties, and because Lord St. Clair had never seemed a marrying man; but that it was a settled affair there was not the smallest doubt. She wrote as if it could concern Reginald but little; but the pang was such as to confirm his fearful creed of an inexorable fate, and plunge him into a despondency, that genius itself seemed unable to remove. At first he worked at his art mechanically, but gradually his mind became aroused, and he tried to forget the heart’s anguish in such persevering labour, that though to mere observers its effects were marvellous in so speedy a perfection, it was, in fact, but the natural consequence of unceasing mental and manucipal work. He constantly reproached himself for the agony he felt; what right had he to suppose he had had any hold upon her? Why could he not rejoice in her happy prospects, and write to tell her so? But weeks merged into months ere he could do this, and then he could not address herself, but wrote to Lord St. Clair, revealing his escape, his concealment, and finally the promised success of his art, with a calm, affectionate message to Annie. The letter cost him a bitter struggle, and with feverish restlessness he awaited the reply; but when none came, bitter thoughts possessed him. He believed himself entirely forgotten and uncared for by his friends; and every energy cramped (save for his art) by his spiritless belief, he determined to remain so, and shun alike England and her sons. It was his fate, he inwardly declared, and he must bend to it; and thus, as is ever the case with these dark dreamers, he created for himself the lonely doom he imagined his destiny marked out. The death of his aged relative, in the monastery of St. Iago, placed a moderate fortune at his disposal, and enabled him still more successfully and earnestly to pursue his art. For a time the excitement attendant on the creation of his group roused him from himself, but the reaction was plunging him still deeper into the dark abyss of misanthropy and gloom when his discovery, through his own beautiful work, the sudden and almost overwhelming happiness bursting through the darkness of his spirit, in the consciousness that Annie was free, that she had ever loved him, completely changed the current of his thoughts, and permitted him a realization of joy, before which the dark creed of destiny fled for ever.
It is in a cheerful sitting-room of a picturesque dwelling on the banks of Keswick Lake that our readers may once more look on Annie Grey, ere they bid her farewell—Annie Grey indeed she was not; but there was little change visible, save that her fair cheek bore the rose, and her beautiful form the roundness of more perfect health, than when we last beheld her. The large French windows opened on a small but beautiful garden, where the taste of England and Italy was so combined, as to render its flowers and statues the admiration of every beholder. The opposite window opened on a conservatory of beautiful exotics, and exquisite specimens of painting and sculpture adorned the room itself. An uncovered harp filled one corner, on which the evening sun, shining full from the stained glass of the western window, flung tints as bright and changing as those of the kaleidoscope. A hortus siccus, opened on a group half arranged, was on a table, at which Lady Emily St. Clair was seated, and Annie was standing at her side, with a volume of poems in her hand.
“You idle girl! you would have found what I wanted in five minutes a few years ago. What are you thinking about? Ah, Reginald, you are just in time, or Annie’s restlessness would have invaded your sanctum, depend upon it.”
“And had I not cause? A whole hour, nearly two, after your promised time; and your cheek pale, and your brow burning! Dearest, do not let your art be dearer than your wife!”
“What! jealous of all my marble figures, love? For shame!” replied her husband, playfully, twining his arm round her, and kissing her cheek; “but I will plead guilty to fatigue to-night, and you shall cure me by my favourite song.”
Annie flew to her harp, and De Vere, flinging himself on an easy chair, drank in the sounds with an intensity of delight which he never believed that song could have had the power to produce. “Yes!” he exclaimed, as her sweet voice ceased, “what are palaces and their pleasures compared to an hour like this? There is, indeed, ‘no place like home;’ what, oh! what would the artist and the student be without it?”
“Why, how is this, Signor Rinaldo? what extraordinary spell has been flung over you, so to change your opinion of a song that once you would not even hear?” laughingly exclaimed Lord St. Clair, springing from the balcony into the room. “Good evening, Mrs. De Vere; I have some inclination to arrest you for using unlawful witchcraft on this gentleman, even as I once thought of seizing him for allowing you to die of grief for his loss, when he was all the time in life!”
“Guilty, guilty; we both plead guilty,” replied Reginald, in the same tone; “but my guilt is of far deeper dye; my Annie’s witchery has but thrown such a halo over my home, that all which speaks of its charm is as sweet to my ear as to my heart. I am changed, St. Clair, and not merely in loving a song I once despised,” he added, with much feeling, “but in being enabled to trace a hand of love, where once I beheld but remorseless fate; and my wife has done this, so gently, so silently, that I guessed not her influence until I found myself joining her own lowly prayers, and believing in the same sustaining faith.”
“And has she explained its mystery?” inquired Lady Emily, with earnest interest.
“No, dear friend; nor do I need it now. The belief that a God of infinite love and compassion ordains all things, yet leaves us the perfect exercise of our free will, and in that freedom, and the acts thence ensuing, works out His divine decrees, constraining no man, yet bringing our most adverse wills to work out His heavenly rule—this is a belief that must be felt, it cannot be explained, and thrice-blessed are they on whom its unspeakable comfort is bestowed!”
The Spirit of Night. FOUNDED ON A HEBREW APOLOGUE.
“Let there be light!” the Omnific Word had spoken, and light was. Over the newly-created world the pure element rushed from the spiritual courts of the High Empyrean, where it had reigned from everlasting. In its subtle essence, its ethereal exhalations, fit only for the atmosphere of those angelic spirits, who, at the word of the Highest, took their appointed stations in the new-formed world. Radiance too glorious, too resplendent for mortal view, filled the illimitable space, uniting earth with heaven as by a cloud of glory. Where had been Chaos, circled with shapeless darkness, now revolved, in its vast flood of irradiating lustre, the new work of the Eternal. Thousands of radiant spirits floated to and fro on the refulgent flood. The dazzling iris of their wings, the music of their movements, filling space with beauty and with sound; while up from the lowest Heaven to the High Empyrean—from the young seraph to the mighty spirits nighest the Invisible Throne, whose resplendent presence dazzled even the purified orbs of their angelic brethren—up, through every heaven and every rank, sounded the glad hallelujahs of love and praise.
At every word of the Highest, creation sprung. Darkness, borne back by the mighty torrent of effulgent light, would have passed annihilated from the face of the new-born world, but, shielded by angelic ministers, it lingered, in its new-appointed sphere, to do its destined bidding. A firmament of sapphire, stretched between the waters and the waters, veiling the glory of the spiritual heavens from the grosser earth. Land rose from the liquid deep. The rolling waters rushed impetuously to their destined boundaries, held there by the Omnific will. And over the land the creating Word went forth; and, at once, the mountains raised their stupendous forms, crowned with imperishable verdure; the valleys, and woods, and glens rose and sunk in their appointed rest; and flowers, and trees, and streams, and thousand other charms of sight, and sound, and sense, burst forth into perfected being. Myriads of angels hovered round, visible then in their beauty; but now heard only in the sweet breath of the gentle flowers; in the varied sounds of the forest trees as the wind floats by; in the summer breeze, or the wintry storm; in the musical gush of the silvery rill; aye, and in the deep hush and calm of the evening hour, when nature herself, as conscious of their ministering presence, sinks into deep and spiritual repose.
But not for the abode of angelic spirits was this lovely world. A new creation was to raise the voice of love and adoration! and for such, the spiritual light enveloping the infant globe was too ethereal, too resplendent. Nought but the purified orbs of the angelic and archangelic hosts could gaze on its refined effulgence; and therefore, from the council of the Eternal went forth the decree:—
“Let there be two great lights to rule the earth, the one by day, and the one by night, and they shall rule times and seasons.” And as He spake it was. Instantaneously the minute particles of the ethereal essence formed into an orb of splendour, fraught with such power and glory, that the lustrous flood rushed back into the Heavenly Fount—earth needing it no more;—circled by a diadem of many-coloured light, extending in resplendent rays over the new-born world, infusing its golden glory over the azure heavens; clouds, dyed with the brilliant tints of amethyst, and rose, and ruby, formed before him and faded into glory as He passed. Earth, through her ministering spirits of mount, and wood, and stream, and flower, sent up her thrilling song of thanksgiving, echoed and re-echoed by the myriads and myriads of angels peopling the spiritual courts. Heaven and Earth rejoiced. Increased and dazzling beauty enveloped the new creation. Luscious fragrance issued from the flowers; their petals, adorned by their guardian seraphs, expanded to the glorious orb, and shone in his rays like gems. The Spirit of Day, selected from the highest and purest order of angels, to renew and tend the beauteous work, ascended his throne in the burning centre, whence the effulgent rays emanate on earth, but on which no mortal eye can look; and proudly and rejoicingly as a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, as a youthful hero from his victorious career, he guided the glorious luminary on its resplendent course, joining his voice to the hallelujahs pealing around.
And in varied but equal beauty rose the second light; but its guardian spirit, selected from the same pure and exalted ranks, looked on the effulgence of the Orb of Day, and beheld his brother spirit circled by glory more dazzling than his own. His invisible throne was within the silver radiance of his orb. Light, ethereal and pure as the heavenly essence of which both sun and moon had been formed, enriched him; less glittering but equally resplendent. But a deep shadow stole over the exquisite colouring of the spirit’s wings. His voice of music refused to join the pealing hallelujahs.
“Wherefore?” he exclaimed; and the troubled accents sounded through space, strangely and darkly falling on the full tide of song. “Wherefore do two monarchs occupy one throne? Wherefore to me is given less than to my brother? I have loved, I have served as faithfully as he. Why, then, should I be second, and he the first? Earth rejoices when he comes. Heaven greets him with songs of love. What need is there for me, unless to me the same is given?”
The hallelujahs ceased. A sudden silence, awful in its profoundness, sunk on the rejoicing myriads. The pure founts of ever-living light became obscured. Thunder rolled over the illimitable expanse. The superb radiance of the effulgent moon vanished, and, spreading far into the Empyrean, became the glorious host of stars, each with its attendant spirit as it formed. Darkness clothed the complaining angel; the beautiful luminary given to his charge, seemed quivering and fading into space; while, still strong and rejoicing, the Orb of Day held on his victorious career.
Prostrate and convulsed with remorseful anguish, the spirit sunk before the celestial hosts. He who had been of that favoured class to whom the ways as well as the works of the Highest were revealed, had fallen lower in intellect and love than the youthful seraph, whose task was only to worship and adore. Where could he hide himself from their searching orbs? Where fly from the flashing light that, as the thunder rolled, played round him, marking him disgraced and criminal? But Him whom he had offended, he loved, as only angels love. And so he welcomed that remorseful agony, and prayed, “Have mercy, Father of all Beings! My Father, have mercy on me!” And out of that awful stillness issued a thrilling strain of gushing music—low, soft, spiritual—the murmured prayer, from countless myriads, for pardon for an erring brother. The dimness fled from the founts of light. The thunder ceased; the scorching lightnings blazed no longer. A mild effulgence circled the sorrowing spirit as he lay, burying his refulgent brow in the darkened iris of his wings.
From the invisible throne of the Highest, the mightiest, the best beloved, most favoured messenger of the Eternal, the Spirit of Love, winged his downward flight, and on the instant, space became irradiated. New lustre spread over the vast courts of Heaven; the richest harmonies attended every movement of his wings. Angels and archangels, seraphs and ministers, pressed forwards as he passed, to bask in the wondrous beauty of his lustrous face, and raise anew the irrepressible burst of song.
“Spirit of Night, arise!” he said, and the repentant angel lifted up his brow once more in returning hope, so thrillingly that voice of liquid music fell; “arise, and list the irrevocable decree of the Eternal! Because thou hast envied the resplendence of the Spirit of Day, the radiance of thine orb will henceforth be borrowed from His lustre; and when yonder earth passes thee thou wilt stand, as now thou dost, deprived of thy glory, and eclipsed, either wholly or in part. Thou hast dared arraign the wisdom and the goodness of the Highest; and though He pardons, yet must He chastise, lest others sin yet more. Yet weep not, repentant brother! thy repining is forgiven, and thou too shalt reign a monarch in thy radiance! Queen of the lovely night will thine orb be hailed; the tears of thy repentance shall be a reviving balm to all that languish; imparting consolation to the mourner, rest to the weary, soothing to the careworn, strength to the exhausted. Peace shall be thy whisper, and in thy kingdom of stillness and repose, breathe thrillingly the promise of Heaven, and its rest. Go forth, then, on thy mild and vivifying career. The Orb of Day will do his work, and be hailed with rejoicing mirth; but many a one shall turn to thee from him, and in the radiance of thy tears find consolation.”
He spake: and behold! the pale but lovely lustre in which the Orb of Night still shines flowed round her. The Spirit of Night resumed his silvery throne, and in the profound submissiveness of most perfect love entered upon his silent and beautiful career, circled by the glittering radiance of the attendant stars. Soon was revealed the benignant mercy of His sentence. Even ere sin darkened the lovely earth, His beauteous orb was hailed by all creation with rejoicing; and when man fell, when labour and weariness, sickness and woe, obtained dominion, how soothing the consolation whispered by the Spirit of Night! Weeping oft at the remembrance of his own fault, the Spirit commiserates the tears of others. Floating over the earth, invisible, save through the exquisite beauty of his orb, and the thrilling thoughts of Heaven and immortality awakening in the soul, which, formed of kindred essence, becomes thus conscious of his presence, the Spirit sends his soft rays, formed from the liquid lustre of his tears, on all who need his pity and repose. By the couch of the sufferer—the side of the sorrowing—by the kneeling penitent—by the wakeful mourner—by the careworn and the weary—to the hut of the beggar as the palace of the king—he sends pity, and peace, and consolation. Nor does he sympathise with sorrow alone: the joy which, in the sunshine and midst the turmoil of the world, has agitated the soul even to pain, he softens into such deep calm, as to whisper of that Heaven whence alone the full bliss comes. Love, shrinking from the garish day, finds in his presence eloquence and voice. The poet, oppressed and suffering in the rich blaze of day, at night pours out his full soul in stirring words; for, conscious of a spirit’s presence, the pressure of infinity is then less painful to be borne. The artist, does he dream of giving life to the vacant canvas, the senseless marble, or voice and sound to the rich harmonics for ever breathing in his ear—labours in toil, often in despondency, during the day, for Earth only is present then; but when alone with his own soul and the holy night; when the Spirit, visible either through his silvery tears, or in the rich beauty of his starry zone, penetrates his whole being with his heavenly presence, then life is strong once more! The dream of Immortality on Earth, even as in Heaven, dashes down all earthly fears. The spark of the Deity in every soul is rekindled by the touch of its kindred essence, and Hope, and Truth, and Beauty start into enduring glory beneath the vivifying flash.
Beautiful Spirit! such hast been, and is, and will still be thy task. Over the earth thou floatest, and man, be he in gloom or gladness, aspiring or desponding, hails thee with rejoicing; and even as the pale flowers drooping beneath the noontide heat, and the parched and languishing earth, so does he turn to thee for coolness and repose. Beautiful Spirit! thou hast sinned and been forgiven—therefore we rest on thee!
Recollections of a Rambler.
It was on a beautiful morning, in quite the beginning of May, that, leaving the Globe Hotel, on the Beacon Hill, Exmouth, I strolled forth at a very early hour, determining to ramble wherever chance might lead. There was no fear of my missing any particularly lovely spot in following this determination. The very watering-places combine all the charms of sea and country to an extent peculiar to this lovely county. Ten minutes suffice to bear the wanderer to such seeming solitude of hill and dale, and glen and wood—will scatter around him such a profusion of ever-varying yet ever beautiful scenery, that it is difficult to believe that all those artificial luxuries and pleasures necessary to the trifler and the fashionest, would we seek them, are close at hand.
Every season has its own charm in England. Even winter, in its stern, rude aspect, its brawling voice of winds and storms, has, in the deep, still haunts of nature, its own peculiar beauty. Spring, with its young, fresh joyousness, its sparkling glory of earth and sky—its gushing atmosphere; for, as the breeze comes laughing and dancing along, we can give it no other term. Summer, with its still and deeper feeling, as if the dancing light and glittering love of the youthful year had sobered into a being deeper, stronger, more fervid and intense. Then autumn, decking decay with such bright beauty, shedding a parting halo on the fading year; concentrating all of loveliness in that sweet, dreamy pensiveness, which, while it lingers almost mournfully on earth’s parting glories, looks through their passing light into their renovated being, reading in the death and resurrection of nature the spirit’s immortality.
One charm, indeed, spring possesses beyond those of the other seasons; it is, that almost every hour of the day is equally delicious; in the morning, noon, afternoon, or evening, we may come forth and make acquaintance with her in every variety of aspect, each one as lovely as the other. Evening indeed is the hour of that delicious musing which, in the very blessedness of the PRESENT, unconsciously recalls the loveliest images of the PAST, and adumbrates the FUTURE, by the thrilling whisper of our immortal goal. It is then that, as Wordsworth says—
“We are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul.”
But these are not the sensations of the morning; then life is infused with the PRESENT alone. We can neither recall, nor think, nor hope; we do but believe, and love, and feel, conscious only of the blessing of Existence, of the omnipotence of Love!
It was with all the elastic joyousness of such sensations I hastened up the Beacon Hill, pausing involuntarily on the top to gaze beneath me. There lay Old Ocean, slumbering in the early sunshine as a lake of molten gold, tinged here and there with the shadow of overhanging rocks, and ever and anon fringed with a snowy crest, as a passing breeze rocked the waves into heavier swell. The broad and graceful river, rushing boldly and proudly into its parent sea; its undulating course visible for miles up the land; its shores skirted with towns half buried in foliage; churches, towers, and villages coming forth in the glowing light from their background of hills dark with verdure; headlands, bold, rugged, and broken into every diversity of form; Powder-ham’s castellated mansion glancing through magnificent plantations, with their glades and lawns of emerald issuing from the deeper shadows as jewels of the sunshine. Mamhead just visible through its dark, dense woods; and farther still in the distance, woody uplands and barren rocks towering above the broken summits of the headlands, taking every grotesque form from the clouds lingering above them, and at length fading into ether, changing like phantasmagoria beneath the magic influence of light and shade, and mist and sun.
My path now lay across one or two fields, inlaid with a perfect mosaic of gold, and white and green, formed by the patches of grass, kingcup, and daisy, leading into those narrow, luxuriant lanes, with their gurgling streamlets and clustering flowers which mark at once the county of Devon.
The hedges rose high above my head, and from them sprung forth the oak, and elm, and beech, and ash, bearing the weight of centuries on their lofty trunks and far-spreading branches; the hawthorn, with its blossoms just tipping its rich green as with a shower of snow; and the holly standing forth, dark and stern, amid the more tender foliage of the early spring. Every field-gate or occasional break in the hedge disclosed a complete mass of hill, and wood, and orchard; on one side bounded by sea and sky, on the other stretching farther and farther inland, till hills met the sky, and seemed to close around the landscape. Every shade of green, from the darkest to the lightest, was visible in the tender foliage—some as if already clothed in the intenser hues of summer; others so lightly, so delicately shaded, that their exquisite tracery was distinctly marked against the clear blue sky. The orchards already lay as patches of snow in their verdant dells, and primroses and violets by thousands clustered on the banks of the clear, trickling streamlet which skirted the deep green hedge as a fringe of silver.
I do so love the primrose; there is something so sad and pensive in her meek, pale flowers, gleaming forth as silent stars from their darkly-closing leaves, and bending over the laughing waters, as if their very mirth were sad to her. And the deep purple violet, shrouding itself in silence, yet seeming in its very scent, to smile and whisper joy. And the speedwell, with its full blue petals and delicate stems, which literally bend beneath their weight of blossom, light and fragile as they are; the deep-red campion, with its gorgeous clusters, looking proudly down on its humbler brethren, rejoicing in its lofty home, that it may fade unplucked upon its stem; these and countless other flowers gemmed the hedge a very garniture of love.
There was no sound save the delicious music of the fresh springy breeze, as it wantoned with the glistening leaves, or played with the gushing waters, inciting them to break in tiny waves against the hedge; and the rich thrilling melody of the happy birds, calling to each other from tree to tree, or sending forth such a gush of song, such a trilling flow of rapture, that their slender throats seemed quivering with the effort; then would come silence, as startled and hushed by their own joy; and then a low twittering, with perhaps the distant call of the lonely cuckoo, and a burst of melody again.
After rambling amid such scenes and sounds for about two miles, a thick grove of lofty trees, interspersed with thatched roofs, ivy-clad and smoke-dyed walls, and chimneys of every architecture, marked its termination. The lane narrowed, and hastening onwards, a rustic gate opened into an old churchyard, surrounding a village church of such extreme old age, and so picturesque, that it sent me back in fancy centuries at once. There was the low, square belfry, indented and fractured, with lichen and moss, and flowering weeds springing from every crevice; the long and rambling choir, roofed with copper; the slender buttresses; the small-paned windows, some of Saxon, some of Tudor architecture; the large square porch or entrance, with its grotesque carvings, that could only belong to the middle ages. The very trees, massive alike in root, and trunk, and branch; yews so dark and thick, they seemed in the distance more as solid masonry than trees—looked as if they had stood there grim guardians of the holy dead for centuries; and grassy graves and quaint old tombs, so battered with age and atmosphere as wholly to obliterate their inscriptions—though some bore date as far back as 1500—strewed the ground, so closely congregated that there was no space for a foot between.
The very birds seemed imbued with the spirit of the place, for they were silent, either flying noiselessly over the graves, or winging their way to less sacred groves. A sudden sound awoke me from my musing, and transported me at once from past to present; a joyous peal burst forth from the old belfry, and a kindly voice accosted me with—“Maybe, you’d like to walk in, sir, and see the old place? You’d ha’ time to look round ye afore the wedding party comes; and if not, there’ll be time enow during the service.”
The offer was accepted so eagerly as to delight my old guide; for if one place in the country be more interesting to me than any other, it is an old village church, so buried in its own beautiful site that the roar of the railroad can never reach it; where we can stand still and breathe, apart from the rush and the turmoil, and the haste, still pressing onward—onward, in the vain strife for man’s intellect to keep pace with the giant he has raised, which is now the constant accompaniment of the neighbourhood of towns. The interior betrayed still greater age than the exterior; the windows were painted rudely but gaudily, throwing streams of coloured light where the early sunshine fell, and leaving the remainder of the interior in that dim twilight so in unison with holiness and age. An antique shrine, adorned with most grotesque, and to me incomprehensible carvings, ran between the nave and chancel. The nave, fitted up as a Protestant place of worship, with pews and seats, looked more modern than the chancel; though the very black oak of its furniture gave it a venerable appearance, and seemed to mark its date as among the earliest of the reformed churches, while the dilapidated pavement and crumbling seats of the chancel spoke of an age still further back. The font was roughly hewn out of a single stone. I was intently engaged in endeavouring to decipher the inscriptions and dates on the stone flooring, which appeared entirely made up of graves, when the entreaty of the old clerk that I would withdraw into a pew, as the wedding party was approaching, most abruptly scared away all my antiquarian lore, and transported me, very unwillingly, if the truth must be told, to the contemplation of that common, every-day occurrence, a modern wedding.
But one glance at the group, consisting of only six or seven persons, riveted my interest. In my whole London career I had never seen such a face of intellect, and soul, and beauty as that of the bride. Whether it was the contrast of such youthful grace and loveliness with the stern old shrine around, or the excessive agitation of the bridegroom, and the almost extraordinary self-possession of the bride, I know not; but no marriage ceremony ever affected me as this. Self-possessed as she was, there was no absence of feeling; her cheek was perfectly colourless, and at times there seemed a slight tremulous motion of the lips, as if the effort to retain her composure was too painful to be continued, and only persevered in for him. His responses were wholly inaudible; hers so distinct and thrilling, they affected me almost to tears. The clergyman himself, though young, and, by his gay careless face and manner, the only one who did not well assimilate with the scene, became gradually impressed with its unusual solemnity. The embrace with which, at the conclusion of the ceremony, the bridegroom folded the bride to his heart, was so full of passionate feeling, of such suppressed yet intense emotion, even I could scarcely witness it unmoved, and it completely checked the customary joyous greetings of their companions.
I followed them almost unconsciously from the church, saw them enter the two carriages waiting for them outside the little gate, and remained leaning on a tombstone overlooking the road, long after they had disappeared. My reverie was interrupted by a courteous address from the young clergyman who, having noticed my attendance in the church, volunteered the information which I so much desired.
Pierre Laval, the only son of a very rich planter in Martinique, having received the best education which an alternate residence in France and England could bestow, returned to his father only to feel that a residence in Martinique was about the most miserable thing that could happen to him, and so again made his appearance in England. He sought no profession, because he had no need to do so, his father’s possessions being immense. Joining in the very best society, in which a handsome face, elegant address, and highly cultivated mind gave him many advantages, he became acquainted with the reigning beauty of the season, Helen Campbell. Now Pierre had a decided aversion to cried-up beauties, and so he resolved that, however she might conquer others, she should never obtain any power over him. It is one thing to make a wise resolution, and another to keep it. It so happened that Helen Campbell possessed none of the repulsive attributes of an acknowledged beauty. She was in truth, much more lovely than he had anticipated, but it was the intellectuality of her sweet face which was its peculiar charm. She was frank, truthful, gay—nay, almost wild in her joyousness; and, moreover, possessed the spell of one of the sweetest voices, either in speech or song, which he had ever heard. Pierre struggled a long time, but it would not do; he was fairly conquered: and then for the first time, he imagined himself wanting in every quality likely to make that love reciprocal, and, by sudden silence and reserve, was in a fair way of actually creating the evil he dreaded, had not a mutual friend opened his eyes, and with sudden desperation he urged his suit, and discovered, to his inexpressible happiness, that his love was returned.
For a brief period all was joy. Pierre had written to his father, and did not harbour a single doubt as to his residence being permanently fixed in England, although Helen had made no such condition to his acceptance. Anxiously the arrival of the packet was anticipated; but instead of the answer expected, it brought news so overwhelming, that the unfortunate Pierre was at first verging on distraction.
Monsieur Laval was almost irretrievably ruined; a revolt in the slave population of the island had taken place, and his extensive plantations were burnt to ashes. Other heavy losses had congregated round him; and what with these misfortunes, and having been severely wounded in the revolt, his health appeared rapidly failing. Panic and confusion still reigned; but the friend who wrote, expressed the hope that, when all was quiet again, the Laval losses might not involve such utter ruin as at present appeared. Nothing was so earnestly desired, in fact, so indispensable, as the immediate presence of Pierre.
For some time the young man strove in vain to reduce his thoughts to order; and at length, hardly knowing what he did, he sought his betrothed, told her all, and with a desperate effort, offered to resign all his pretensions to her hand; he was a ruined man—must labour for years in Martinique; how could he ask his Helen to leave her luxurious home, country, friends, all, to bear with poverty and misery in a distant colony, for him? She heard him quietly to the end, and then clasping his hand, vowed nothing should part them. She was his by the most holy of all ties—mutual love and truth; and no persuasion, no effort, could turn her from his side. In vain her mother and all her friends seconded Laval’s appeal, urging the madness of the sacrifice. Helen’s only reply was, “Had the voice of man united us, would you thus persuade me? Would you not bid me follow my husband through weal and through woe? And shall I do less now, because freedom is in my power? I could desert him if I chose. No, no, mother, you have other children, who will be to you all I have been. Pierre has but me,” and no subsequent persuasion had power to shake her resolution. It was, however, thought advisable that Pierre should seek Martinique alone; and that when affairs were a little quiet, he should either return for her, or she should go to him. But how could she join him, an unprotected girl in a strange land? She saw that he hesitated to speak the only means, and so spoke them for him: “Give me the sanctity, the protection of your name, my Pierre, and then what tongue dare cast aspersions on a wife who joins her husband? If the day which unites us, must also bid us part, let it be so; but save me, as your wife, from attentions and notice, and persuasions which may be forced upon me.”
Pierre’s first answer was a wild and passionate embrace; his next, as passionate a burst of sorrow, that it should be his doom to banish her to a home so little congenial to her taste, as the burning climate would be to her health. And it was long ere she could soothe or chide him into composure; for the more brightly shone forth her unselfish love, the more bitterly he felt the extent of sacrifice she made.
Helen had to endure a very tempest of opposition and upbraiding as to her romantic far-fetched folly; but hers was not a mind to change or waver, when feeling and principle had alike dictated her resolution.
Pierre was to join his ship at Falmouth; and yearning for the quiet only found amid the repose of nature, Helen prevailed on her mother to reside for the next few months in Devonshire. Their bridal I had witnessed; and when I heard that the afternoon of that same day Pierre Laval was to part from his Helen for an indefinite period, that when united by the holiest of ties, made one for ever, but a few troubled hours were left them together, I no longer wondered at the emotion I had beheld.
Often and often has the vision of that morning haunted me with the vain longing to know if indeed that unworldly love had been blessed as it deserved, and when those loving and aching hearts did meet again. For years that olden shrine returned to me, as a dream of the far past in itself, blended with all the griefs and hopes of human hearts in the present; and never can I recall the old altar to my mind without beholding in fancy the sweet shadowy form of Helen Campbell, and the suppressed but terrible emotion of her Pierre.
“Cast thy Bread upon the Waters; thou shalt find it after many days.”
“Cast thy Bread upon the Waters; thou shalt find it after many days.”
“Why, Willie, what is the matter?” inquired Edward Langley, entering his father’s office one evening after business hours, and finding its sole tenant, a boy of fourteen or fifteen, leaning both arms on one of the high desks, and hiding his face within them, whilst his slight figure shook with uncontrollable sobs. “And how came that drawer open?” he continued, more sternly, perceiving a bureau drawer half open, so as to display its glittering contents, which looked disturbed. “I hope you have not been doing anything wrong, Willie.”
“Oh, sir, indeed—indeed I have not! Count the money, Mr. Edward; pray count it; see that it is all right, or I can never hold up my head again. The temptation was misery enough,” returned the boy, as well as his sobs would permit, and displaying such a countenance of suffering, as to enlist all Edward’s sympathy at once.
“But, my good boy, what could have tempted you? You seem so to feel the enormity of the sin, that I cannot imagine what thought came into your head.”
“I only thought of my poor father, sir. Oh, Mr. Edward, he is in prison, and my mother is too ill to work; and she and my poor little sisters are starving,” he replied, bursting again into tears. “I did not know what to do to help them; I give them all I earn, but that is so very little it only gives them a meal now and then; and then, when I saw that drawer accidently left open, and remembered twelve pounds, only twelve pounds, would get my father out of prison, and he could work for us again, the horrid thought came into my head to take them: they would never be missed out of so many; and I had them in my hand. But then I thought what could I tell them at home? It would break my poor mother’s heart to think her Willie was dishonest; she could better bear hunger and grief than that, sir; and I knew I could not hide it from her; and so I dashed them back! They seemed to scorch me! Oh, Mr. Edward, indeed, indeed I speak the truth!”
Edward did believe him, and he told him so. There was little need to speak harshly; the boy’s own conscience had been his judge. To satisfy him, however, he counted the money, found it correct, and after talking to him a little while, kindly yet impressively, promised to do what he could for his father, and left him, indelibly impressing that evening upon Willie’s mind, by never reverting to it again.
The tale, which his inquiries elicited, was a very common one. Willie’s father had been an artificer in one of the manufacturing towns; but too eager for advancement, he imprudently threw up his situation and tried independent business. Matters grew worse and worse; his family increased and his means diminished. Hearing of an excellent opening at New York, for an artificer like himself, he worked day and night to obtain sufficient means to transport himself and family across the Atlantic, and support them till a business could be established. His wife ably aided him, when unhappily he was tempted to embark all his little savings in one of the bubbles of the day, which he was confidently assured would be so successful as to permit his embarking for America at once, and so seize the opening offered. Few speculators had, perhaps, a better excuse; but fortune did not favour him more than others; it failed, and he was ruined. Three months afterwards he was thrown into prison for the only debt he had ever incurred, and though he had friends to persuade him to his ruin, he had none to liquidate his debt. His wife’s health, already overworked, sunk under privation and sorrow; and though she toiled even from her fevered pallet, her feeble earnings were not sufficient to give her children bread.
Edward Langley was a creature of impulse; but in him impulse was the offspring of high principle, and, therefore, though the following it often caused him unlooked-for annoyance, it never led him wrong; and Willie’s tale called forth sympathies impossible to be withstood.
“Edward,” said one of his numerous sisters one evening, about three weeks afterwards, as they were sitting at tea—a meal which, bringing them all together, was universally enjoyed, “what have you done with grandpapa’s birthday present? You were to do so many things with that money; and I have not heard you speak of it since my return.”
“Because wonderful things have occurred since you left, Fanny,” said another slily. “He is going to accompany Mr. Morison’s family to Italy and Paris; and bring us such splendid presents. His fair Julia cannot go without him, and he has promised to join them.”
“Wrong, Miss Ellen, I am not going,” was the reply, with rather more brusquerie than usual.
“Why, have you quarrelled?”
“Not exactly.”
“But she will be offended, Ned; I am sure I should be.”
“No, you would not, Annie, if you knew my reasons.”
“What are they, Edward, dear? Do tell me, I am so curious.”
“Of course, or you would not be a woman!”
Against this all his sisters expostulated at once; and even his mother expressed curiosity, adding, that he had talked of this continental trip so long, and with so much glee, it must be a disappointment to give it up.
“It is; but I do not regret it.”
“But you must have a reason.”
“The very best of all reasons; I cannot afford it.”
“Come to me for the needful, Edward,” said his father. “I cannot give you luxuries; but this is for your improvement.”
“Thank you most heartily, my dear father, but I am, rather I was, richer than any of you know. I earned so much for my last engraving.”
“And you never told us,” said his mother and sisters, reproachfully.
“I did not, because it was already appropriated. I wanted exactly that sum to add to my grandfather’s gift; and that was what I worked so hard for.”
“To purchase some bridal gift,” said Fanny, archly.
“No, Fan, I never mean to purchase love.”
“But if the lady requires to be so conciliated?”
“Then she is not worth having.”
“Of course not,” rejoined Annie. “But come, Edward, you have never kept anything from us before. What is this mystery?”
“Out with it,” laughingly pursued Ellen. “Julia Morison will not thank you for preferring anything to accompanying her, I can tell you; so, as Annie says, what is this mystery?”
“No mystery at all, girls. You will all be disappointed when I tell you; so you had better let it alone.”
But beset on all sides, even by his father and mother, Edward told the simple truth, which our readers no doubt have already guessed. His money had been applied in releasing Willie’s father from prison; restoring his mother to health, by giving her and her children nourishing food, securing a passage for them all to New York, and investing the trifling surplus for their use on their arrival. He told his tale hurriedly, as if he feared to be accused of folly, and his father did somewhat blame him. He was provoked that the little scheme of pleasure and improvement, which Edward had anticipated so many weeks, should be frustrated; and annoyed that he should be disappointed, though the disappointment was perfectly voluntary. How could he tell that the man’s story was true? How was he sure the money would produce the good effect he hoped? He must say he thought it a pity, a very great pity; a visit to Paris would be so improving; Mr. Morison’s family such a desirable connection—and other regrets, which, without being a very worldly parent, were not perhaps unnatural.
“My dear father,” was Edward’s earnest and affectionate rejoinder, “do not be vexed for my sake. A visit to the Continent would no doubt have been improving; but I will work doubly hard in dear old England, and that, though it may not be as much pleasure, will be just as serviceable. With regard to Miss Morison,” his cheek slightly flushed, “if her affections are only to be secured by being constantly at her side, and always playing the lover, there could be no happiness in a nearer connection for either. A separation for three or four months can surely have no effect on real regard, and I am quite willing to subject both myself and Julia to the ordeal. As to not being sure of doing the good I hope—who can be? I do believe that poor fellow’s story, I confess, and strongly believe he will do well; but I do not mean to give the subject another thought, except to work the harder. The money is as much gone as freely given, and I expect as little reward as if I had thrown it on the waters—”
“Where thou shall find it after many days,” continued his mother, so affectionately and approvingly, that Edward threw his arm round her and kissed her tenderly. “You have done right, my dear boy; and if Julia Morison does not think so, she is not worthy of your love.”
How quick is woman’s, above all, a mother’s penetration. From the first allusion to Miss Morison in the preceding conversation, she knew that something had occurred between them to annoy, if it did not wound her son; and the moment she heard the story she guessed the actual fact. Perhaps her penetration in this instance was aided by previous observation. She had never liked Miss Morison, desirable as from worldly motives the connection might be. Edward, youth-like, had been captivated by her beauty and vivacity, and gratified by her very marked preference for himself. His complete unconsciousness that he really was the handsomest and most engaging young man of the town of L——, by depriving him of all conceit, increased Miss Julia’s fascination. Mr. Morison was member for the county, and had made himself universally popular; and certainly took marked notice of Edward. The good people of L—— were too simple-minded to discover that their member’s attractions were merely graces of manner; and that he noticed Edward only because he was perfectly secure that his daughter would never do such a foolish thing as to promise her hand to the son of a country attorney, however agreeable he might be.
Edward’s wish to accompany them to the Continent met with decided approval. Mr. Morison thought the young man would save him a great deal of trouble, as a kind of gentleman valet, without a salary; and Miss Julia was delighted at this unequivocal proof of his devotion, and at the amusement she promised herself in playing off her country beau on the Continent, his simplicity being the shield to cover her man?uvres; besides, he would be such an excellent pis aller, that she need never be without a worshipper.
That such a person could appreciate Edward’s real character, or enter into his motives for, and his disappointment in, not accompanying her, was impossible. For regret, even for anger, he had prepared himself, nay, might have been disappointed had she evinced no emotion; but for the cold sneer, first of doubt, then of unequivocal contempt, which was her sole rejoinder to his agitated confession, he was not prepared, and it chilled his very heart. Still he tried to deceive himself, and believe that all she said of benevolence, disinterestedness, and a long et-cetera, was the sympathy he yearned for; but the tone and manner with which she informed her father in his presence of his change of purpose, and its praiseworthy cause, could not, even by a lover more infatuated than Edward, have been misunderstood; his spirit rose, and with it his self-respect. He said very little, but that little convinced both Julia and her father that he was not quite the simpleton which they had supposed him.
He left them, wounded to the core; to his warm, generous nature, worldliness was abhorrent even in a man, and in a woman it seemed to him something so unnatural, so revolting, that it dispersed at once the bright creation of his enthusiastic fancy, and displayed Miss Morison almost in her true character.
Still, notwithstanding all this pain and disappointment, Edward never once regretted the impulse he had followed; and when, about six or seven months afterwards, he received the most grateful letters from Willie and his father, informing him that the opening offered, though attended with many difficulties, promised fair, he felt the sacrifice was more than recompensed, and from that hour never thought of it himself again. But his assertion, that he would work the harder to make up for those continental advantages which he had lost, was no idle boast; he did so well, that even his father forgot his vexation; and his industry united with great personal economy, enabled him to give his sisters richer and more useful presents than the bijouterie which he had laughingly promised to bring them from France.
The marriage of Miss Julia Morison with some foreign Count, before six months elapsed, had happily no effect on Edward’s equanimity; it might, nay, it did cause a transient pang, but he recovered it much sooner than his father did the loss of so desirable a connection.
“Never mind it, sir,” was Edward’s laughing entreaty; “I would rather earn my own independence, and make a connection through my own exertions than by the richest marriage I could make.”
“That’s just like your mother, boy,” said his father, somewhat pettishly, “as if all depended on one’s self.”
“Thank you for the likeness, father. When I can bring you a daughter to be to me what my mother is to you, I shall have formed a desirable connection, though my wife be not set in gold.”
And this even his father acknowledged, when, two years afterwards, Edward married the daughter of their vicar, who proved in his own person that influence is not always inseparable from wealth, but may be found with worth as well. Time rolled on; twenty, thirty years. In the multitude of great and trifling events, which make up the sum of human life, during those years Edward Langley had so entirely forgotten the generous deed of his early youth, that he would have found it difficult to recall even the name of Willie’s parents. His perseverance and talent had been crowned with such success, that when only eight-and-twenty he was taken into partnership by one of the first engravers of the metropolis. For twenty more years the business so flourished as to make all the principals very wealthy men; and Edward looked forward in two or three more years to resign in favour of his son and retire himself from active business. He had never been ambitious, and a series of domestic trials in the loss of six children out of nine, all of that most interesting age when childhood is giving place to youth, caused him to turn with clinging love to those who remained, longing more to enjoy an Englishman’s home than to continue amassing wealth.
Greatly against his wishes and advice, engagements and speculations had been entered into by the firm to an immense extent, more especially with establishments abroad. The dishonesty of distant agents, and the careless supineness, if not equal dishonour, of one of the principals at home, occasioned ruin to all, of course including Langley, though he had been most unjustifiably kept in ignorance of the real extent of their speculating schemes. Yet his high integrity enabled him to bear up against this sudden change of circumstances with more fortitude than any of his companions.
His wife’s little property had never been touched, and he was therefore enabled to retire to a very small cottage in Cheshire, which soon displayed the refined taste and artistic skill of its gentle-minded inmates, to an extent that completely concealed their very humble means. Not that they were ashamed of their poverty; but the same self-respect that prompted their horror of all pretension, and resolution to live strictly within their means, threw a comfort and refinement around and within their lowly home, which the wealthiest might have envied.
For himself, Edward Langley would have been as happy as in the height of his prosperity; but he could not help feeling a very pardonable pang at this sad change in the prospects of his children. His son, emulating his firmness, sought and obtained an excellent situation in a thriving engraving establishment in Edinburgh, where his father’s name and character spoke for him more forcibly than the highest premium. It was on Helen Langley the blow had fallen heaviest; the only one of his daughters who had reached the age of nineteen (for Fanny was still a child), frail, delicate in seeming as a beautiful flower. She had been nursed in luxury and affection, and guarded from even the approach of a storm; the deserved darling of all who knew her, rich and poor, her parents’ love for her amounted almost to idolatry. Engaged to the son of one of her father’s partners, then studying as a physician, a bright and happy future shone before them, when the thunderbolt fell before either had seen a cloud. George Ashley was summoned from Paris just as his diploma was obtained, and he was weaving fairy dreams of a speedy union with his Helen; recalled, not as he believed, still to study and gradually attain eminence, but to give up all ambitious dreams, and work as a general practitioner for actual subsistence. To marry before he had even the prospect of a connection and employment was absolute madness; to live any distance from Helen he felt was quite as impossible; so he settled himself in the old town of Chester, about three miles from her home, and for her sake exerted himself more than he had once believed was in his nature. At first, youth and excitement beheld only the brighter side; but after six months’ trial, so endless and little remunerating seemed his toil, that he sunk into the deepest despondency, which neither Mr. and Mrs. Langley’s kind advice, nor Helen’s sweet counsels could remove.
Fearfully would Mr. Langley look on his darling, dreading that this constant pressure of anxiety and suspense would be as fatal to her as disease had been to her sisters; but though more serious than had been her disposition before, it was not the seriousness of gloom, but rather of a firm yet gentle spirit, forming internally some resolution which required thought and time for development. Her smile was as joyous, her voice as gleeful, as in happier years; her pursuits continued with the same zeal, if not with deeper earnestness. To persuade her to annul her engagement never entered either parent’s mind, but the long vista of dreary years which they believed must intervene ere it could be fulfilled, was literally their only thought of anxious and unmitigated gloom.
“Give me up, Helen! I have no right to fetter your young life with an engagement which heaven only knows when we shall fulfil,” passionately exclaimed young Ashley, about seven months after their misfortunes. “Your sweet face, and sweeter temper, and lovely mind must win you a position in life far higher than I can ever offer. You were only seen at the ball the other night to be admired.”
“That unfortunate ball! I only went to gratify papa; and you are jealous, George, that your poor Helen was admired.”
“No, Helen, no! I gloried in it; for I knew you were mine, mine in heart, faith, all but name. But then I thought how selfish, how utterly selfish I was still to claim you; to behold you wearing out your young life in all the sickness of hope deferred; when, by resigning you, you might be rich, admired, followed, occupy the station you deserve, and—”
“Be very happy, dearest George? This is a strange mood,” she said, half reproachfully, half playfully. “Come, send it away, for it is not like you. I am very sorry I cannot oblige you; but as I consider myself as much yours as if the sacred words had actually been said, you may divorce me if you will, but I will never give you up.”
“Helen, darling Helen! forgive me,” he replied, his repentance as impetuous as all his other feelings. “Oh! if you would but be mine at once, I am sure I should succeed; with such a comforter, such a cheerer, work would be welcome. I would never despond again, dearest; loving as we do, why should we not wed at once? We must then do well.”
“Must do well because we love, George? Yes, and so we shall, but not if we wed now. Ah, now you look reproachfully again. Dearest, you know I would not shrink from any hardship shared with you. I will work with you, work for you, if needed; but, young as we both are, is it not better to work apart a few years, that we may rest together? Think what five years may do for both, it may be less; I put it only to the extent. You are succeeding, and will succeed still more, the more you are known; but had you a wife and an establishment to support now, even with my very hardest exertions, we could not keep free from debt; and love, potent as it is, could not then guard sorrow from our dwelling. When wedded, if unlooked-for misfortunes come, we will bear them, and comfort and strengthen each other; but would it be right, would it be wise to invite them by a too early marriage? My own dear George, let us work while we have youth and hope, and trust me we shall be very happy yet.”
It was scarcely possible to remain unconvinced by such fond reasoning; but still Ashley referred with deep despondency to the long, long interval which must elapse ere that happiness could be obtained.
“Not so long as you fancy, George. I never mean to be a rich man’s wife, though you invited me to be so just now. I do not even intend to wait for comforts, but only just for that competency which will prevent those evil spirits, care and irritation, from entering our home; and to forward this, listen to my plan, dearest George.” And with some little tremour, for she dreaded his disapproval, she told him that she had accepted an engagement as governess, in a family at Manchester; a Dr. Murray, who was a widower, with four or five children: she had been mentioned by a mutual friend, and the Doctor was so pleased with Mrs. Norton’s account, that he agreed even to give the high salary Helen required, without seeing her. He had said that his mother, who lived with him, was too infirm to bear his children much with her, and he therefore wanted more from his governess than merely to teach; he was quite willing to pay for it, but a lady he must have.
“To bear with all his whims and fancies; to be tormented with spoiled children; put up with the old woman’s infirmities; be insulted by pampered servants. Helen, you shall not go!” exclaimed George.
“Now, George, don’t be foolish. I do not expect one of these evils; and if I meet with them I can bear them, with such a hope before me,” she continued, fondly looking in his face.
“But governesses are so insulted, so degraded.”
“Not insulted, if they respect themselves; not degraded, if those they love do not think so. But perhaps, George, you are too proud to marry a governess.”
A passionate reproach was his reply.
“Well then, love, listen to me a little longer. Mamma still means to allow me enough for my quiet dress, so that I can put by every shilling that I earn; and only think what that may come to in a few years. Then I have a reason for choosing Manchester as a temporary home; you know I can draw, but do you not know that I can design—William took so much pleasure in teaching me—and, in a manufacturing town like Manchester, I may not only be able to use this knowledge, but perhaps gradually get introductions which will allow my successful pursuit of the art even as—as your wife, dearest George; and then, what with our mutual economy and mutual savings beforehand, and mutual work afterwards—oh, our future will shine as bright as it did before this storm!”
“God for ever bless you, Helen, my own darling! you are indeed my best hope, my best comforter already,” murmured George, half choked with strong emotion, which he tried to conceal by pressing her to his bosom, and kissing her cheek. “How can your parents part with you, and what will drive away my fits of gloom, when I cannot come to you for comfort?”
“Hope!” was her instant reply, in a tone so glad, so thrilling, that it pervaded his whole being ever afterwards like a spell. “Think, dearest George, of the hundreds who have to labour on, through lonely years, uncheered by either love or hope; who must work, wearily and unceasingly, only for means of existence. We have health and youth and love, and, above all, mutual faith to sustain us; and therefore we must be happy. You do not know how powerful is a woman’s will.”
“Not more so than man’s,” replied Ashley, more cheerfully than he had yet spoken. “Helen, you have shamed me. I will become more worthy of such love.”
Helen looked very much as if she thought that was impossible, but she did not say so.
It was no light task this gentle girl had undertaken. Hopefully as she had spoken and felt, her resolution had neither been formed nor matured without suffering, nor had it been the least portion of the trial to win over her parents to her wishes; but the wisdom of her plan was so evident, that they conquered all selfish feeling for their child’s sake, and tried to be comforted by Mrs. Norton’s assurance, that in Dr. Murray’s family Helen would be as comfortable as she could be away from home.
And so she was. In fact, so kindly was she welcomed and treated, that she could scarcely understand it. Dr. Murray was a man in reality under fifty, but looking much older, from a life of some hardship and much labour, the fruits of which he now enjoyed in the possession of a comfortable income. His manner, in general blunt and rough, always softened towards Helen, whom he ever addressed with such respect, as well as kindness, that all George’s terror of her encountering insolence very speedily dispersed. Mrs. Murray had evidently not been born a lady, but her regard for Helen was shown in such a multiplicity of little kindnesses, that no feeling could be excited towards her but gratitude and love. Constantly as she was occupied with her pupils, Helen’s careful economy of time yet enabled her actually to accomplish the purpose she had in her mind when she chose Manchester for her residence. The idle, nay even the less energetic, would have declared it was impossible for any one person to do what she did; but not even the Doctor or his mother knew how her moments of made leisure were employed.
So nearly three years glided by; Helen’s health, instead of failing, as her friends had feared, actually improved; and George declared there must have been some spell in her words or her example, for his prospects were brightening every year. Helen only smiled, and told him that the spell was simply in his own more hopeful exertions.
Dr. Murray’s house was the frequent resort not only of men of talent from the higher ranks, but frequently of clever manufacturers and artificers, in whose works the Doctor and his mother were always particularly interested. It happened that Helen was present one evening when one of these gentlemen was regretting his inability to procure an appropriate design for some window curtains, of a new material, which he had invented; being no artist himself, he could not perhaps define his wishes with sufficient technicality, but all which he had seen were either so small as to have no effect, or so large as to look coarse and common. Before he departed the conversation changed, and Dr. Murray thought no more about it, until at a very early hour the next morning Helen entered his study with a roll of paper, which she asked him to examine, and tell her if he thought it the kind of thing Mr. Grey required. His astonishment that she should remember any thing about it was only equalled by his admiration of her work. So great was his delight, that he declared he would convey it to Mr. Grey himself, and get her something handsome for it. He was not disappointed. Mr. Grey seized it with rapture, declared it was the very thing he meant; offered to pay any sum for it, and was struck dumb with astonishment, when told it was designed by the elegant young lady to whom he had been introduced the previous night, and whom he had scarcely deigned to notice, believing her the same as most young ladies—a very pretty but a very useless piece of goods. One of his young men, who had been eagerly examining it, said he was sure it was by the same hand as several other elegant designs which they had been in the habit of purchasing the last two years, but the name of whose inventor they had never been able to discover. He brought some, and compared them, and even the Doctor’s unpractised eye could discern the same hand throughout. But how could Miss Langley have accomplished all this, and yet so done her duty to his children? It was incomprehensible; and the good Doctor hurried home to have the mystery solved. Helen speedily explained it, adding ingenuously, that she had worked in secret, only because she feared the Doctor or his friends might think she must neglect her duty to her charge to pursue this employment; but since he had expressed such perfect satisfaction, she had resolved on taking the first opportunity to tell him all.
“But my good young lady, you must have some very strong incentive for all this exertion.” Blushing deeply, Helen acknowledged that she had. “Is it a secret, my dear child?”
For a minute she hesitated, then frankly told her story. The Doctor was so much affected by it as to surprise her, and expressed the most unfeigned regret that he had not known it before.
Not a fortnight afterwards, Mr. Grey sought an interview with Miss Langley: he wished, he said, to monopolize her talents, and offered, in consequence, with sufficient liberality as to tempt her to adhere to his employment, instead of taking the chance of larger remuneration for occasional designs. It was for this Helen had worked and prayed and hoped—this which she had looked to, to follow even as a wife, and in her husband’s house; and therefore we leave to our reader’s imagination the gratitude with which it was accepted, the joy with which she wrote to her parents, to George, to whom her woman’s heart so yearned in that moment of rejoicing, that for the first time since she had loved him she could scarcely write for tears. But the letters she received in reply sadly alloyed this dawning happiness. Her sister Fanny was dangerously ill; the same age, the same disease which had been so fatal to her family. All George’s skill, and it was great, had been ineffectual; nothing could save her, the distracted father wrote; she was doomed like all the rest. But to Helen there was no such word as doom. She flew to the Doctor, repeated to him as well as she could the symptoms, and the remedies applied, conjuring him to think of something which would alleviate, if it could not cure. What could she write?
“Write, my dear child! that will be of little use; we will go together.” And though there were no railroads in that direction, man’s omnipotent will carried Helen and the Doctor to Mr. Langley’s cottage in so short a space, that it seemed to Helen like the transfigurations of a dream.
For four days fearful were the alternations of hope and dread; the fifth, hope predominated, and by the end of the week, promptness and skill in the adoption of an entirely new mode of treatment were so successful, that Dr. Murray was blessed again and again by the enraptured parents as, under heaven, the preserver of their child. But, though all danger was over, the Doctor did not offer to quit the cottage for another week, which time he spent mostly in his patient’s room, and in earnest conversation with young Ashley. Helen had intended to remain in his family till he could meet with some one to supply her place; but this he now declared should not be. She must be wanted at home, at least till she could finish her preparations for entering another; for, if he were George, he would not wait another month; she had had her own will too long already, and the future was bright enough now to permit him to have his. Helen’s hand was clasped in her young sister’s as the good Doctor spoke, but George’s arm was round her, and her reply seemed to satisfy all parties.
All Mr. Langley’s attempts to obtain a private interview with his guest were ineffectual until the day of his intended departure, when, with trembling hands and swimming eyes, he tried to press a pocket-book into the Doctor’s hand. “It is inadequate, wholly inadequate,” he said, with emotion. “You have saved my child; so restored her, that she is better than she has been since her birth. You have given us your time, your skill, and you shrink even from my thanks. Were I a rich man, I should feel as I do now, that a fortune could not repay you; but, as a poor man, do not insult me by refusing the fee I can bestow.”
“Mr. Langley,” was the reply, “I tell you truth, when I assure you that you owe me nothing. I am in your debt far more, far more than my professional skill ever could repay.”
“In my debt, Doctor? Ah, you mean my Helen’s services; but those you have so liberally remunerated, and treated her with such kindness, that you have made me your debtor even there. No, no, I cannot allow Helen, precious as she is, to come between me and justice.”
“I do not allude to Miss Langley, sir,” and the Doctor spoke as if addressing a superior. “Her inestimable services to me and mine, indeed nothing can repay; but it was not for her sake I came to you. The debt I allude to is of more than thirty years’ standing, and is due to you alone. On my first return to England, your position was higher, your fortune far superior to mine; and had I then sought you, it might still have been to receive benefits at your hand. In your noble endurance of misfortune, it would have been an insult to have discharged my debt, and therefore I waited and prayed for some opportunity not only to do justice, but to evince gratitude. If I have made your child happy, and shortened the term of her heroic exertions, you owe it to yourself. I could not take from you even the full amount of this visit, regarding it merely as professional, for I owe you in actual money more than that.” Mr. Langley looked and expressed bewilderment; the Doctor’s manner was too earnest to permit a doubt; but he tried in vain to recall to what he could allude.
“Have you so completely forgotten Willie Murray, Mr. Edward?” continued his companion, much agitated. “Willie Murray, the poor boy you not only saved from sin, but made so happy by your generous kindness to his family. Mr. Langley, I am that boy; my character, my success I owe to you. How can such a debt ever be repaid?”
Mr. Langley’s astonishment was so great, as literally to deprive him for the moment of words. He only remembered Willie Murray as a pale, thin, intellectual boy of fifteen. To recognise him in the tall, stout, somewhat aged-looking man before him, required more imagination than he chanced to possess; but to doubt the identity was impossible. He grasped his hand warmly, and insisted on his giving him that very hour the history of his life. Our readers, however, must be contented with a very brief sketch of these details. Suffice it, that neither Willie nor his father rose to independence without constant toil and unwearying perseverance. Profiting by the trials of earlier years, the elder Murray laboured with an energy and skill which, until his timely release from prison, had appeared foreign to his character. Many difficulties he had to encounter; but once the manufactory established, competence was secured; and as his labour rather increased than slackened, fortune followed. His son’s marked preference for the medical profession grieved him at first, but he lived long enough to see that he had chosen wisely, and at his death left all his children comfortably provided for, each possessing a share in the manufactory which his energy had established. Willie had always yearned to return to England, and did so directly he became a widower, his mother gladly accompanying him. He had finished his medical education in France, had a large practice in America, and, from his general intelligence, proved skill, and wide-handed benevolence, very speedily became popular in England. But amid all the chances and changes of his busy life, neither the fearful temptation of his boyhood nor Edward Langley’s generous kindness had ever been forgotten.
Joyous indeed, and full of hope, was Helen Langley’s bridal morn, though neither pomp nor fashion attended it, such as might have been the case some few years before. On retiring to change her dress, Helen found a heavy packet, directed to Mrs. George Ashley, on her table. It was a purse, containing three hundred sovereigns, with the following brief lines:—
“This is your father’s gift, though it comes through me. I do but return a sum lent by him to me and mine, with the accumulated interest of three-and-thirty years. It is now added to the store earned by Helen Langley’s meritorious exertions.”
“William Murray.”
“Mother!” exclaimed Mr. Langley, after perusing this note, and turning to his now aged parent with some emotion, “do you remember your words, when I told you the money was as freely given, and I expected as little reward as if I had thrown it on the waters, ‘that I should find it after many days?’ You were right, I have found it indeed!”
The Triumph of Love. chapter 1
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,
Unseen, both when we sleep, and when we wake.
Milton.
I.
It was a scene of unrivalled beauty; yet might some marvel wherefore it was thus created, so far removed from mortal ken, so severed from the habitations of sin and death, that foot of man had never sullied the pure fresh green of the velvet grass; mortal hand had never culled the brilliant flowers, gemming each silvery stream; corporeal sense had never been regaled by their fragrant breath, or lulled by the sweet music of the waters. The leafy branches of the ancient trees stretched forth their deep green shadows, and hill, and stream, and valley, each clothed in its own peculiar beauty, derived fresh charms, as the seasons softly and silently sped by, leaving bright tokens as they sped. The stars still smiled at their own sparkling rays gleaming up from the gushing water; the pensive moon still touched the glossy leaves with her diamond pencil, still lingered on the verdant mount, leaving rich shadows on the luxuriant vales; the sun still sent forth its bright beams, to revive and cherish the glistening flowers, to whisper of his unfailing love; still did he bid them drink up the dewdrops, which, trembling beneath his earnest gaze, yet sprung up from their homes at his first call, eager to lose themselves in him. Day, in his mirth and light, gave place to silent and shadowy night; and night again to-day. Yet man was not there, and wherefore had such loveliness birth?—wherefore was it so continually renewed?
Man would joy in the contemplation of beauty, such as this scene presented; yet his imperfect vision would see no further than mount and vale, and trees and shrubs, and streams and flowers; he would hear nought but the rustle of the leaf, the murmur of the breeze, the music of the brook, the luscious scents floating on the breeze, would be but indistinctly distinguished, and his fancy perchance yearn towards them, and long for perfume more defined, even as we sometimes seek to unite into sweet melody the thrilling notes, which, one by one, at dreamy intervals, linger on the distant air; and these things he would hear, and feel, and see, and dream not there were sights and sounds hovering around him too pure, too spiritual for earthly sense.
There were glorious spirits—angelic beings floating on the ambient air, and lingering beside the waters, and sporting with the jewelled buds. There were rich tones lingering on the breeze—sweet thrilling voices mingling with golden harps and silvery flutes; there were luscious scents ascending to the arching heaven; even as if, guided by ministering spirits, each floweret sent up her grateful incense to the throne of her Creator. As the dazzling flash of the diamond, the softer gleam of the emerald, the radiant beam of the sapphire, the intense rays of the ruby, so shone these beautiful beings, as they fleeted to and fro on their respective tasks. Some replenishing the brooks with living waters from vases which seemed moulded from precious gems. Some tending the flowers, inhaling and bestowing fragrance, or whispering those sweet memories, with which man ever finds the flowers of the desert filled. Some lingering in groups upon the mount, crowning its flowery brow as with a circlet of living rays. Some flying downwards, agitating the valley with soft delicious winds, and others freshening the rich tints of the far-spreading foliage; and far and near their voices sounded in one rich hymn of praise, whose theme was love; and the golden harps prolonged the hallelujahs, sounding up through the blue realms of space, till they mingled with the deeper, mightier harmonies around the Eternal’s throne, bearing along its thrilling echo, joined by innumerable voices till the whole air seemed filled with song, and still that song was Love!
Beautiful as were these celestial spirits—beautiful and blessed above all conception of finite man—yet they were not of the highest class of angels.
Incapable of sin, unconscious of pain or sorrow, but not yet admitted to hover over the dwelling of man, to minister unto the afflicted, to tend the couch of the dying, to whisper of rest to the weary, hope to the desponding, joy to the mourner.
Sensible of the Eternal’s presence, their bliss made perfect in His glory, their task was to watch and tend inanimate creation;—to sing His praises amidst the glorious shrines of nature, till His works proclaimed Him unto man.
Activity and obedience were the sole virtues demanded of these celestial beings in the tasks above enumerated, and when these had been sufficiently exercised, they graduated to a higher order of angels, nearer the Eternal’s throne, who were permitted to receive His will and make it known to man. The desire to obtain this privilege was lively in all, but far removed from that grosser passion known to man as ambition. In them it did but add zest to enjoyment; give energy to love, inspiration to obedience. Faith they needed not; for to them the Eternal was revealed. Anticipation was lost in fulfilment—hope in completion. Their nature was not susceptible of a deeper sense of bliss; but as they ascended higher and higher in the scale of angels, the deeper, fuller, more glorious blessedness was met by a nature yet more purified, spiritualized, exalted, fitted for its reception, and strengthened to retain it.
Reposing on a sunbeam lingering on the brow of a hill, a spirit lay, apart from his fellows. His brow was wreathed with the opal, emerald, and ruby; so blending their several rays that they seemed but as a circlet of ever-changing light. His long flowing hair shone as if each clustering ringlet had been bathed in the liquid diamond. His downy wings, woven of every shade, gently waved in air, wafting the richest perfume, and dyeing the sunbeam on which he lay in every brilliant tint. A light mist enveloped his angelic form—softening, not lessening, his resplendent loveliness. His eye shone as the midnight star; a bloom, softer, lovelier, purer than the earliest rose, played on his cheek; sparkling smiles wreathed his lips. He spoke, and his voice was music, though his golden harp lay silent by his side.
“Love! love;” he murmured. “Hallelujah to the Lord of love! Let the full choirs of heaven chant forth the immortal theme; proclaim, proclaim Him Love! Earth! air! ocean! shout with your hundred tongues, send up your echo to the voice of heaven! Man, art thou insensible?—Hearest thou not these living tones?—Can doubt be thine, as I have heard whispered in the celestial courts? Created by Love—placed in a world of Love—distant as thou art, yet cherished and beloved by Love, destined for immortal union with the Love that gave thee being!—canst thou be faithless, canst thou be senseless?—when above, below, around, within, soundeth the deep eternal voice of Love! Oh, insensates, if such things be! Immortal glory, bliss unfading, can it be for ye!”
Awhile he paused. A slight shadow passed athwart the brilliant rays with which he was encircled. He folded his wings around him, and laid his brow upon them.
“My thought has been rebuked,” he said; “I have done ill. Enough for me the consciousness of love. Wherefore should I condemn, as yet unworthy to look on man? Let the hallelujahs sound forth again. Glory to the Eternal!—His works are wisdom, His thoughts are love!”
He swept his hand across his harp—the shadow had departed from his wings;—his chaplet shot forth again its living light. Celestial music flowed forth from his voice and hand:—the spirit smiled once more. Suddenly the hallelujahs ceased. To the eye of man twilight had descended; the stars began to light up the dark blue heavens. Mortal vision might trace the semblance of a falling meteor of unwonted brilliance, dropping into space. The purified orbs of the seraph crowd knew that one of the highest class of angels was departing from his resplendent seat, and winging his flight towards them. Instantly they rose up from their several resting-places, forming in files of unutterable brilliance. Increased happiness shed a new lustre on their brows, and heightened the glowing iris of their wings. One alone felt penetrated with an awe, which slightly lessened the feelings of joy which the visit of an angel ever caused. He feared it was to him the celestial mission came: that his condemnation of beings, whose nature and whose trials he knew not, had exposed him to censure, perhaps to a longer banishment from the higher spheres of glory; and while his brother spirits thronged round the favoured minister, to bask in the resplendent brightness of his smiles, to list to the words of melody flowing from his lips, to gaze on the mild yet thrilling softness of his celestial features, Zephon stood aloof, for the first time shrinking from the glance and voice he loved. He saw not that the glittering helm and dazzling sword were laid aside, that his brow was wreathed with the softly gleaming pearl, his shining wings glistening through silvery radiance, bespeaking tenderness and mercy, and not now the wrath and chastisement of which, at his Maker’s will, he was at times the minister.
His voice, melodious and thrilling as the silver trumpets of the empyreal heavens, sounded through space, as it called “Zephon!” The seraph paused not a moment, but darting through the incensed air, prostrated himself at the archangel’s feet.
“Arise! and fear not, youthful brother,” spake the messenger of the Eternal, departing not from the grave majesty of his demeanour, but smiling with such ineffable sweetness, the seraph felt its reviving influence, and spread forth his silken pinions rejoicingly again. “I come, the harbinger of peace and love. Thine impassioned zeal was checked ere it became a fault—checked ere it led thee to desire forbidden knowledge. Charged with a message of love and mercy from the Most High, I have besought and obtained permission to take thee as my companion. To thine imperfect vision it seemeth strange that man, so especially the beloved, the cherished of the Eternal, framed to display, to uphold His stupendous power, to proclaim His might—His love—should ever fail either in obedience or adoration. Thou hast heard that such has been; for where sin hath so fearfully prevailed that an immortal spirit has been excluded from these glorious realms, a dim shadow hath spread over Heaven’s resplendent courts, and the celestial spirits of every rank have prostrated themselves before the invisible yet terrible Presence, adoring justice, while they supplicated mercy. Zephon! not yet may be revealed to thee the glorious mystery of the Eternal’s secret ways. Thou mayst gaze with me on the earthly beings I have charge to tend; but it is forbidden thee to ask or seek the wherefore of what thou seest. Thou wilt behold, even in this limited glance, enough to prove, that even if the human heart refuseth to send up its thrilling echo to the theme of Love, which thy zeal demandeth, the unfathomable love of its benignant Creator will receive and bless its faintest sigh; for to Him, and to Him alone is known the extent of its trial—the bitterness of its grief—the difficulty of its belief in an ever-acting love. Zephon! if still thou wilt, thou shalt look on the human heart: yet pause awhile;—is thy love sufficiently strong to uphold thee in the contemplation of decrees, whose motives thou art not yet permitted to conceive? In thy blissful dwelling, thou hast no need of Faith; thou knowest not even its name; but if with me thou goest, Faith must be thy safeguard. Here thine eye seeth, thine ear heareth nought but love; there it may be darkly hidden from thee. Yet if thy faith or thy love should fail, if thou demandest the wherefore of what thou seest, it is of our Father’s will, that thou shalt be banished unto earth—banished from this glorious abode, condemned to struggle with the ills and sorrows of mortality, till pure and perfect faith shine forth, and fit thee once again for heaven. Speak then, my brother; wilt thou depart with me, or still linger here? The choice is now thine own.”
Awhile the seraph paused; the face of the archangel beamed on him with compassionating tenderness and redoubled love. The looks of his brother spirits, the soft fluttering of their wings, seemed to woo him to remain, to entreat him not to tempt the fate threatened if his love should fail, and therefore did he pause.
“No, no! wherefore should I fear?” he cried; “I will go with thee, minister of love. I will look upon my Father’s dearest work, and despite of mystery and gloom—of sorrow—of pain, I will love and bless Him still!”
A fuller, richer burst of melody filled the realms of air; thousands and thousands of voices swelled forth in triumphant harmony. A starry cloud descended, and, folded in its spangled robe, the departing spirits vanished into space.
“Thy wish is fulfilled; the peculiar treasure of our Father is revealed. Zephon, behold!” the angel spake, as the shrouding cloud rolled away towards the fields of ether, and the celestial spirits hovered over the abode of man. A sudden, an indescribable consciousness of increased powers, of heightened intellect, shot from the starry eyes of the youthful seraph. Man in his majesty, his beauty—bearing in his every movement, his exquisitely-formed frame, his complicated economy of being, yet more impressive, more startling evidence of the might, the wisdom, the benevolence of his glorious Maker, than even the source of the river, the structure of the flower, the growth of the tree, over which the seraph had presided, finding even in such things ample scope for the soaring intellect which characterised his race. Man, proceeding from, destined for, immortality—the beloved, the peculiar care and treasure of the Eternal—man, beautiful man, stood revealed before him. Yet amidst the thronging multitude on which he gazed, but one HEART, in all its varied impulses, its hidden throbs and incongruous thoughts and ever-changing fancies—but one beautiful intellect, in all its secret powers and extent, was open to his inspection; and lovely, even to the eyes of a spirit, was the being in whom such glorious things were shrined.
She was a young and noble maiden, perfect in form and face; her virtues scarce sullied by a stain of earth, although, from the spirit of Poetry, the living fount of Genius, dwelling within, open to grief and trial, even from the faintest breath too rudely jarring on the heavenly-strung chords with which her heart was filled. A deep, lowly, clinging piety was ever ready to check the first impulse of impatience, to turn to the sweet joys of sympathy and universal love the too vivid sense of sorrow either for herself or others. Humility was there, to lift up that young spirit in thankfulness to its Creator, and to devote that powerful intellect, ever seeming to bear all difficulties before it, to His service in the good of her fellow-creatures.
Zephon saw that the praise of man was a source of pure, inspiring pleasure; but instead of filling her soul with pride, it ever bore it up in increased devotion to its God. He marked her graceful form, sporting to and fro amid the stately domains of her lordly ancestors. He marked the love of parents, brothers, friends, that ever thronged around her, and the fulness of joy that love bestowed. He saw, too, the impassionate longings for yet stronger love, the yearnings for fame; appreciation, not alone from the noble and the gay, but from the gifted and the good: the desire to awake, by the magic touch of genius, the same thrilling chords in other hearts, as the spell of others had revealed in hers.
The seraph looked long and earnestly. Suddenly he saw her standing in the centre of a lordly room, and loving and admiring friends around her; her lip, her eye, her heart breathed joy, well-nigh as full and shadowless as the blessedness of heaven. After awhile the angel spake.
“There is nought here to call for Faith,” he said. “Yon favourite child of genius but awakens deeper yet more adoring love. Her lot is blessedness; her heart so pure, earth hath scarce power to stain that bliss. But now look yonder, Zephon. Seest thou amidst the multitude a being equally, though differently lovely—equally powerful in intellect, equally the child of genius, as richly gifted, alike in wisdom as in virtue, as fully susceptible of joy and sorrow; the same feelings, the same desires, the same deep yearnings for love on which to rest, for appreciation, fame; the same strung heart, thrilling to melody as keenly as to neglect. Mark well, young brother, and thou wilt trace these things.”
Anxiously the seraph gazed, and again he was conscious of sufficient power to read the human heart. Again, amidst the multitude, one gentle being stood unveiled before him; and, save for the difference in form and face, he had thought perchance it was the same on whom he had gazed before, so similar were their virtues, powers, temperament, and genius;—similar in all things, save that the sense of bliss in the one already appeared more chastened, more timid than in the other. He looked, then turned inquiringly towards his companion.
“The will of the Eternal,” he said, in answer, “produced at the same instant these lovely beings, and breathed into both the spirit which thou seest. Their souls are twin-born—TWIN-BORN in sensation, in power, in beauty, formed of the highest, most ethereal essence, and thus creating that which earth terms genius; destined at the same moment to animate the beautiful habitation formed for each, and at the same moment depart from it. Until now, their fate hath been, with little variation, the same, differing only according to their station; the one standing amidst the highest and noblest of her land, findeth fit companions for that nobleness and refinement indivisible from genius; the other already feeleth there is that within her incomprehensible to those around her; yet is the consciousness of little moment, for freely and joyously she roams amid the varied scenes of nature. She mingles but with those eager and anxious to enhance her innocent pleasures—to give to her exalted mind and gentle virtues the homage naturally their due. She looks on the world from a distance, and hath peopled it with all things fond, and bright, and beautiful, which take their exquisite colouring from her own lovely and loving mind. She yearns for appreciation, as thou seest—for the praise of the multitude won by her talents, but she asks not to mingle with them. She seeks but the love of one, and the proud consciousness of doing good to many. She demands not a statelier home, a prouder station. Thus, then, thou seest the earthly fate of these twin-born spirits hath rolled on the same; but now it is the will of the All-wise, All-merciful, All-just, that a shadowy change should pass over the one, and bliss, fuller, dearer, perfect as earth may feel, be dawning for the other. Thou hast marked the quick throb of joy now playing on the heart of the noble child of genius. She beholds her first triumph in the book she clasps. The thoughts that breathe, the words that burn, have found their echo in the multitude, and loving friends throng around to proclaim her dawning fame. There are tears in those lovely eyes; but ’tis a mother’s voice of love, of tenderness, that calls them there. See, clasped to a parent’s bosom, the swelling fulness of the spirit finds vent in tears, for joy, that pure, stainless joy, which is sent as the dim whisperings of heaven, ever turns to pain on earth, and had it not relief in tears, would bear the soul away to that world of which it speaks. She hath flown from the detaining throng, and hark!—hearest thou not the hymn of thanksgiving ascending upon high, till the tumultuous joy subsides, and peace is gained once more?”
He ceased; a brighter radiance passed over his benignant brow, and the voice of the seraph spontaneously flowed forth in kindred harmony with the hymn of earth, bearing it on the wings of melody to the realms of song. ’Twas hushed, and the Hierarch again spake.
“Behold!” he said, the music of his voice subdued and softened, “behold, yet murmur not! It is the will of the Eternal, and therefore it is well.”
The seraph gazed on a changed and darkened scene.—As deep, as full as was the bliss from which his eye had that moment turned, so deep, so intense was the anguish he now beheld. The gentle being in whom that twin-born spirit breathed, knelt beside the couch of the dead. He marked the wrung and bleeding heart; he read its utter loneliness, its agonized despair; he read it was a mother’s loss she mourned—a more than mother, for by her, by her alone, her child’s ethereal soul, her fond imaginings, her strong affections had been known, and loved, and fostered; to her, her beautiful had ever come, to seek and find that sympathy which she found not in another—and she was gone, and the dark troubled strivings of that desolate heart not yet could deem it love.
“She weeps, and shall we condemn, young brother, that not yet her voice may join in the universal hymn? She weeps, yet knows not all her woe. The stability, the honour, the strength of her father were derived from the mild counsels, the gentle unobtrusive virtues of her mother; in him they have no stay. That moral evil, too darkly prevalent on earth, once more will gain dominion, and the joys of the innocent, the helpless, are blighted ’neath its poison. On earth she stands alone—yet hark! What means that burst of triumph in the skies?”
Ineffably brilliant was the smile on the countenance of the angel; and Zephon, startled, yet entranced, looked again on that bleeding heart. The dark and troubled waves within were stilled; there was no voice—no sign; but the lamp of faith was lit; her soul had murmured Love! and bowed, adoring and resigned.
Again did the youthful spirit gaze down on earthly joy, chastened in its fulness, yet ecstatic in its nature. Love, pure, perfect, faithful love, had twined around that fair and gifted child of earth, and filled the blank which yet remained; though fame, appreciation, triumph, sympathy, affection, all were hers. She had found a kindred soul, round which to weave the clinging tendrils of her own; virtues to revere, piety to support, uphold, and cherish the soarings of her own. She had found one whose praise might still those passionate yearnings, the which to satisfy she had vainly looked to fame;—one, from whose lips how sweet became the praise of the world;—one to give new zest to her exalted genius; for by him it was most valued, most beloved; Zephon looked on the beautiful blossoming of genius, the expansion of intellect, the flowering of every budding hope; and he saw, too, the chastened humility, the unwavering love, which traced these rich gifts to their source, and lifted up her heart in universal love and grateful adoration; and again his voice joined hers in thanksgiving.
Once more, at the voice of the archangel, he sought and found the kindred essence, and love was on that heart, deep mighty, whelming love, bearing before it for awhile even the sere and withered leaves, with which its depths were strewed. He looked on the wreck of that which he had seen so lovely—the wreck of all save the gentle virtues, the meek submission which had characterised her youth; the rosy dreams, the glowing visions presented but a crushed and broken mass; their bright fragments seeking ever to unite, but ever rudely severed. Genius, in its deep, wild burnings, its impassioned breathing, feeding as a smothered fire upon her own young heart, seeking ever to find a vent, an echo—to be known, acknowledged, loved; but falling back with every effort, till even genius seemed increase of sorrow—and hope yet glimmered there, pale, sickly, shadowy, in its faint rays emitting but increase of light, to be immersed in deeper gloom. And love was there, intense, all-mighty, yet it brought no joy.
“She loves—she was beloved,” again spake the angelic voice; “but the sin of the father is visited upon the child. A little while he appeared devoted unto her, and to the memory of the departed; and though he led her from the scenes she loved, to mingle more closely with the world, his affection soothed, his hopes inspired; but he knew not the ethereal nature of that soul, and the scenes which earth terms gay and joyous touched no answering chord in her, and led him once again astray. Yet, for a brief while, happiness was hers, banishing those vain yearnings, ever proceeding from a soul too sensitive for earth; but the same hour which awoke her to a consciousness of love, given and returned, turned back that fountain of bliss upon her seared and withered heart, and changed it into gall. The child of a dishonoured parent was no fit mate for nobleness and honour, and earth is lone once more.”
Tears, the sweet bright tears that angels weep, bedewed the eyes of the seraph; yet riveted their gaze on that one sad child of earth, as if in its dark and troubled chaos there was yet more to read. He saw, too, the slight and beautiful shell in which that spirit was enshrined quivering beneath the tempest till at length it lay prostrate and unhinged, and intense bodily suffering heightened mental ill.
“’Tis the struggle for submission and resignation that hath done this,” continued the angel. “Seest thou no dream of unbelief, no murmur of complaint hath entered that heart; anguish may wither up the swelling hymn, may check the voice of love, but faith is there! And mark! though, in His unquestionable wisdom, the Eternal’s will is to afflict, though in impenetrable darkness, save to those beside His throne, He hideth the secret wherefore of that will, invisibly His ministers are charged to hover round His favoured child, to comfort and sustain, though lone and desolate on earth. Behold?”
Bright, beautiful spirits, robed in light and glory, hovered round the couch of sorrow; yet earth hid them from their kindred essence. She saw them not; felt not the mild reviving influence of their spiritual presence, save that gradually and slowly the chains which bound those beautiful limbs were loosed. The whirlwind sweeping over that heart subsided into partial calm; and strength was given her to struggle on and live.
Zephon looked on the child of sorrow, and a faint shadow stole over the brilliant iris of his wings; the living rays on his brow grew dim.