As Violante thus sate, a stranger, passing stealthily through the trees, stood between herself and the evening sun. She saw him not. He paused a moment, and then spoke low, in her native tongue, addressing her by the name which she had borne in Italy. He spoke as a relation, and excused his intrusion: “For,” said he, “I come to suggest to the daughter the means by which she can restore to her father his country and his honours.”
At the word “father” Violante roused herself, and all her love for that father rushed back upon her with double force. It does so ever—we love most our parents at the moment when some tie less holy is abruptly broken; and when the conscience says, “There, at least, is a love that never has deceived thee!”
She saw before her a man of mild aspect and princely form. Peschiera (for it was he) had banished from his dress, as from his countenance, all that betrayed the worldly levity of his character. He was acting a part, and he dressed and looked it.
“My father!” she said quickly, and in Italian. “What of him? And who are you, signior? I know you not.”
Peschiera smiled benignly, and replied in a tone in which great respect was softened by a kind of parental tenderness.
“Suffer me to explain, and listen to me while I speak.” Then, quietly seating himself on the bench beside her, he looked into her eyes, and resumed.
“Doubtless, you have heard of the Count di Peschiera?”
Violante.—“I heard that name, as a child, when in Italy. And when she with whom I then dwelt, (my father’s aunt,) fell ill and died, I was told that my home in Italy was gone, that it had passed to the Count di Peschiera—my father’s foe.”
Peschiera.—“And your father, since then, has taught you to hate this fancied foe?”
Violante.—“Nay; my father did but forbid me ever to breathe his name.”
Peschiera.—“Alas! what years of suffering and exile might have been saved your father, had he but been more just to his early friend and kinsman; nay, had he but less cruelly concealed the secret of his retreat. Fair child, I am that Giulio Franzini, that Count di Peschiera. I am the man you have been told to regard as your father’s foe. I am the man on whom the Austrian emperor bestowed his lands. And now judge if I am in truth the foe. I have come hither to seek your father, in order to dispossess myself of my sovereign’s gift. I have come but with one desire, to restore Alphonso to his native land, and to surrender the heritage that was forced upon me.”
Violante.—“My father, my dear father! His grand heart will have room once more. Oh! this is noble enmity, true revenge. I understand it, signior, and so will my father, for such would have been his revenge on you. You have seen him?”
Peschiera.—“No, not yet. I would not see him till I had seen yourself; for you, in truth, are the arbiter of his destinies, as of mine.”
Violante.—“I—Count? I—arbiter of my father’s destinies? Is it possible!”
Peschiera, (with a look of compassionate admiration, and in a tone yet more emphatically parental.)—How lovely is that innocent joy; but do not indulge it yet. Perhaps it is a sacrifice which is asked from you—a sacrifice too hard to bear. Do not interrupt me. Listen still, and you will see why I could not speak to your father until I had obtained an interview with yourself. See why a word from you may continue still to banish me from his presence. You know, doubtless, that your father was one of the chiefs of a party that sought to free Northern Italy from the Austrians. I myself was at the onset a warm participator in that scheme. In a sudden moment I discovered that some of its more active projectors had coupled with a patriotic enterprise schemes of a dark nature—and that the conspiracy itself was about to be betrayed to the government. I wished to consult with your father; but he was at a distance. I learned that his life was condemned. Not an hour was to be lost. I took a bold resolve, that has exposed me to his suspicions, and to my country’s wrath. But my main idea was to save him, my early friend, from death, and my country from fruitless massacre. I withdrew from the intended revolt. I sought at once the head of the Austrian government in Italy, and made terms for the lives of Alphonso and of the other more illustrious chiefs, which otherwise would have been forfeited. I obtained permission to undertake myself the charge of securing my kinsman in order to place him in safety, and to conduct him to a foreign land, in an exile that would cease when the danger was dispelled. But unhappily he deemed that I only sought to destroy him. He fled from my friendly pursuit. The soldiers with me were attacked by an intermeddling Englishman; your father escaped from Italy—concealing his retreat; and the character of his flight counteracted my efforts to obtain his pardon. The government conferred on me half his revenues, holding the other at its pleasure. I accepted the offer to save his whole heritage from confiscation. That I did not convey to him, what I pined to do—viz., the information that I held but in trust what was bestowed by the government, and the full explanation of what seemed blamable in my conduct—was necessarily owing to the secresy he maintained. I could not discover his refuge; but I never ceased to plead for his recall. This year only I have partially succeeded. He can be restored to his heritage and rank, on one proviso—a guarantee for his loyalty. That guarantee the government has named: it is the alliance of his only child with one whom the government can trust. It was the interest of all Italian nobility, that the representation of a house so great falling to a female, should not pass away wholly from the direct line;—in a word, that you should ally yourself with a kinsman. But one kinsman, and he the next in blood, presented himself. Brief—Alphonso regains all that he lost on the day in which his daughter gives her hand to Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera. “Ah,” continued the Count, mournfully, “you shrink—you recoil. He thus submitted to your choice is indeed unworthy of you. You are scarce in the spring of life. He is in its waning autumn. Youth loves youth. He does not aspire to your love. All that he can say is, love is not the only joy of the heart—it is joy to raise from ruin a beloved father—joy to restore, to a land poor in all but memories, a chief in whom it reverences a line of heroes. These are the joys I offer to you—you, a daughter, and an Italian maid. Still silent! Oh speak to me!”
Certainly this Count Peschiera knew well how woman is to be wooed and won; and never was woman more sensitive to those high appeals which most move all true earnest womanhood, than was the young Violante. Fortune favoured him in the moment chosen. Harley was wrenched away from her hopes, and love a word erased from her language. In the void of the world, her father’s image alone stood clear and visible. And she who from infancy had so pined to serve that father, who had first learned to dream of Harley as that father’s friend! She could restore to him all for which the exile sighed; and by a sacrifice of self! Self-sacrifice, ever in itself such a temptation to the noble! Still, in the midst of the confusion and disturbance of her mind, the idea of marriage with another seemed so terrible and revolting, that she could not at once conceive it; and still that instinct of openness and honour, which pervaded all her character, warned even her inexperience that there was something wrong in this clandestine appeal to herself.
Again the Count besought her to speak; and with an effort she said, irresolutely—
“If it be as you say, it is not for me to answer you; it is for my father.”
“Nay,” replied Peschiera. “Pardon, if I contradict you. Do you know so little of your father as to suppose that he will suffer his interest to dictate to his pride. He would refuse, perhaps, even to receive my visit—to hear my explanations; but certainly he would refuse to buy back his inheritance by the sacrifice of his daughter to one whom he has deemed his foe, and whom the mere disparity of years would incline the world to say he had made the barter of his personal ambition. But if I could go to him sanctioned by you—if I could say your daughter overlooks what the father might deem an obstacle—she has consented to accept my hand of her own free choice—she unites her happiness, and blends her prayers, with mine,—then, indeed, I could not fail of success: and Italy would pardon my errors, and bless your name. Ah! Signorina, do not think of me save as an instrument towards the fulfilment of duties so high and sacred—think but of your ancestors, your father, your native land, and reject not the proud occasion to prove how you revere them all!”
Violante’s heart was touched at the right chord. Her head rose—her colour came back to her pale cheek—she turned the glorious beauty of her countenance towards the wily tempter. She was about to answer, and to seal her fate, when at that instant Harley’s voice was heard at a little distance, and Nero came bounding towards her, and thrust himself, with rough familiarity, between herself and Peschiera. The Count drew back, and Violante, whose eyes were still fixed on his face, started at the change that passed there. One quick gleam of rage sufficed in an instant to light up the sinister secrets of his nature—it was the face of the baffled gladiator. He had time but for few words.
“I must not be seen here,” he muttered; “but to-morrow—in these gardens—about this hour. I implore you, for the sake of your father—his hopes, fortunes, his very life, to guard the secret of this interview—to meet me again. Adieu!”
He vanished amidst the trees, and was gone—noiselessly, mysteriously, as he had come.
The last words of Peschiera were still ringing in Violante’s ears when Harley appeared in sight, and the sound of his voice dispelled the vague and dreamy stupor which had crept over her senses. At that voice there returned the consciousness of a mighty loss, the sting of an intolerable anguish. To meet Harley there, and thus, seemed impossible. She turned abruptly away, and hurried towards the house. Harley called to her by name, but she would not answer, and only quickened her steps. He paused a moment in surprise, and then hastened after her.
“Under what strange taboo am I placed?” said he gaily, as he laid his hand on her shrinking arm. “I inquire for Helen—she is ill, and cannot see me. I come to sun myself in your presence, and you fly me as if gods and men had set their mark on my brow. Child!—child!—what is this? You are weeping?”
“Do not stay me now—do not speak to me,” answered Violante through her stifling sobs, as she broke from his hand and made towards the house.
“Have you a grief, and under the shelter of my father’s roof? A grief that you will not tell to me? Cruel!” cried Harley, with inexpressible tenderness of reproach in his soft tones.
Violante could not trust herself to reply. Ashamed of her self-betrayal—softened yet more by his pleading voice—she could have prayed to the earth to swallow her. At length, checking back her tears by a heroic effort, she said, almost calmly, “Noble friend, forgive me. I have no grief, believe me, which—which I can tell to you. I was but thinking of my poor father when you came up; alarming myself about him, it may be, with vain superstitious fears; and so—even a slight surprise—your abrupt appearance, has sufficed to make me thus weak and foolish; but I wish to see my father!—to go home—home!”
“Your father is well, believe me, and pleased that you are here. No danger threatens him; and you,here, are safe.”
“I safe—and from what?”
Harley mused irresolute. He inclined to confide to her the danger which her father had concealed; but had he the right to do so against her father’s will?
“Give me,” he said, “time to reflect, and to obtain permission to intrust you with a secret which, in my judgment, you should know. Meanwhile, this much I may say, that rather than you should incur the danger that I believe he exaggerates, your father would have given you a protector—even in Randal Leslie.”
Violante started.
“But,” resumed Harley, with a calm, in which a certain deep mournfulness was apparent, unconsciously to himself—“but I trust you are reserved for a fairer fate, and a nobler spouse. I have vowed to live henceforth in the common workday world. But for you, bright child, for you, I am a dreamer still!”
Violante turned her eyes for one instant towards the melancholy speaker. The look thrilled to his heart. He bowed his face involuntarily. When he looked up, she had left his side. He did not this time attempt to follow her, but moved away and plunged amidst the leafless trees.
An hour afterwards he re-entered the house, and again sought to see Helen. She had now recovered sufficiently to give him the interview he requested.
He approached her with a grave and serious gentleness.
“My dear Helen,” said he, “you have consented to be my wife, my life’s mild companion; let it be soon—soon—for I need you. I need all the strength of that holy tie. Helen, let me press you to fix the time.”
“I owe you too much,” answered Helen, looking down, “to have a will but yours. But your mother,” she added, perhaps clinging to the idea of some reprieve—“your mother has not yet—”
“My mother—true. I will speak first to her. You shall receive from my family all honour due to your gentle virtues. Helen, by the way, have you mentioned to Violante the bond between us?”
“No—that is, I fear I may have unguardedly betrayed it, against Lady Lansmere’s commands too—but—but—”
“So, Lady Lansmere forbade you to name it to Violante. This should not be. I will answer for her permission to revoke that interdict. It is due to Violante and to you. Tell your young friend all. Ah, Helen, if I am at times cold or wayward, bear with me—bear with me; for you love me, do you not?”
That same evening Randal heard from Levy (at whose house he staid late) of that self-introduction to Violante which (thanks to his skeleton key) Peschiera had contrived to effect; and the Count seemed more than sanguine—he seemed assured as to the full and speedy success of his matrimonial enterprise. “Therefore,” said Levy, “I trust I may very soon congratulate you on the acquisition of your family estates.”
“Strange!” answered Randal, “strange that my fortunes seem so bound up with the fate of a foreigner like Beatrice di Negra and her connection with Frank Hazeldean.” He looked up at the clock as he spoke, and added—
“Frank, by this time, has told his father of his engagement.”
“And you feel sure that the Squire cannot be coaxed into consent?”
“No; but I feel sure that the Squire will be so choleric at the first intelligence, that Frank will not have the self-control necessary for coaxing; and, perhaps, before the Squire can relent upon this point, he may, by some accident, learn his grievances on another, which would exasperate him still more.”
“Ay, I understand—thepost obit?”
Randal nodded.
“And what then?” asked Levy.
“The next of kin to the lands of Hazeldean may have his day.”
The Baron smiled.
“You have good prospects in that direction, Leslie: look now to another. I spoke to you of the borough of Lansmere. Your patron, Audley Egerton, intends to stand for it.”
Randal’s heart had of late been so set upon other and more avaricious schemes, that a seat in Parliament had sunk into a secondary object; nevertheless, his ambitious and all-grasping nature felt a bitter pang, when he heard that Egerton thus interposed between himself and any chance of advancement.
“So!” he muttered sullenly—“so. This man, who pretends to be my benefactor, squanders away the wealth of my forefathers—throws me penniless on the world; and, while still encouraging me to exertion and public life, robs me himself of—”
“No!” interrupted Levy—“not robs you; we may prevent that. The Lansmere interest is not so strong in the borough as Dick Avenel’s.”
“But I cannot stand against Egerton.”
“Assuredly not—you may stand with him.”
“How?”
“Dick Avenel will never suffer Egerton to come in; and though he cannot, perhaps, carry two of his own politics, he can split his votes upon you.”
Randal’s eyes flashed. He saw at a glance, that if Avenel did not overrate the relative strength of parties, his seat could be secured.
“But,” he said, “Egerton has not spoken to me on such a subject; nor can you expect that he would propose to me to stand with him, if he foresaw the chance of being ousted by the very candidate he himself introduced.”
“Neither he nor his party will anticipate that possibility. If he asks you, agree to stand—leave the rest to me.”
“You must hate Egerton bitterly,” said Randal; “for I am not vain enough to think that you thus scheme but from pure love to me.”
“The motives of men are intricate and complicated,” answered Levy, with unusual seriousness. “It suffices to the wise to profit by the actions, and leave the motives in shade.”
There was silence for some minutes. Then the two drew closer towards each other, and began to discuss details in their joint designs.
Randal walked home slowly. It was a cold moonlit night. Young idlers of his own years and rank passed him by, on their way from the haunts of social pleasure. They were yet in the first fair holiday of life. Life’s holiday had gone from him for ever. Graver men, in the various callings of masculine labour—professions, trade, the state—passed him also. Their steps might be sober, and their faces careworn; but no step had the furtive stealth of his—no face the same contracted, sinister, suspicious gloom. Only once, in a lonely thoroughfare, and on the opposite side of the way, fell a foot-fall, and glanced an eye, that seemed to betray a soul in sympathy with Randal Leslie’s.
And Randal, who had heeded none of the other passengers by the way, as if instinctively, took note of this one. His nerves crisped at the noiseless slide of that form, as it stalked on from lamp to lamp, keeping pace with his own. He felt a sort of awe, as if he had beheld the wraith of himself; and ever, as he glanced suspiciously at the stranger, the stranger glanced at him. He was inexpressibly relieved when the figure turned down another street and vanished.
That man was a felon, as yet undetected. Between him and his kind there stood but a thought—a veil airspun, but impassable, as the veil of the Image at Sais.
And thus moved and thus looked Randal Leslie, a thing of dark and secret mischief—within the pale of the law, but equally removed from man by the vague consciousness that at his heart lay that which the eyes of man would abhor and loathe. Solitary amidst the vast city, and on through the machinery of Civilisation, went the still spirit of Intellectual Evil.
Early the next morning Randal received two notes—one from Frank, written in great agitation, begging Randal to see and propitiate his father, whom he feared he had grievously offended; and then running off, rather incoherently, into protestations that his honour as well as his affections were engaged irrevocably to Beatrice, and that her, at least, he could never abandon.
And the second note was from the Squire himself—short, and far less cordial than usual—requesting Mr Leslie to call on him.
Randal dressed in haste, and went at once to Limmer’s hotel.
He found the Parson with Mr Hazeldean, and endeavouring in vain to soothe him. The Squire had not slept all night, and his appearance was almost haggard.
“Oho! Mr young Leslie,” said he, throwing himself back in his chair as Randal entered—“I thought you were a friend—I thought you were Frank’s adviser. Explain, sir; explain.”
“Gently, my dear Mr Hazeldean,” said the Parson. “You do but surprise and alarm Mr Leslie. Tell him more distinctly what he has to explain.”
Squire.—“Did you or did you not tell me or Mrs Hazeldean, that Frank was in love with Violante Rickeybockey?”
Randal, (as in amaze.)—“I! Never, sir! I feared, on the contrary, that he was somewhat enamoured of a very different person. I hinted at that possibility. I could not do more, for I did not know how far Frank’s affections were seriously engaged. And indeed, sir, Mrs Hazeldean, though not encouraging the idea that your son could marry a foreigner and a Roman Catholic, did not appear to consider such objections insuperable, if Frank’s happiness were really at stake.”
Here the poor Squire gave way to a burst of passion, that involved, in one tempest, Frank, Randal, Harry herself, and the whole race of foreigners, Roman Catholics, and women. While the Squire himself was still incapable of hearing reason, the Parson, taking aside Randal, convinced himself that the whole affair, so far as Randal was concerned, had its origin in a very natural mistake; and that while that young gentleman had been hinting at Beatrice, Mrs Hazeldean had been thinking of Violante. With considerable difficulty he succeeded in conveying this explanation to the Squire, and somewhat appeasing his wrath against Randal. And the Dissimulator, seizing his occasion, then expressed so much grief and astonishment at learning that matters had gone as far as the Parson informed him—that Frank had actually proposed to Beatrice, been accepted, and engaged himself, before even communicating with his father; he declared so earnestly, that he could never conjecture such evil—that he had had Frank’s positive promise to take no step without the sanction of his parents; he professed such sympathy with the Squire’s wounded feelings, and such regret at Frank’s involvement, that Mr Hazeldean at last yielded up his honest heart to his consoler—and griping Randal’s hand, said, “Well, well, I wronged you—beg your pardon. What now is to be done?”
“Why, you cannot consent to this marriage—impossible,” replied Randal; “and we must hope therefore to influence Frank by his sense of duty.”
“That’s it,” said the Squire; “for I’ll not give way. Pretty pass things have come to, indeed! A widow too, I hear. Artful jade—thought, no doubt, to catch a Hazeldean of Hazeldean. My estates go to an outlandish Papistical set of mongrel brats! No, no, never!”
“But,” said the Parson, mildly, “perhaps we may be unjustly prejudiced against this lady. We should have consented to Violante—why not to her? She is of good family?”
“Certainly,” said Randal.
“And good character?”
Randal shook his head, and sighed. The Squire caught him roughly by the arm—“Answer the Parson!” cried he, vehemently.
“Indeed, sir, I cannot speak ill of the character of a woman, who may, too, be Frank’s wife; and the world is ill-natured, and not to be believed. But you can judge for yourself, my dear Mr Hazeldean. Ask your brother whether Madame di Negra is one whom he would advise his nephew to marry.”
“My brother!” exclaimed the Squire furiously. “Consult my distant brother on the affairs of my own son!”
“He is a man of the world,” put in Randal.
“And of feeling and honour,” said the Parson; “and, perhaps, through him, we may be enabled to enlighten Frank, and save him from what appears to be the snare of an artful woman.”
“Meanwhile,” said Randal, “I will seek Frank, and do my best with him. Let me go now—I will return in an hour or so.”
“I will accompany you,” said the Parson.
“Nay, pardon me, but I think we two young men can talk more openly without a third person, even so wise and kind as you.”
“Let Randal go,” growled the Squire. And Randal went.
He spent some time with Frank, and the reader will easily divine how that time was employed. As he left Frank’s lodgings, he found himself suddenly seized by the Squire himself.
“I was too impatient to stay at home and listen to the Parson’s prosing,” said Mr Hazeldean, nervously. “I have shaken Dale off. Tell me what has passed. Oh! don’t fear—I’m a man, and can bear the worst.”
Randal drew the Squire’s arm within his, and led him into the adjacent park.
“My dear sir,” said he, sorrowfully, “this is very confidential what I am about to say. I must repeat it to you, because without such confidence, I see not how to advise you on the proper course to take. But if I betray Frank, it is for his good, and to his own father;—only do not tell him. He would never forgive me—it would for ever destroy my influence over him.”
“Go on, go on,” gasped the Squire; “speak out. I’ll never tell the ungrateful boy that I learned his secrets from another.”
“Then,” said Randal, “the secret of his entanglement with Madame di Negra is simply this—he found her in debt—nay, on the point of being arrested—”
“Debt!—arrested! Jezabel!”
“And in paying the debt himself, and saving her from arrest, he conferred on her the obligation which no woman of honour could accept save from her affianced husband. Poor Frank!—if sadly taken in, still we must pity and forgive him!”
Suddenly, to Randal’s great surprise, the Squire’s whole face brightened up.
“I see, I see!” he exclaimed, slapping his thigh. “I have it—I have it. ’Tis an affair of money! I can buy her off. If she took money from him, the mercenary, painted baggage! why, then, she’ll take it from me. I don’t care what it costs—half my fortune—all! I’d be content never to see Hazeldean Hall again, if I could save my son, my own son, from disgrace and misery; for miserable he will be, when he knows he has broken my heart and his mother’s. And for a creature like that! My boy, a thousand hearty thanks to you. Where does the wretch live? I’ll go to her at once.” And as he spoke, the Squire actually pulled out his pocket-book and began turning over and counting the bank-notes in it.
Randal at first tried to combat this bold resolution on the part of the Squire; but Mr Hazeldean had seized on it with all the obstinacy of his straightforward English mind. He cut Randal’s persuasive eloquence off in the midst.
“Don’t waste your breath. I’ve settled it; and if you don’t tell me where she lives, ’tis easily found out, I suppose.”
Randal mused a moment. “After all,” thought he, “why not? He will be sure so to speak as to enlist her pride against himself, and to irritate Frank to the utmost. Let him go.”
Accordingly, he gave the information required; and, insisting with great earnestness on the Squire’s promise not to mention to Madame di Negra his knowledge of Frank’s pecuniary aid, (for that would betray Randal as the informant); and satisfying himself as he best might with the Squire’s prompt assurance, “that he knew how to settle matters, without saying why or wherefore, as long as he opened his purse wide enough,” he accompanied Mr Hazeldean back into the streets, and there left him—fixing an hour in the evening for an interview at Limmer’s, and hinting that it would be best to have that interview without the presence of the Parson. “Excellent good man,” said Randal, “but not with sufficient knowledge of the world for affairs of this kind, whichyouunderstand so well.”
“I should think so,” quoth the Squire, who had quite recovered his good-humour. “And the Parson is as soft as buttermilk. We must be firm here—firm, sir.” And the Squire struck the end of his stick on the pavement, nodded to Randal, and went on to Mayfair as sturdily and as confidently as if to purchase a prize cow at a cattle show.
“Bring the light nearer,” said John Burley—“nearer still.”
Leonard obeyed, and placed the candle on a little table by the sick man’s bedside.
Burley’s mind was partially wandering; but there was method in his madness. Horace Walpole said that “his stomach would survive all the rest of him.” That which in Burley survived the last was his quaint wild genius. He looked wistfully at the still flame of the candle: “It lives ever in the air!” said he.
“What lives ever?”
Burley’s voice swelled—“Light!” He turned from Leonard, and again contemplated the little flame. “In the fixed star, in the Will-o’-the-wisp, in the great sun that illumes half a world, or the farthing rushlight by which the ragged student strains his eyes—still the same flower of the elements. Light in the universe, thought in the soul—ay—ay—Go on with the simile. My head swims. Extinguish the light! You cannot; fool, it vanishes from your eye, but it is still in the space. Worlds must perish, suns shrivel up, matter and spirit both fall into nothingness, before the combinations whose union makes that little flame, which the breath of a babe can restore to darkness, shall lose the power to unite into light once more. Lose the power!—no, thenecessity:—it is the oneMustin creation. Ay, ay, very dark riddles grow clear now—now when I could not cast up an addition sum in the baker’s bill! What wise man denied that two and two made four? Do they not make four? I can’t answer him. But I could answer a question that some wise men have contrived to make much knottier.” He smiled softly, and turned his face for some minutes to the wall.
This was the second night on which Leonard had watched by his bedside, and Burley’s state had grown rapidly worse. He could not last many days, perhaps many hours. But he had evinced an emotion beyond mere delight at seeing Leonard again. He had since then been calmer, more himself. “I feared I might have ruined you by my bad example,” he said, with a touch of humour that became pathos as he added, “That idea preyed on me.”
“No, no; you did me great good.”
“Say that—say it often,” said Burley, earnestly; “it makes my heart feel so light.”
He had listened to Leonard’s story with deep interest, and was fond of talking to him of little Helen. He detected the secret at the young man’s heart, and cheered the hopes that lay there, amidst fears and sorrows. Burley never talked seriously of his repentance; it was not in his nature to talk seriously of the things which he felt solemnly. But his high animal spirits were quenched with the animal power that fed them. Now, we go out of our sensual existence only when we are no longer enthralled by the Present, in which the senses have their realm. The sensual being vanishes when we are in the Past or the Future. The Present was gone from Burley; he could no more be its slave and its king.
It was most touching to see how the inner character of this man unfolded itself, as the leaves of the outer character fell off and withered—a character no one would have guessed in him—an inherent refinement that was almost womanly; and he had all a woman’s abnegation of self. He took the cares lavished on him so meekly. As the features of the old man return in the stillness of death to the aspect of youth—the lines effaced, the wrinkles gone—so, in seeing Burley now, you saw what he had been in his spring of promise. But he himself saw only what he had failed to be—powers squandered—life wasted. “I once beheld,” he said, “a ship in a storm. It was a cloudy, fitful day, and I could see the ship with all its masts fighting hard for life and for death. Then came night, dark as pitch, and I could only guess that the ship fought on. Towards the dawn the stars grew visible, and once more I saw the ship—it was a wreck—it went down just as the stars shone forth.”
When he had made that allusion to himself, he sate very still for some time, then he spread out his wasted hands, and gazed on them, and on his shrunken limbs. “Good,” said he, laughing low; “these hands were too large and rude for handling the delicate webs of my own mechanism, and these strong limbs ran away with me. If I had been a sickly puny fellow, perhaps my mind would have had fair play. There was too much of brute body here! Look at this hand now! you can see the light through it! Good, good!”
Now, that evening, until he had retired to bed, Burley had been unusually cheerful, and had talked with much of his old eloquence, if with little of his old humour. Amongst other matters, he had spoken with considerable interest of some poems and other papers in manuscript which had been left in the house by a former lodger, and which, the reader may remember, that Mrs Goodyer had urged him in vain to read, in his last visit to her cottage. Butthenhe had her husband Jacob to chat with, and the spirit bottle to finish, and the wild craving for excitement plucked his thoughts back to his London revels. Now poor Jacob was dead, and it was not brandy that the sick man drank from the widow’s cruise. And London lay afar amidst its fogs, like a world resolved back into nebulæ. So to please his hostess and distract his own solitary thoughts, he had condescended (just before Leonard found him out) to peruse the memorials of a life obscure to the world, and new to his own experience of coarse joys and woes. “I have been making a romance, to amuse myself, from their contents,” said he. “They may be of use to you, brother author. I have told Mrs Goodyer to place them in your room. Amongst those papers is a journal—a woman’s journal; it moved me greatly. A man gets into another world, strange to him as the orb of Sirius, if he can transport himself into the centre of a woman’s heart, and see the life there, so wholly unlike our own. Things of moment to us, to it so trivial; things trifling to us, to it so vast. There was this journal—in its dates reminding me of stormy events of my own existence, and grand doings in the world’s. And those dates there, chronicling but the mysterious unrevealed record of some obscure loving heart! And in that chronicle, O Sir Poet, there was as much genius, vigour of thought, vitality of being, poured and wasted, as ever kind friend will say was lavished on the rude outer world by big John Burley! Genius, genius; are we all alike, then, save when we leash ourselves to some matter-of-fact material, and float over the roaring seas on a wooden plank or a herring tub?” And after he had uttered that cry of a secret anguish, John Burley had begun to show symptoms of growing fever and disturbed brain; and when they had got him into bed, he lay there muttering to himself, until towards midnight he had asked Leonard to bring the light nearer to him.
So now he again was quiet—with his face turned towards the wall; and Leonard stood by the bedside sorrowfully, and Mrs Goodyer, who did not heed Burley’s talk, and thought only of his physical state, was dipping cloths into iced water to apply to his forehead. But as she approached with these, and addressed him soothingly, Burley raised himself on his arm, and waived aside the bandages. “I do not need them,” said he, in a collected voice. “I am better now. I and that pleasant light understand one another, and I believe all it tells me. Pooh, pooh, I do not rave.” He looked so smilingly and so kindly into her face, that the poor woman, who loved him as her own son, fairly burst into tears. He drew her towards him and kissed her forehead.
“Peace, old fool,” said he fondly. “You shall tell anglers hereafter how John Burley came to fish for the one-eyed perch which he never caught; and how, when he gave it up at the last, his baits all gone, and the line broken amongst the weeds, you comforted the baffled man. There are many good fellows yet in the world who will like to know that poor Burley did not die on a dunghill. Kiss me! Come, boy, you too. Now, God bless you, I should like to sleep.” His cheeks were wet with the tears of both his listeners, and there was a moisture in his own eyes, which nevertheless beamed bright through the moisture.
He laid himself down again, and the old woman would have withdrawn the light. He moved uneasily. “Not that,” he murmured—“light to the last!” And putting forth his wan hand, he drew aside the curtain so that the light might fall full on his face. In a few minutes he was asleep, breathing calmly and regularly as an infant.
The old woman wiped her eyes, and drew Leonard softly into the adjoining room, in which a bed had been made up for him. He had not left the house since he had entered it with Dr Morgan. “You are young, sir,” said she with kindness, “and the young want sleep. Lie down a bit: I will call you when he wakes.”
“No, I could not sleep,” said Leonard. “I will watch for you.”
The old woman shook her head. “I must see the last of him, sir; but I know he will be angry when his eyes open on me, for he has grown very thoughtful of others.”
“Ah, if he had but been as thoughtful of himself!” murmured Leonard; and he seated himself by the table, on which, as he leaned his elbow, he dislodged some papers placed there. They fell to the ground with a dumb, moaning, sighing sound.
“What is that?” said he starting.
The old woman picked up the manuscripts and smoothed them carefully.
“Ah, sir, he bade me place these papers here. He thought they might keep you from fretting about him, in case you would sit up and wake. And he had a thought of me, too; for I have so pined to find out the poor young lady, who left them years ago. She was almost as dear to me as he is; dearer perhaps until now—when—when—I am about to lose him.”
Leonard turned from the papers, without a glance at their contents: they had no interest for him at such a moment.
The hostess went on—
“Perhaps she is gone to heaven before him; she did not look like one long for this world. She left us so suddenly. Many things of hers besides these papers are still here; but I keep them aired and dusted, and strew lavender over them, in case she ever come for them again. You never heard tell of her, did you, sir?” she added, with great simplicity, and dropping a half curtsey.
“Of her?—of whom?”
“Did not Mr John tell you her name—dear—dear;—Mrs Bertram.”
Leonard started;—the very name so impressed upon his memory by Harley L’Estrange.
“Bertram!” he repeated. “Are you sure?”
“Oh yes, sir! And many years after she had left us, and we had heard no more of her, there came a packet addressed to her here, from over sea, sir. We took it in, and kept it, and John would break the seal, to know if it would tell us anything about her; but it was all in a foreign language like—we could not read a word.”
“Have you the packet? Pray show it to me. It may be of the greatest value. To-morrow will do—I cannot think of that just now. Poor Burley!”
Leonard’s manner indicated that he wished to talk no more, and to be alone. So Mrs Goodyer left him, and stole back to Burley’s room on tiptoe.
The young man remained in deep reverie for some moments. “Light,” he murmured. “How often ‘Light’ is the last word of those round whom the shades are gathering!”[31]He moved, and straight on his view through the cottage lattice there streamed light, indeed—not the miserable ray lit by a human hand—but the still and holy effulgence of a moonlit heaven. It lay broad upon the humble floors—pierced across the threshold of the death chamber, and halted clear amidst its shadows.
Leonard stood motionless, his eye following the silvery silent splendour.
“And,” he said inly—“and does this large erring nature, marred by its genial faults—this soul which should have filled a land, as yon orb the room, with a light that linked earth to heaven—does it pass away into the dark, and leave not a ray behind? Nay, if the elements of light are ever in the space, and when the flame goes out, return to the vital air—so thought, once kindled, lives for ever around and about us, a part of our breathing atmosphere. Many a thinker, many a poet, may yet illume the world, from the thoughts which yon genius, that will have no name, gave forth—to wander through air, and recombine again in some new form of light.”
Thus he went on in vague speculations, seeking, as youth enamoured of fame seeks too fondly, to prove that mind never works, however erratically, in vain—and to retain yet, as an influence upon earth, the soul about to soar far beyond the atmosphere where the elements that make fame abide. Not thus had the dying man interpreted the endurance of light and thought.
Suddenly, in the midst of his reverie, a low cry broke on his ear. He shuddered as he heard, and hastened forebodingly into the adjoining room. The old woman was kneeling by the bedside, and chafing Burley’s hand—eagerly looking into his face. A glance sufficed to Leonard. All was over. Burley had died in sleep—calmly, and without a groan.
The eyes were half open, with that look of inexpressible softness which death sometimes leaves; and still they were turned towards the light; and the light burned clear. Leonard closed tenderly the heavy lids; and, as he covered the face, the lips smiled a serene farewell.