Varenna, Lake of Como.
Italy at last! I have crossed the Alps and reached my goal, and now I turn and look at that winding road which, for above two thousand feet, traverses the steep mountain-side, and involuntarily a sadness steals over me—that I am never to re-cross it! These same “last-times” are very sorrowful things, all emblems as they are of that one great “last-time” when the curtain falls for ever! Nor am I sorry when this feeling impresses me deeply; nay, I am pleased that indifference—apathy—have no more hold upon me. I am more afraid of that careless, passionless temperament, than of aught else, and the more as hour by hour it steals over me. Yesterday a letter, which once would have interested me deeply, lay half read till evening; to-day, a very old friend of my guardian’s, Sir Gordon Howard, has left his card: he is ill the inn, perhaps in the next room, and I have not energy to return his visit and chat with him over friends I am never to see again. And yet he is a gallant old officer,—one of that noble class of Englishmen whose loyalty made the boldest feats of daring, the longest years of servitude, seem only as a duty they owed their sovereign. The race is dying out fast.
What can have brought him to Italy? Let me see. Here is the Traveller’s Book; perhaps it may tell something.
“Sir Gordon Howard, Officier Anglais,”—simple enough for a Major-general and K.C.B. and G.C.H.—“de Zurich à Como.” Not much to be learned from that. But stay! he is not alone. “Mademoiselle Howard.” And who can she be? He never had a daughter, and his only son is in India. Perhaps she is a grandaughter; but what care I? It is but another reason to avoid seeing him. I cannot make new acquaintances now. He wants no companions who must travel the road I am going! Antoine must tell me when Sir Gordon Howard goes out, and I’ll leave my card then. I feel I must remain here to-day, and I am well content to do so. This calm lake, these bold mountains, the wooded promontory of Bellagio, and its bright villas, seen amid the trees, are pleasant sights; while from the ever-passing boats, with their white arched awnings, I hear laughter and voices of happy people, whose hearts are lighter than my own.
If I could only find resolution for the task, too, there are a host of letters lying by me unanswered. How little do some of those “dear friends” who invite one to shoot grouse in the Highlands, or hunt in Leicestershire, think of the real condition of those they ask to be their guests! It is enough that you have been seen in certain houses of a certain repute. You have visited at B———, and spent a Christmas at G———; you are known as a tolerable shot and a fair average talker; you are sufficiently recognised in the world as to be known to all men of a very general acceptance, and no more is wanted. But, test this kind of position by absence! Try, if you will, what a few years out of England effect! You are as totally forgotten as though you belonged to a past generation. You expect—naturally enough, perhaps—to resume your old place and among your old associates; but where are they? and what have they become? You left them young men about town, you find them now among the “middle ages;” when you parted they were slim, lank, agile fellows, that could spring into a saddle and fly their horse over a five-bar rail, or pull an oar with any one. Now, they are of the portly order, wear wider-skirted coats, trousers without straps, and cloth boots; their hats, too, have widened in the leaf, so as to throw a more liberal shade over broader cheeks; the whiskers are more bushy, and less accurate in curl. If they ride, the horse has more bone and timber under him; and when they bow to some fair face in a passing carriage there is no brightening of the eye, but in its place a look of easier intimacy than heretofore. These are not the men you left?—alas they are! A new generation of young men about town has sprung up, who “know not Joseph,” and with whom you have few, if any, sympathies.
So I find it myself. I left England at a time when pleasure was the mad pursuit of every young fellow; and under that designation came every species of extravagance and all kind of wild excess. Men of five thousand a-year were spending twelve! Men of twelve, thirty! Every season saw some half-dozen cross the Channel, “cleared out”—some, never more to be heard of. Others, lingering in Paris or Brussels to confer with their lawyer, who was busily engaged in compromising, contesting, disputing, and bullying a host of creditors, whose very rogueries had accomplished the catastrophe they grumbled at. Lords, living on ten or twelve hundred pounds a-year were to be met with everywhere; Countesses, lodged in every little town in Germany. The Dons of dragoon regiments were seen a-foot in the most obscure of watering-places; and men who had loomed large at Doncaster, and booked thousands, were now fain to risk francs and florins among the flats of Brussels and Aix-la-Chapelle. The pace was tremendous; few who came of age with a good estate held out above two or three years. And if any listener should take his place beside a group of fashionable-looking young Englishmen in the Boulevard de Grand, or the Graben at Vienna, the chances were greatly in favour of his hearing such broken phrases as, “Caught it heavily!”—“All wrong at Ascot!”—“Scott’s fault!”—“Cleared out at Crocky’s!”—“No standing two hundred per cent!”—“Infernal scoundrel, Ford!”—“That villain Columbine!”—“Rascal Bevan!” and so on, with various allusions to the Quorn hounds, the Clarendon, and Houlditch the coach-maker.
Such was the one song you heard every where.
Now the mode—a better one I willingly own it—is “Young Englandism.” Not that superb folly of white neckcloth and vest, that swears by Disraeli and the “Morning Post,” but that healthier stamp, whose steps of travel have turned eastward, towards the land of old-world wonders, and who, instead of enervating mind and body at Ems or Baden, seek higher and nobler sources of pleasure among the cities and tombs of ancient Egypt. Lord Lindsay, for instance, what a creditable specimen is he of his age and class! and Warburton’s book, the “Crescent and the Cross,” how redeeming is such a production among the mass of frivolity and flippancy the magazines teem with! These are the men who, returning to England more intensely national than they left it, cannot be reproached with ignorance in this preference of their native land above every other. Their nationality, not built up of the leaders of the daily newspapers, is a conviction resulting from reflection and comparison.
They are proud of England; not alone as the most powerful of nations, but as that where personal integrity and truth are held in highest repute—where character and reputation stand far above genius—and where, whatever the eminence of a gifted man, he cannot stand above his fellows, save on the condition that he is not inferior in more sterling qualities. The young man setting out to travel can scarcely be sustained by a better feeling than his strong nationality. He who sets a high store by the character of his country will be slow to do aught that will disgrace it. Of course I speak of nationality in its true sense; not the affectation of John Bullism in dress, manner, and bearing—not the insolent assumption of superiority to the French and Germans, that some very young men deem English; but, a deep conviction that, as the requirements of England are higher in all that regards fidelity to his word, consistency of conduct, and more honourable employment of time and talents than prevail abroad, he should be guardedly careful not to surrender these convictions to all the seductions of foreign life and manners.
I do not believe our country is superior to any foreign land in any one particular so strikingly as in the capabilities and habits of our higher orders. Such a class as the titled order of Great Britain, taking them collectively, never existed elsewhere.
A German, with any thing like independence, lives a life of tobacco-smoking and snipe-shooting. An Italian, is content to eke out life with acaféand a theatre—lemonade and a “liaison” are enough for him. The government of foreign states, in shutting out the men of rank and fortune from political influence, have taken the very shortest road to their degradation. What is to become of a man who has a Bureaucracy for a government and Popery for a religion?
But what is the tumult in the little court-yard beneath my window? Ha! an English equipage! How neatly elegant that low-hung phaeton! and how superb in figure and style that pair of powerful dark-brown thoroughbreds!—for so it is easy to see they are, even to the smart groom, who stands so still before the pole, with each hand upon the bars of the bits. All smack of London. There is an air of almost simplicity in the whole turn-out, because it is in such perfect keeping. And here come its owners. What a pretty foot!—I might almost say, and ankle, too! How gracefully she draws her shawl around her! What! my friend Sir Gordon himself? So, this is Mdlle. Howard! I wish I could see her face. She will not turn this way. And now they are gone. How distinctive is the proud tramp of their feet above the shuffling shamble of the posters!
So, it is only a “piccolo giro” they are gone to make along the lake, and come back again, to dinner. I thought I heard him say my name to his valet, as he stepped into the carriage. Who knocks at the door? I was right; Sir Gordon has sent to invite me to dine at six o’clock. Shall I go? Why should I think of it? I am sick, low, weak, heart and body. Nay, it is better to refuse.
Well, I have written my apology, not without a kind of secret regret, for somehow I have a longing—a strange wish, once more, to feel the pleasant excitement of even so much of society; but, like the hero of the Peau de Chagrin, I dread to indulge a wish, for it may lead me more rapidly down to my doom. I actually tremble lest a love of life, that all-absorbing desire to live, should lie in wait for me yet. I have heard that it ever accompanies the last stage of my malady. It is better, then, to guard against whatever might suggest it. Pleasure could not—friendship, solicitude, kindness might do so.
It is a week since I wrote a line in my notebook, and, judging only from my sensations, it seems like a year. Events rapidly succeeding, always make time seem longer in retrospect. It is only monotony is brief to look back upon.
I expected ere this to have been at Naples, if not Palermo; and here I linger on the Lake of Como, as if my frail health had left me any choice of a resting-place. And yet, why should this not be as healthful as it is beautiful?
Looking out from this window, beneath which, not three paces distant, the blue lake is plashing—the music of its waves the only sound heard—great mountains rise grandly from the water to the very skies, the sides one tangled mass of olive, vine, and fig-tree. The dark-leaved laurel, the oleander, the cactus and the magnolia cluster around each rugged rocky eminence, and hang in graceful drapery over the glassy water. Palaces, temples, and villas are seen on every side; some, boldly standing out, are reflected in the calm lake, their marble columns tremulous as the gentle wind steals past; others, half hid among the embowering trees, display but a window or a portico, or perchance a deep arched entrance for the gondolas, above which some heavy banner slowly waves its drooping folds, touching the very water. The closed jalousies, the cloudless sky, the unruffled water, over which no boat is seen to glide, the universal stillness, all tell that it is noon—the noon of Italy, and truly the northern midnight is not a season of such unbroken repose. Looking at this scene, and fancying to myself the lethargic life of ease, which not even thought disturbs, of these people, I half wonder within me how had it fared with us of England beneath such a sun, and in such a clime. Had the untiring spirit of enterprise, the active zeal and thirst for wealth, triumphed over every obstacle, and refused to accept, as a season of rest, the hours of the bright and glaring sunshine?
Here, the very fishermen are sleeping beneath their canvass awnings, and their boats lie resting in the dark shadows. There is something inexpressibly calm and tranquillising in all this. The stillness of night we accept as its natural and fitting accompaniment, but to look out upon this fair scene, one is insensibly reminded of the condition of life which leaves these busiest of mortal hours, elsewhere, free to peaceful repose, and with how little labour all wants are met and satisfied.
How came I here? is a question rising to my mind at every moment, and actually demanding an effort of memory to answer. The very apartment itself is almost a riddle to me, seeming like some magic transformation, realising as it does all that I could ask or wish.
This beautiful little octagon room, with its marble “statuettes” in niches between the windows, its frescoed ceiling, its white marble floor, reflecting each graceful ornament, even to the silver lamp that hangs high in the coved roof; and then, this little terrace beside the lake, where under the silk awning I sit among a perfect bosquet of orange and oleander trees;—it is almost too beautiful for reality. I try to read, but cannot; and as I write I stand up at each moment to peep over the balcony at the fish, as sluggishly they move along, or, at the least stir, dart forward with arrowy speed, to return again the minute after, for they have been fed here and know the spot. There is a dreamy, visionary feeling, that seems to be the spirit of the place, encouraging thought, and yet leading the mind to dalliance rather than moody reverie. And again, how came I here? Now for the answer.
On Tuesday last I was at Varenna, fully bent on proceeding by Milan to Genoa, and thence to Naples. I had, not without some difficulty, resisted all approaches of Sir Gordon Howard, and even avoided meeting him. What scores of fables did I invent merely to escape an interview with an old friend!
Well, at eight o’clock, as I sat at breakfast, I heard the bustle of preparation in the court-yard, and saw with inexpressible relief that his horses were standing ready harnessed, while my valet came with the welcome tidings that the worthy Baronet was starting for Como, near which he had taken a Villa. The Villa Cimarosa, the most beautiful on the lake,—frescoes—statues—hanging gardens—I know not how many more charming items, did my informant recite, with all the impassioned eloquence of George Robins himself. He spared me nothing, from the news that Mademoiselle, Sir Gordon’s grandaughter, who was a prodigious heiress, was ordered to Italy for her health, and that it was more than likely we should find them at Naples for the winter, down to the less interesting fact that the courier, Giacomo Bartoletti, was to proceed by the steamer and get the Villa ready for their arrival. I could only stop his communications by telling him to order horses for Lecco, pay the bill, and follow me, as I should stroll down the road and look at the caverns of rock which it traverses by the lake side.
I had seen Sir Gordon drive off—I had heard the accustomed “Buon viaggio” uttered by the whole household in chorus—and now, I was free once more; and so escaping this noisy ceremony of leave-taking, I sauntered listlessly forth, and took my way along the lake. The morning was delicious; a slight breeze from the north, the pleasantest of all the winds on the Lake of Como, was just springing up.
It is here, opposite Varenna, that the lake is widest; but nothing of bleakness results from the greater extent of water, for the mountains are still bold and lofty, and the wooded promontory of Bellagio dividing the two reaches of the lake, is a beautiful feature. Its terraced gardens and stately palaces peeping amid the leafy shade, and giving glimpses of one of the sweetest spots the “Villégiatura” ever lingered in.
I had got a considerable distance from the town of Varenna without feeling it. The enchanting picture, ever presenting some new effect, and the light and buoyant breeze from the water, and a certain feeling of unusual lightness of heart, all aiding, I walked on without fatigue; nor was I aware of the distance traversed, till at a little bend of the lake I saw Varenna diminishing away—its tall poplars and taper spires being now the most conspicuous features of the town.
At a short distance in front of me lay a little creek or bay, from one side of which a wooden pier projected—a station for the steamers that ply on the lake. There now Sir Gordon Howard’s phaeton was standing, surrounded with a most multifarious heap of trunks, packing-cases, portmanteaus, and other travelling gear—signs that some portion of his following, at least, were awaiting the arrival of the packet. Nor had they to wait long: for as I looked, the vessel shot round the rocky point and darted swiftly across the smooth water, till she lay scarce moving, about a quarter of a mile from shore,—the shoal water prevented her approaching nearer to the jetty.
With the idle curiosity of a lounger, I sat down on a rock to watch the scene.
I know no reason for it, but I ever take an interest in the movements of travellers. Their comings and goings suggest invariably some amusing pictures to my mind, and many a story have I weaved for myself from nothing but the passing glimpses of those landed hurriedly from a steamer.
I watched, therefore, with all my usual satisfaction, the launching of the boat laden heavily with luggage, on the top of which, like its presiding genius, sat a burly courier, his gold-banded cap glistening brightly in the sun. Then came a lighter skiff, in the stern of which sat a female figure, shaded by a pink parasol. There was another parasol in the phaeton too—I thought I could even recognise Sir Gordon’s figure in the last boat: but as I looked the sky became suddenly overcast, and round the rocky point, where but a moment before the whole cliff lay reflected in the water, there now came splashing waves, tumbling wildly by, till the whole creek suddenly was covered by them; dark squalls of wind sweeping over the water, tossing the two boats to and fro, and even heaving up the huge steamer itself, till her bows were bathed in foaming cataracts. The suddenness of the tempest—for such it really was—was a grand and sublime “effect” in such a scene: but I could no longer enjoy it, as there seemed to be actual danger in the situation of the two boats, which, from time to time, were hidden between the swelling waves. At last, but not without a struggle, they reached the packet, and I could plainly see, by the signs of haste on board, that the captain had not been a very willing spectator of the scene. The luggage was soon on board, and the figures of the lighter boat followed quickly after.
Scarcely was this effected when the boats were cast off, and again the paddle-wheels splashed through the water. The gale at this instant increased: for no sooner was the steamer’s bow to the wind, than the waves went clean over her, washing her deck from stem to stern, and dashing in columns of spray over the dark funnel. A great stir and commotion on deck drew off my attention from the boats; and now I heard a hoarse voice calling through a speaking-trumpet to those in the boats. They, however, either did not hear or heed the command, for they rowed boldly towards the shore, nor once paid any attention to the signals which, first as a flag, and afterwards as a cannon-shot, the steamer made for them.
While I was lost in conjecturing what possibly all this might mean, the vessel once more rounded to her course, and with full steam up breasted the rolling water, and stood out towards the middle of the lake. A fisherman just then ran his boat in to land, in a little creek beneath me, and from him I asked an explanation of the scene.
“It’s nothing, Signor, but what one sees almost every day here,” said he, jeeringly: “that ‘canaille’ of Pellagino have taken people out to the steamer, and would not wait to bring them back again; and now, they must go to Como, whether they will or no.”
This explanation seemed the correct one, and appeared to be corroborated by the attitude of the party on shore, for there stood the phaeton, still waiting, although all chance of the others’ returning was totally by-gone. Concluding that, Sir Gordon thus carried off without his will, his servants might possibly need some advice or counsel—for I knew they were all English, except the Courier—I hastened down to the jetty, to offer them such aid as I possessed. As I came nearer, I was more convinced that my suspicions were correct. About thirty ragged and not over-prepossessing-looking individuals were assembled around the phaeton; some busily pressing the groom, who stood at the horses’ heads, with questions he could not answer; and others imploring charity with all that servile tone and gesture your Italian beggar is master of. Making my way through this assemblage, I accosted the groom, who knew me to be an acquaintance of his master’s, and instead of replying to me, at once cried out,—“Oh, Miss Lucy, here is Mr. Templeton! You need not be afraid, now.” I turned at once, and instead of a lady’s-maid, as I had believed the figure to be, beheld a very lovely but delicate-looking girl, who with an expression of considerable anxiety in her features, was still following the track of the departing steam-boat. At the mention of my name she looked hurriedly around, and a deep blush covered her face as she said,—
“I am so happy to see Mr. Templeton! Perhaps he will forgive me if I make the first moment of our acquaintance the burden of a request?” And then, in a very few words, she told me how her Grandfather, having gone on board the steamer to give some particular orders and directions about his baggage, was unwillingly carried off, leaving her with only a groom, who could speak no language but his own. She went on to say, that they had taken the Villa Cimarosa on the lake, and were then proceeding thither by Lecco, when thismésaventureoccurred.
“I now must ask Mr. Templeton’s counsel how to act—whether to return to the inn at Varenna, and wait there till I can hear from my Grandfather, or venture on to Como with the carriage?”
“If you will take my carriage, Miss Howard, it will be here in a few minutes. My servant is a most experienced traveller, and will not suffer you to endure the slightest inconvenience; and I will follow in yours.
“But perhaps you cannot travel in an open carriage? I have heard that your health is delicate.”
“I prefer it greatly.”
“And I too——”
She stopped suddenly, feeling that she was about to utter what might seem an ungracious acknowledgment. There was such an evident regret in the dread of having offended me, that, without pausing to reflect, I said,—
“There is another alternative; I am a very safe whip, and if you would permit me to have the honour of accompanying you, I should be but too happy to be your escort.”
She tried to answer by a polite smile of acceptance, but I saw that the proposition was scarcely such as she approved of, and so at once I added,—
“I will spare you the pain of rejecting my offer; pray, then, abide by my first suggestion. I see my carriage coming along yonder.”
“I don’t know,” said she, with a kind of wilfulness, like that of one who had been long accustomed to indulgence; “it may seem very capricious to you, but I own I detest post-horses, and cracking whips, and rope-harness. You shall drive me, Mr. Templeton.”
I replied by a very sincere assurance of how I esteemed the favour, and the next moment was seated at her side. As I stole a glance at the pale but beautifully-formed features, her drooping eyelashes, dark as night, and her figure of surpassing symmetry and grace, I could not help thinking of all the straits and expedients I had practised for three entire days to avoid making her acquaintance. As if she had actually divined what was then passing in my mind, she said,—
“You see, Mr. Temple ton, it was like a fate; you did your utmost not to meet us, and here we are, after all.”
I stammered out a very eager, but a very blundering attempt at denial, while she resumed,—
“Pray do not make matters worse, which apologies in such cases always do. Grandpapa told me that ill health had made you a recluse and avoid society. This, and the mystery of your own close seclusion, were quite enough to make me desirous to see you.”
“How flattered I should have been had I suspected so much interest could attach to me! but, really, I dreaded to inflict upon a very old friend what I found to be so tiresome, namely, my own company.”
“I always heard that you were fastidious about going into society; but surely a visit to an old friend, in a foreign country too, might have escaped being classified in this category?”
“I own my fault, which, like most faults, has brought its own penalty.”
“If this be meant to express your deep affliction at not coming to us, I accept the speech in all its most complimentary sense.”
I bowed in acquiescence, and she went on:—
“You must forgive me if I talk to you with a freedom that our actual acquaintanceship does not warrant, for, whileyounever heard of me before,Ihave been listening to stories and narratives aboutyou, I cannot say how long.”
“Indeed! I scarcely suspected Sir Gordon had more than remembered me.”
“I did not say that Grandpapa was my informant,” said she, laughing. “Lady Catherine Douglas—the Collingwoods—the Grevilles—and then that delightful person, Madame de Favancourt,—all spoke of you.... For which of my catalogue was that blush intended, Mr. Templeton?”
“I was only yielding to a very natural sentiment—call it shame, pride, or pleasure—that so many fair friends should have deemed me worthy a place in their memory. Is Mary Greville married?”
“Yes; about a month since she accepted the hand she had, it is said, some half-dozen times rejected.”
“Sir Blake Morony?”
“The same: an intolerable bore, to my thinking; and, indeed, I believe to poor Mary’s, too. But, then, ‘the’ man did not offer. Some say, he was bashful; some, that he dreaded what he need not have dreaded—a refusal; and so, Mary went but to the Cape when her father became Governor there; and, like all governors’ daughters, took a husband from the staff.”
“She was very pretty, but——”
“Say on; we were never more than mere acquaintances.”
“I was going to add, a most inveterate flirt.”
“How I do detest to hear that brought as an accusation against a girl, from the very kind of person that invariably induces the error!—Young men like Mr. Templeton, who, entering life with the prestige of ability and public success, very naturally flatter the vanity of any girl by their attentions, and lead to a more buoyant character of mind and a greater desire to please, which are at once set down as coquetry. For my own part, I greatly prefer old men’s society to young one’s, from the very fact that one is permitted to indulge all the caprices of thought or fancy without incurring the offensive imputation of a design on his heart.”
“I should not always give a verdict of acquittal even in such cases.”
“Very likely not. There are old men whose manner and bearing are infinitely more attractive than the self-satisfied, self-relying composure of our modern young ones. Any thing, however, even boyish awkwardness, is preferable to your middle-aged gentleman, who, with a slight bald spot on his head, and a very permanent flush on his cheek, adds the stately pomp of his forty autumns to a levity that has no touch of younger days.”
“Heaven help us! what are we to do from thirty to fifty-five or sixty?”
“Marry, and live in the country. I mean, do not be young men about town.Aproposto nothing—are we not, this instant, in the very scene of Manzoni’s novel, ‘I Promessi Sposi?’”
“Yes; the whole of our journey to-day lies through it, from Lecco to Como; or rather, more to the northward again—what they call here, the ‘Brianza.’”
“The scene deserved better actors, in my opinion. I have always thought it a very tiresome story, even among that most tiresome class—Pure love-tales.”
“What say you to the ‘Bride of Lammermoor?’”
“That it is only inferior to ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ But how many interests are there brought up before the reader in either of these—all subordinate to the great one—but all exciting mingled and conflicting emotions! The author, in neither case, was satisfied to dwell on the daily and nightly sighings of a love-stricken pair. He knew better than to weave his web of one tissue. In fact, the Master of Ravens-wood is more the slave of his own blighted ambition than of his love, which, at best, was only an element in his feeling of abasement.”
“And yet, how faithfully was his love returned! Nothing short of a true passion meets such requital.”
“If you said, that no heart incapable of feeling ever inspired such, I would agree with you; but I fancy that women are often imposed upon, by supposing that they possess the entire affection of those they know capable of strong attachments.”
“That may possibly be true; but I suspect that in the world—in the middle of that life where we daily meet and form friendships—there is very little time or opportunity for any thing above a passing feeling of admiration, that seldom reaches esteem. The Honourable Miss Tollemache meets Captain Fitzherbert of the Guards. They are introduced and dance together—the lady is pretty—the Captain amusing—they have a large number of mutual acquaintances, whom they quiz and praise by turns, with sufficient agreement to be mutually pleased. They separate; and the Captain asks if the lady really have ‘twenty thousand pounds fortune.’ Match-making aunts and mothers arrange preliminaries; and the young people have leisure to fail in love after the most approved fashion: that is, they meet very often, and talk more together, than common acquaintances are wont to do; but their talk is of Grisi and Lablache, of the Duke’s fete at Chiswick, and Lord Donnington’s yacht excursion to Malta. If the gentleman have a confidence to evoke, it is, possibly, the state of his mind on the approaching ‘Derby.’ Now I would ask, How much of mutual esteem, or even knowledge, grows out of all this?”
“Pretty much the same amount as exists in a French marriage, where M. le Marquis having ‘fait ses farces,’ is fain to marry, being somewhat too deep in debt to continue what his years admonish him to abandon. Mademoiselle is brought from the convent, or the governess’s apartment, to sign the contract and accept her husband. There is enough in the very emancipation she obtains to be pleasurable, not to speak of a grandtrousseau, diamonds, cashmeres, and the prettiest equipage in Paris.”
“Hence,” said I, “we seem agreed, that one must not choose a wife or husbandà la mode Anglaise ni Française.
“I believe not,” said she, laughing; “for if marriages be made in heaven, they are about the strangest employment for angels I ever heard of.”
“It entirely depends on how you regard what are commonly called accidents and chances, as to the interpretation you give that saying. If you see, in those curious coincidences that are ever occurring in life, nothing more than hazard, you at once abandon all idea of governing human actions. If, on the other hand, you read them too implicitly, and accept them as indications for the future, you rush into fatalism. For my own part, I think less of the events themselves, than as they originate or evoke sentiments in two parties, who, though previously known to each, only discover on some sudden emergency a wonderful agreement in sentiment and feeling. In the ordinary detail of life they had gone on, each ignorant of the other’s opinions: so long as the wheels of life revolved freely and noiselessly, the journey had called for nothing of mutual interest; but some chance occurrence, some accidental rencontre occurs, and they at once perceive a most fortuitous similarity in taste or thinking. Like people who have suddenly discovered a long-persisted-in mistake, they hasten to repair the past by sudden confidences. Let me give an instance, even though it be almost too bold a one for my theory. A friend of mine, who had served some years with great distinction in the East, returned to England in company with a brother officer, a man of high family, knowing and known to every one of a certain standing in London. My friend, who, from a remote province, had no town acquaintances, was, however, speedily introduced by his friend, and, heralded by his reputation, was greatly noticed in society. He soon wearied of a round of dissipations, wherein the great, if not the only interest, lies in knowledge of the actors; and was one night stealing away from a large evening party, secretly resolving that it should be his last ball. He had, by dint of great labour and perseverance, reached the last salon, and already-caught glimpse of the stair beyond, when his progress was suddenly arrested by a very sweet but excited voice, saying—‘One moment, sir; may I beg you will release my scarf.’ He turned and beheld a very handsome girl, who was endeavouring to disengage from her shoulders a rich scarf of lace, one end of which was caught in the star he wore on his breast—a decoration from the Nizam. He immediately began to detach the delicate tissue from its dangerous situation. But his address was inferior to his zeal, so that he continually received admonitions as to greater care and caution, with mingled laments over the inevitable mischief that must follow. Something abashed by his own awkwardness, his nervousness made him worse, and he muttered to himself in German, thinking it was a safe tongue for soliloquy—‘Why will ladies wear such preposterous finery?—the spider’s web is not so fragile.’ To which at once the lady replied, in the same language,—‘If men are vain enough to carry a coat full of ‘crachats’ and orders, ladies ought, at least, to be careful how they pass them.’ He blushed at the tart rebuke, and in his eagerness he tore a little hoop or mesh of the scarf. ‘Oh, pray sir, permit me! It is real Brussels!’ and so saying, she at once began, with a skill very different from his, the work of disentanglement. My friend, however, did not desist, but gave what aid he could, their fingers more than once meeting. Meanwhile a running fire of pleasantry and smartness went on between them, when suddenly his brother officer came up, saying,—
“‘Oh! Lydia, here is my friend Collyton. I have been so anxious you should know him; and he leaves to-morrow.’
“‘I hope he will permit me to rescue my scarf first,’ said the lady, taking no heed of the introduction.
“‘I am so sorry—I really am in despair,’ said Collyton, as the lady, growing at last impatient, tore the frail web in order to get free.
“‘It was all your fault, sir, remember that—or rather that of your star, which I’m sure I wish the Sirdar, or the Nizam, had reserved for a more careful wearer.’
“‘I never deemed it would have done me such service,’ said Collyton, recovering courage; ‘without it, I should have passed on, and you would never have taken the trouble to notice me.’
“‘There, sir, I must leave you your prize,’ said she, smartly, as, taking the arm of her partner, she joined the waltzers; while Collyton stood with the folds of a Brussels veil draped gracefully on his arm.
“He went home; spent half the night disengaging the intricate web, and the next day called to restore it, and apologise for his misfortune; the acquaintance thus casually formed ripened into mutual liking, and, after a time, into a stronger feeling, and in the end they were married; the whole of the event, the great event of every life, originating in the porcupine fashion of the Nizam’s star and the small loops of a Brussels-lace scarf! Here, then, is my case; but for this rencontre they had never met, save in the formal fashion people do as first acquaintances. Without a certain collision, they had not given forth the sparks that warmed into flame.”
“I call that a pure chance, just as much as—as——”
“Our own meeting this morning, you were about to say,” said I, laughingly; and she joined in the mirth, but soon after became silent and thoughtful. I tried various ways of renewing our conversation; I started new topics, miles remote from all we had been talking of: but I soon perceived that, whether from physical causes or temperament, the eager interest she exhibited when speaking, and the tone of almost excited animation in which she listened, seemed to weary and exhaust her. I therefore gradually suffered our conversation to drop down to an occasional remark on passing objects; and so we travelled onwards till, late in the afternoon, we found ourselves at the gate of a handsome park, where an avenue of trellised vines, wide enough for two carriages to pass, led to a beautiful villa, on the terrace of which stood my old friend, Sir Gordon Howard, himself.
For a few moments he was so totally engrossed by the meeting with his grandaughter that he did not even perceive me. Indeed, his agitation was as great as it might reasonably have been had years of absence separated them, instead of the few brief hours of a twenty miles’ drive; and it was only as she said, “Are you forgetting to thank Mr. Templeton, Papa?” that he turned round to greet me with all the warmth of his kindly nature.
It was to no purpose that I protested plans already formed, engagements made, and horses written for; he insisted on my staying, if not some weeks—some days—and at last, hours, at the Villa Cimarosa. I might still have resisted his kind entreaties, when Miss Howard, with a smile and a manner of most winning persuasiveness, said, “I wish you would stay,”—and———here I am!
How like a dream—a delicious, balmy, summer night’s dream—is this life I am leading! For the first time have I tasted the soothing tranquillity of domestic life. A uniformity, that tells rather of security than sameness, pervades every thing in this well-ordered household, where all come and go as if under the guidance of some ruling genius, unseen and unheard. Sir Gordon, too, is like a father; at least as I can fancy a father to be, for I was too early left an orphan to preserve my memory of either parent. His kindness is even more than what we call friendship. It is actually paternal. He watches over my health with all the unobtrusive solicitude of true affection; and if I even hint at departure, he seizes the occasion to oppose it, not with the warmth of hospitality alone, but a more deeply-meaning interest that sometimes puzzles me. Can it be that he recognises in my weakened frame and shrunken cheek, greater ravages of disease than I yet feel or know of? Is it that he perceives me nearer the goal than as yet I am aware? It was yesterday, as we sat in the library together, running over the pages of an almanac, I remarked something about my liking to travel by moonlight, when, with a degree of emotion that amazed me, he said, “Pray do not talk of leaving us; I know that in this quiet monotony there may be much to weary you; but remember that you are not strong enough for the world, did you even care to take your place in it as of old. Besides,”—here he faltered, and it was with a great effort that he resumed—“besides, formysake, if the selfishness of the request should not deter you, formysake remain with us some time longer.”
I protested most warmly, as I had all reason to do, that for years past I had never known time pass on so happily; that in the peaceful calm we lived, I had tasted a higher enjoyment than all the most buoyant pleasures of healthier and younger days had ever given me. “But,”—I believe I tried to smile as I spoke,—“but recollect, Sir Gordon, I have got my billet: the doctors have told me to go, and die, at Naples. What a shock to science if I should remain, to live, at Como!”
“Do so, my dearest friend,” said he, grasping my hands within both of his, while the tears swam in his eyes; “I cannot—I dare not—I have not strength to tell you, all that your compliance with this wish will confer on me Spare me this anguish, and do not leave us.” As he uttered these words he left me, his emotion too great to let me reply.
The sick man’s selfishness would say, that his anxiety is about that wasting malady, whose ravages are even more plainly seen than felt.
Turn the matter over how I will, I cannot reconcile this eager anxiety for my remaining with any thing but a care for myself. It is clear he thinks me far worse than I can consent to acknowledge. I do not disguise from myself the greater lassitude I experience after a slight exertion, a higher tension of the nervous system, and an earlier access of that night fever, which, like the darkness of the coming winter, creeps daily on, shortening the hours of sunlight, and ushering in a deeper and more solemn gloom; but I watch these symptoms as one already prepared for their approach, and feel grateful that their coming has not clouded the serenity with which I hope to journey to the last.
Kind old man! I would that I were his son, that I could feel my rightful claim to the affection he lavishes on me; but forhissake it is better as it is! And Miss Howard—Lucy, let me call her, since I am permitted so to accost her—what a blessing I should have felt such a sister to be, so beautiful, so kind, so gently feminine! for that is the true charm. This, too, is better as it is. How could I take leave of life, if I were parting with such enjoyments?
She is greatly changed since we came here. Every day seems to gain something over the malady she laboured under. She is no longer faint and easily wearied, but able to take even severe exercise without fatigue; her cheek has grown fuller, and its rosy tint is no longer hectic, but the true dye of health; and instead of that slow step and bent-down head, her walk is firm and her air erect; while her spirits, no longer varying from high excitement to deep depression, are uniformly good and animated. Life is opening in all its bloom to her, as rapidly as its shadows are closing and gathering around me. Were it mine to bestow, how gladly would I give what remains of flickering life to strengthen the newly-sprung vitality, her light step, her brilliant smile and dark blue eye! That coming back to health, from out of the very shadow of death, must be a glorious sensation! The sudden outbursting of all this fair world’s joys, on a spirit over which the shade of sickness has only swept, and not rested long enough to leave its blight. I think I read in that almost heroic elevation of sentiment, that exquisite perception of whatever is beautiful in Lucy, the triumph of returning energy and health. She is less fanciful and less capricious, too. Formerly, the least remark, in which she construed a difference of opinion, would distress or irritate her, and her temper appeared rather under the sway of momentary impulse than the guidance of right principle. Now, she accepts even correction, mildly and gratefully, and if a sudden spark of former haste flash forth, she seems eager to check and repress it; she acts as though she felt that restored health imposed more restraint and less of self-indulgence than sickness. How happy if one were only to bring out of the sick chamber its teaching of submission, patience, and gratitude, and leave behind its egotism and its irritability! This she would appear to aim at; and to strive is to win.
And now I quit this chronicling to join her. Already she is on her way to the boat, and we are going to see Pliny’s villa; at least the dark and shadowy nook where it once stood. The lake is still as a mirror, and a gorgeous mirror it is, reflecting a scene of faëry brilliancy and beauty. She is waving her handkerchief to me to come. “Vengo, subito.”
This has been a delightful day. We rowed along past Melzi till we came under the tall cliffs near Bellagio; and there, in a little bay, land-locked and shaded by olive-trees, we dined. I had never seen Sir Gordon so thoroughly happy. When Lucy’s spirits have been higher, and her fancy has taken wilder and bolder wings, he has usually worn a look of anxiety through all his admiring fondness. To-day, she was less animated than she generally is—almost grave at times—but not sad; and I think that “Grandpapa” loved her better in this tranquil mood, than in those of more eager enjoyment. I believe I read his meaning, that, in her highest flow of spirits, he dreads the wear and tear consequent on so much excitement; while in her more sombre days he indulges the hope that she is storing up in repose the energies of future exertion. How it takes off the egotism of sickness to have some one whose ever-watchful care is busy for our benefit! how it carries away the load of “self,” and all its troubles! while I.... But I must not dwell on this theme, nor disturb that deep sense of gratitude I feel for all that I possess of worldly advantage, were it no more than this blessing, that on quitting life I leave it when my sense of enjoyment has mellowed into that most lasting and enduring one, the love of quiet, of scenery, of converse with old friends on by-gone events—the tranquil pleasures of age tasted without the repining of age!
Lucy bantered me to-day upon my inordinate love of ease, as she called it, forgetting that this inactivity was at first less from choice than compulsion; now, it is a habit, one I may as well wear out, for I have no time left to acquire new ones. She even tried to stimulate my ambition, by alluding to my old career and the rewards it might have opened to me. I could have told her that a father or an uncle at the “Council” was of more avail than a clever despatch or a well-concluded treaty; that some of our ablest Ministers are wasting life and energy at small, obscure, and insignificant missions, where their functions never rise beyond the presentation of letters of congratulation or condolence, attendance on a court ball, or aTe Deumfor the sovereign’s birthday; while capacities that would be unnoticed, if they were not dangerous, have the destinies of great events in their keeping. True, there is always the Foreign Office as the “Cour d’Appel” and, whatever may be the objections—grave and weighty they certainly are at times—against those parliamentary interrogations by which the Minister is compelled to reveal the object and course of his dealings with foreign nations, there is one admirable result,—our foreign policy will always be National. No Minister can long pursue any course in defiance of the approval of Parliament; nor can any Parliament, in our day, long resist the force of public opinion.
While, therefore, Nicholas or Metternich may precipitate the nations they rule over into a war, where there is neither the sympathy nor the prejudices of a people involved,wenever draw the sword without a hearty good will to wield it.
To what end all this in reference to Lucy Howard’s question? None whatever; for, in truth, I was half flattered by the notion that the shattered, storm-beaten wreck, could be supposed sea-worthy, and so I promised amendment. How pleasant it was, sitting Tityrus-like, to dream over high rewards and honours! She, at least, seemed to think so; for whether to stimulate my ardour, or merely following the impulse of her own, I know not, but she certainly dwelt with animation and delight on the advantages of a career that placed one almostau pied d’égalwith sovereigns. “I am sure,” said she, “that you cannot look upon those who started in the race with yourself, without some repinings that others, whom you know to be inferior to you, have passed you; and that men whom you would never have thought of as competitors, are now become more than equals.”
If I accede to this opinion to a certain extent, still I must protest against any feeling of real regret when I think that success is much oftener obtained by what is called a “lucky hit,” than by years of zealous and intelligent exertion. I have known a man obtain credit for stopping a courier—waylaying him, I might rather call it—and taking by force a secret treaty from his hand, while the steady services of a life-long have gone unrewarded. These things have an evil influence upon diplomacy as a “career;” they suggest to young men to rely rather on address and dexterity than upon “prudence and forethought.” Because Lord Palmerston discourses foreign politics with a certain gifted and very beautiful Countess, or that M. Guizot deigns to take counsel from a most accomplished Princess of Russian origin, every smallAttachéthinks he is climbing the short road to fame and honours by listening to thefadaiseof certain politicalboudoirs, and hearing “pretty ladies talk” about Spielberg and Monkopf. When the Northern minister sent his son to travel through the world, that he might see with his own eyes by what “commonplace mortals states were governed,” he might have recommended to his especial notice Plenipo’s and Envoys Extraordinary. From time to time, it is otherwise. Lord Castlereagh, whatever detraction party hate may visit on his home politics, was a consummate Ambassador. Not of that school which Talleyrand created, and of which he was the head, but a man of unflinching courage, high determination, and who, with a strong purpose and resolute will, never failed to make felt the influence of a nation he so worthily represented. With this, he was a perfect courtier; the extreme simplicity of his manner and address was accompanied by an elegance and a style of the most marked distinction. Another, but of a different stamp, was Lord Whitworth; one on whom all the dramatic passion and practised outrage of Napoleon had no effect whatever.
Sir Gordon remarked, that in this quality of coolness and imperturbability he never saw any one surpass his friend, Sir Robert Darcy. One evening when playing at whist, at Potzdam, with the late King of Prussia, his Majesty, in a fit of inadvertence, appropriated to himself several gold pieces belonging to Sir Robert. The King at last perceived and apologised for his mistake, adding, “Why did you not inform me of it?” “Because I knew your Majesty always makes restitution when you have obtained time for reflection.” Hanover was then on thetapis, and the King felt the allusion. I must not forget a trait of that peculiar sarcastic humour for which Sir Robert was famous. Although a Whig—an old blue-and-yellow of the Fox school—he hated more than any man that mongrel party which, under the name of Whigs, have carried on the Opposition in Parliament for so many years; and of that party, a certain well-known advocate for economical reforms came in for his most especial detestation: perhaps he detested him particularly, because he had desecrated the high ground of Oppositional attack, and brought it down to paltry cavillings about the sums accorded to poor widows on the Pension List, or the amount of sealing-wax consumed in the Foreign Office. When, therefore, the honourable and learned gentleman, in the course of a continental tour, happened to pass through the city where Sir Robert lived as ambassador, he received a card of invitation to dinner, far more on account of a certain missive from the Foreign Office, than from any personal claims he was possessed of. The Member of Parliament was agourmandof the first water; he had often heard of Sir Robert’scuisine—various travellers had told him that such a table could not be surpassed, and so, although desirous of getting forward, he countermanded his horses, and accepted the invitation.
Sir Robert, whose taste for good living was indisputable, no sooner read the note acceding to his request than he called hisattachéstogether, and said, “Gentlemen, you will have a very bad dinner to-day, but I request you will all dine here, as I have a particular object in expressing the wish.”
Dinner-hour came; and after the usual ceremony the party were seated at table, when a single soup appeared: this was followed by a dish of fish, and then, withoutentréeorhors d’oevre, came a boiled leg of mutton, Sir Robert premising to his guest that it was to have no successor: adding, “You see, sir, what a poor entertainment I have provided for you; but to this have the miserable economists in Parliament brought us—next session may carry it further, and leave us without even so much.” Joseph was sold, and never forgot it since.
I saw, that while Sir Gordon and I discussed people and events in this strain, Lucy became inattentive and pre-occupied by other thoughts; and on charging her with being so, she laughingly remarked that Englishmen always carry about with them the one range of topics; and whether they dine in Grosvenor Square, or beneath an olive-tree in the Alps, the stream of the table-talk is ever the same. “Now a Frenchman,” said she, gaily, “had uttered I cannot say how many flat sentimentalisme about the place we are in; a German had mysticised to no end; and an Italian would have been improvising about every thing, from the wire that restrained the champagne cork to the woes of enchained Italy. Tell us a story, Mr. Templeton.”
“A story! What shall it be? A love story? a ghost story? a merry, or a sad one?”
“Any of these you like, so that it be true. Tell me something that has actually happened.”
“That is really telling a secret,” said I; “for while truth can be, and oftener is, stranger than fiction, it is so, rather from turning ordinary materials to extraordinary uses—making of every-day people singular instances of vice and virtue—than for any great peculiarity in the catastrophes to which they contribute.”
“Well, I don’t believe in the notion of everyday people. I have a theory, that what are so summarily disposed of in this fashion are just as highly endowed with individualities as any others. Do you remember a beautiful remark, made in the shape of a rebuke, that Scott one day gave his daughter for saying that something was ‘Vulgar?’ ‘Do you know what is the meaning of the word vulgar? It is only common; and nothing that is common, except wickedness, can deserve to be spoken of in terms of contempt: and when you have lived to my years, you will be disposed to agree with me in thanking God that nothing really worth having or caring about in this world isuncommon.’”
“When I said ordinary, every-day people, don’t mistake me; I meant only those who, from class and condition, follow a peculiar ritual, and live after a certain rubric of fashion; and who, hiding themselves under a common garment, whose cut, colour, and mode are the same, are really undistinguishable, save on great and trying occasions.
“Kings, for instance! whom great diplomatic folks are supposed to see a great deal of, and know in all the terms of an easy intimacy.
“But how do we see them? In an armour of reserve and caution, never assumed to any one else. The ease you speak of is all assumed. It is the conventional politeness accorded to a certain station. Kings, so far as I have seen, are never really engaging, save to a great minister out of power. Then their manner assumes all its attractiveness; on the principle, perhaps, that Curran paid his homage to the antique Hercules,—thathisday might yet come uppermost, and he would not forget the friend who visited him in adversity.”
“Well, to come back, tell us a story. Let it be what you will, or of where and whom you please, so that it last while we are rowing homeward. Monologue is always better than conversation by moonlight.
“But stay; what are the lights we see yonder, glancing from amid the trees? And there, now, see the bright blaze that has sprung up, and is reflected red and lurid on the lake below. It is a ‘Festa’ of the Church; for hear, the bells are ringing merrily from the mountain-top, and there go the people in procession, climbing the steep path towards the summit.”
Wonderful superstition! that has fashioned itself to every phase and form of human nature—now, sending its aid to the darkest impulses of passion, as we see in Ireland—now, conforming to the most simple tastes of an unthinking people; for these peasants here are not imbued with the piety of the Church—they only love its gauds. It is to the Tyrol you must go to witness the real devotional feeling of a people.
“Well, shall I tell you a story?”
“No; I am weaving one, now, for myself!”