CHAPTER LXVI.—URSA MAJOR SHOWS HIS TEETH.
Walter’s visit to Lewis produced a more favourable effect upon the patient’s health than did all the pills and potions wherewith his doctor had sought to exorcise the fever-fiend. He had not then deceived himself—Annie had loved him; nay, from Walter’s recital, as well as from her manner on the occasion of his protecting her through the crowd in the square of St. Mark, was he not justified in believing that she loved him still? The idea was in itself happiness, for although the fact of her renewing her engagement with Lord Bellefield so immediately after Lewis had quitted Broadhurst still remained unaccounted for, the belief that she loved him seemed to impart a new aspect to the whole affair, and for the first time he allowed himself to hope that her conduct might admit of some satisfactory explanation. The emotions of a mind so impulsive as Lewis’s necessarily produce marked effects upon the body; agitation of spirits had mainly conduced to bring on the fever which had thus prostrated, him, and the hope to which Walter’s words had given rise seemed to infuse new life into him; at all events, it is certain that from the moment in which he became convinced that Annie had loved him he began to amend. As soon as Frere considered him strong enough to bear such an announcement, he informed him of the appalling fate which had overtaken his enemy. Lewis was at first strongly affected. But for events over which he had had no control he might now have been in the position of Miles Hardy, a wanderer on the face of the earth, bearing with him the harrowing consciousness that the blood of a fellow-creature was upon his hands. After remaining in silent thought for some minutes he suddenly raised his eyes to his friend’s countenance.
“Frere,” he said, “how can I ever be sufficiently grateful to God, who chose you as His instrument to set my sin before me, and bring me to a better frame of mind! Had this dreadful fate overtaken Bellefield without my having resolved not to fight him, I should have felt morally guilty of his death, considering that it was mere accident which had enabled Hardy to meet him sooner than myself.”
“You acted rightly, under circumstances which I must confess to have afforded about as severe a trial to a man of your impetuous nature as could well be conceived,” returned Frere; “so it is but fair that you should reap some advantage from your self-conquest. I pity poor young Hardy more than I blame him, for he has probably never been taught the truths of Christianity, and nothing else could have possessed sufficient power over him to induce him to forego his revenge. Ah! if such men as Bellefield could but be made to see the mental agony their vices cause to others, even their selfish hearts would be touched, and they would be unable to go on sinning with such callous indifference; but in their selfishness they look merely to the gratification of their own passions, and ignore all possible results which might tend to interfere with them. Such a career as Bellefield’s is a fearful and inexplicable mystery to reflect upon, and it is only by a high exercise of faith that we can believe even Omnipotence able to bring good out of such consistent and unmitigated wickedness.”
“And is such your belief?” inquired Lewis earnestly.
“Most assuredly it is,” was the reply. “I am not one of those who acknowledge God’s attributes with my tongue but in my heart practically deny; nor can I believe that a Being, the perfection of wisdom, of justice, and of mercy, could allow evil to exist, were He not able to overrule it to good. But if you ask me, ‘How can these things be?’ I tell you at once I do not know; I form no theory on the subject, for I have no power to do so; my mind is that of a weak, fallen man, and the secret things of God are so immeasurably above it that to speculate upon them is equally presumptuous and absurd. Still I feel as certain of the main fact as if each special detail of the Divine scheme lay spread out like a map before me, because, were it not so, God would falsify His attributes; the great Being we worship would be, not a merciful Father, but a stern, inexorable judge. Depend upon it, Lewis, the real fallacy in the religious teaching of the present day is that, practically if not theoretically, fear rather than love is inculcated as the actuating principle, and, as a natural consequence, men ignore and put aside thoughts of futurity as they put aside any other painful and alarming reflection.”
As Frere concluded Lewis paused in thought, then observed—
“All you have said sounds wise and true, and yet there appears a contradiction somewhere. Evil must always be hateful to God, and as such must deserve everlasting punishment. I cannot understand it.”
“Nor do I wish or expect you to do so,” replied Frere; “but cannot you wait patiently through a little space—the life of one man—trusting that when this mortal shall have put on immortality our enlarged faculties may enable us to see clearly that which we now believe as a matter of faith? The only difficulty arises from your attempting to measure things infinite with your finite intelligence; for instance, you talk of everlasting punishment—what do you mean by the term?”
“Mean, why, of course, punishment that shall endure throughout eternity,” replied Lewis.
“And eternity, which to be eternal can no more have had a beginning than it shall have an end, is an idea our minds cannot grasp; and in attempting to define and realise these things we only confuse and mislead ourselves. Take my word for it, Lewis, true religion, the religion Christ came down from heaven to teach men, consists in a sincere, earnest, and consistent belief in the goodness and benevolence of the Creator, carried out practically by an unceasing endeavour to reform our fallen natures after His image.”
“And how are we to gain the knowledge and the strength requisite to enable us to do this?” asked Lewis.
“By studying God’s written word with an honest intention of doing as we are there told to do, at the same time imploring His assistance to enable us to carry out our good intentions,” was the earnest reply.
So the conversation ended; but Lewis thought over the ideas thus presented to him, which, though not entirely new to him, or indeed to any other reflecting mind, had perhaps never before occurred in a light so clear and practical as that in which Frere had placed them; and as by slow degrees his strength began to return, and with Antonelli’s assistance he contrived to creep for an hour at a time to his painting-room, he arose from that couch of sickness a wiser and a better man.
As soon as Charles Leicester had recovered from the first shock of his brother’s death he determined to entrust his wife and child to the care of General Grant, while he started for England to break the distressing intelligence to his father. Lord Ashford was now becoming an old man, and although the profligate career of his eldest son had caused him the deepest anxiety and regret, he still regarded him with much affection; and Leicester had only too good reason to dread the effect which might be produced upon him if, by any accident, he were to become aware of the fatal event without sufficient preparation. Accordingly, on the second day after the discovery of the catastrophe, he quitted Venice, and travelled day and night till he reached England; but fast as he journeyed, the evil tidings journeyed still more swiftly: a rumour of the truth had somehow found its way to the London clubs; at one to which he belonged Lord Ashford had accidentally overheard the affair discussed, and while uttering a half-frantic inquiry in regard to the speaker’s authority, was seized with a fit, from which he recovered only to remain a heart-broken man, paralysed and childish. Charles finding him in this deplorable state, was of course unable to leave him, and wrote to Laura to beg that no unnecessary delay might occur to prevent her joining him as soon as possible. Under these circumstances, General Grant resolved to proceed to England at once, with the party under his charge.
When Frere’s anxiety for Lewis’s life had ended, and he felt satisfied that he was on the road towards recovery, and might safely be entrusted to the care of Antonelli, he had made his way to the Palazzo Grassini, and seeking an interview with General Grant, had explained to him the object which had brought him to Venice, together with the train of events which had hitherto prevented his announcing his arrival. He also gave an account of the fracas between Lord Belle-field and Lewis at the Casino, and his friend’s subsequent self-conquest, in resolving for conscience’ sake to forego his revenge; but he said nothing of Lewis’s attachment to Annie, feeling that he had no right to betray his confidence to the General without obtaining his consent to the measure.
General Grant was much interested by this recital, and highly extolled Lewis’s conduct throughout the whole affair, the shock of Lord Bellefield’s death having taken away any little prejudices in favour of duelling which might have lingered in the chivalrous mind of the old soldier. He thought, however, that considering the relative positions of the different parties, it would be better for him not to visit Lewis so soon after the awful catastrophe which had taken place, but he sent him a kind message by Frere, saying he should hope to see him on his return to England, and thanking him for his interference in Walter’s behalf.
On the morning previous to that fixed for the departure of Laura and her friends, Lewis, having over-exerted himself the day before by painting for several hours, and having paid the penalty by lying awake during great part of the night, had fallen into a deep sleep, which lasted so long, that Frere, having breakfasted and given orders that Lewis was on no account to be disturbed, went out. He had undertaken, with his usual good nature, innumerable commissions for the General; these he set to work diligently to execute, and after wandering up and down the lanes and squares of Venice, now trudging like an excited postman, now sitting bolt upright in the stern of a gondola, with the cotton umbrella spread like a gigantic mushroom over his head to keep off the sun, he arrived, hot and tired, at the Palazzo Grassini. General Grant was from home, so Frere left a card, saying he would call later in the afternoon; then, considering on second thoughts that it would not be kind, as he had been out so long, to leave Lewis again on the same day, he altered his determination, and desiring to be shown into the library, sent a message to ask to be allowed to speak to Mrs. Leicester, or to Miss Grant. Now the servant to whom this message was entrusted, being, like many of his betters, averse to needless trouble, and chancing to encounter Annie as he was proceeding from the library to the drawing-room, saw fit slightly to alter the tenor of his message, and leaving out all mention of Laura, informed Miss Grant that a gentleman of the name of Frere, having called to visit the General, had, on learning that he was from home, asked to be allowed to see her. This intelligence rather flurried Annie, Frere being always connected in her mind with the idea of Lewis, and it was not without a degree of trepidation, which mantled her cheek with a most becoming blush, that she hastened to comply with his summons.
When Frere perceived who it was that his message had produced, a scheme, which had suggested itself to him as a vague possibility, as he had sat by Lewis’s bedside listening to the ravings of his delirium, recurred to his mind, as a right and advisable step which it behoved him to take, now that chance had thrown the opportunity in his way; his first business, however, was to deliver himself of the commissions entrusted to him by the General. Having relieved his mind of the weight of this responsibility, he began—
“Well, Miss Grant, I’m glad to see you looking better than you were. I suppose it’s the”—(having got rid of your detestable engagement was his original sentence, but he checked himself, and substituted)—“idea of getting away from this horrid place, all puddles and palaces; the men every one of them either a tyrant or a slave, and such lazy rascals into the bargain; the women, not at all the style of female to talk to you about; and without any particular beauty to account for it either, as far as I’m a judge, though perhaps in my present position I’m a little bit over fastidious; but then Rose Arundel is as near perfection as anything on this earth can be—however, I’m forgetting you don’t know anything of the matter, and all that I’m saying must be high Dutch, or thereabouts, to you.”
And having by this time talked himself into a regular entanglement, the worthy bear came to a sudden and unexpected standstill. Annie hastened to relieve him.
“You have, indeed, let me into a secret, Mr. Frere,” she said, smiling; “but it is quite safe in my hands, and it is a secret, moreover, which I am delighted to hear: there is no one in whose happiness I take deeper interest than in that of dear Rose Arundel, and I quite approve of the step you hint at as being likely to secure it. You must allow me to offer you my warmest congratulations.”
“Thank ye, thank ye,” returned Frere, looking most comically bashful, and routing his hair about insanely in his embarrassment, “I certainly do hope to make her happy, God bless her; though I don’t think you can judge much about it one way or other, seeing that I may be a Bear in reality (she calls me one in fun, you know), meaning to eat her up bodily for aught you can tell. As to its being much of a secret, too many people know it, too many women in particular, to render that possible; so, though I don’t want it announced in the Times till the event actually comes off, you need not put any violent constraint upon your natural communicativeness, for I am not so ignorant of the idiosyncrasies of the fair sex as to forget the pain and grief constrained silence occasions them.”
Annie made a playful rejoinder, and then, after a minute’s pause, ventured timidly to ask, “I hope Mr. Arundel continues to gain strength. I—that is my father—and indeed all of us were so grieved to hear of his illness!”
Frere fixed his large eyes upon her as he replied gruffly, “Yes, he’s getting on well enough for anything I know to the contrary; but he’s as weak as a child. It will be months before he becomes anything like the man he was; he’s been unpleasantly near supplying a vacancy in some moist graveyard of this amphibious city; small thanks to those who helped to bring him to such a condition.”
Annie turned very pale at this somewhat unfeeling speech, but she managed to stammer out, “I thought, that is, we were told that it was a fever, produced by exposure to malaria, from which Mr. Arundel had suffered.”
“A fever it was, and no mistake,” was the reply; “such a fever as I should be very sorry to fall in the way of catching, I can tell you.”
“And yet you have nursed him through it with the most unceasing self-devotion. You see I know you better than you are aware of, Mr. Frere,” interrupted Annie with a beaming smile.
“Nurse him! why, of course I did; if I hadn’t, I should have deserved to be well kicked,” returned Frere in a tone of intense disgust. “I’ve known Lewis ever since he was a pretty black-eyed boy of ten years old, and though he is a little hot-headed and impetuous sometimes, that’s no reason why I should leave him to die of a fever in a foreign land, far away from those that care about him. A nice sort of friend I should be if I did, and a pretty figure I should cut the next time I came in Rose’s way! She is not one of those who love people by halves, I can tell you; why, she actually dotes on her brother.”
“Oh, I am sure she does; it was that which first made me love her,” exclaimed Annie with enthusiasm; then seeing all that her speech involved, she blushed “celestial rosy red” and cast down her eyes in confusion.
“Humph!” grunted Frere, “that sounds all very nice and amiable, but I prefer deeds to words! I’ll tell you what it is, Miss Grant,” he continued, turning suddenly upon Annie, “you talked about malaria being the exciting cause of Lewis’s illness, it was no such thing—the cause of his fever was anguish of mind—the poor boy’s been miserable for the last two years, almost crazy with grief, as I take it, for he has been doing all sorts of wild, unreasonable things; and if the truth must be told, it strikes me it’s more your fault than any one else’s.”
“My fault!” exclaimed Annie, her face and neck flushing crimson at this unexpected charge. “Oh, Mr. Frere, how can you speak such cruel words?”
“Because they happen to be true ones, young lady,” returned Frere sternly. “You are the daughter of a rich man, and a man in a high station, and for that reason it’s very seldom you have the plain, honest truth spoken to you; but you shall learn it to-day from my lips, if you never heard it before in your life, and if it is not palatable, the fault does not rest with me. I knew something of this same affair when Lewis quitted Broadhurst all in a hurry, two years ago, and I set it down as a foolish bit of boyish romance, which a few months’ absence would cure; but it was not till I watched by his bedside, and listened through the solemn hours of the night to his frenzied ravings, that I became aware the passion he felt for you was rooted in his very heart’s core, and saw that by his deep, his overpowering love for one who I fear was not worthy of him, he had shipwrecked the happiness of a lifetime. Silence!” he continued angrily, as Annie, half rising from her seat, seemed about to interrupt him, “silence! you have voluntarily, or involuntarily, been the cause of deep misery to the two persons (for Rose has suffered greatly on her brother’s account) for whom I care most in the world, and you shall learn before we part the evil consequences of your acts, and tell me whether you possess either the will or the power to repair them.”
Annie again attempted to speak, but finding her accuser would not listen to her, sunk back with a gesture of despair, while Frere continued—
“Very early in his residence at Broadhurst, Lewis, as I imagine, became attached to you, though for a long time he would not acknowledge the fact even to himself: at length, however, self-deception became impossible; then began the struggle between his pride and his affection; and from that period to the hour in which he quitted Broadhurst he lived in a state of mental torture. Well, you could not help his falling in love with you, you will say; and because a poor tutor was bold and foolish enough to forget the difference of position between you (which, by the way, he never did for one moment, though the recollection was agony to his proud spirit), and to raise his eyes to his employer’s daughter, you were not bound to forget it also—I grant you that—but shall I tell you what you could have helped? (which I should never have known anything about but for poor Lewis’s delirious ravings)—you could have helped saying and doing a hundred little nameless things, trifles in themselves perhaps (so are straws, but they show which way the wind blows!), things which gave the poor fellow the idea that you returned his affection, and that had he dared to declare his feelings, he might have obtained such a confession from you; an attempt which he was far too honourable to make, but rather, with an aching heart, tore himself away from Broadhurst, throwing up every prospect he then had in life: you might have helped this, Miss Annie Grant, and if you had been worthy of the love of such a noble nature you would have done so.”
As Frere, completely carried away by the excited feelings which his recapitulation of Lewis’s wrongs and sufferings had aroused, paused for breath, poor Annie, who during the latter portion of his harangue had been utterly unable to restrain her tears, replied in a voice scarcely audible through emotion—
“You cruelly misjudge me, Mr. Frere—most cruelly—and are making an unkind and ungenerous use of knowledge which, if your friend had retained his reason, would never have been in your possession.”
Frere felt the justice of this reproach, and moreover the sight of poor Annie’s tears appealed to his kindness of heart, and served to disarm his wrath.
“Well, that is certainly true,” he said, “and if I have indeed misjudged you, why I can only say I am very sorry for it; at all events I need not have spoken so harshly and rudely to you; but you see, Miss Grant, I feel very deeply about this matter, and the idea that all which Lewis has suffered had been the consequence of your love of admiration and idle coquetry made me angry with you.”
“Indeed, indeed, I am no coquette,” murmured poor Annie.
“Well, you seem to have behaved like one, at all events,” returned Frere; “unless, indeed,” he continued, as a new light suddenly broke in upon him—“unless, indeed, you really do by any chance care about Lewis as much as he cares about you—of course in that event you would be more to be pitied than blamed.” He paused, then after a moment’s reflection, continued, “But no, that cannot be either; if you had really loved Lewis, you would scarcely have engaged yourself to another man before he had been out of the house four-and-twenty hours. What do you say to that? eh, young lady!”
Poor Annie! heavily indeed did her fault press upon her; most bitterly did she repent the weakness of character which had prevented her from refusing to engage her hand when her heart went not with it. What could she say? Why, she could only sob like an unhappy child, and whisper in a broken voice—
“I will send Laura to you—ask her, she knows all—she can tell you.”
And so running out of the room, she threw herself upon her friend’s neck, and begged her, incoherently and vaguely, to “go immediately to him and explain everything;” with which request Laura, when she had provided the solitary pronoun with a chaperon in the shape of a concordant noun, and restricted the transcendental “everything” to mean the one thing needful in that particular case, hastened to comply.
The commission was rather a delicate one, and the excellent Bear did not render the execution thereof the less difficult by choosing to take a hard-headed, moral, and common-sense view of Annie’s conduct, which confused Laura to such a degree, that in her desire to be particularly lucid, she contrived to entangle the matter so thoroughly that a person with greater tact and more delicate perceptions than the rough and straightforward Frere might have found the affair puzzling.
“Well, I tell you what it is, Mrs. Leicester,” he at last exclaimed abruptly, “if you were to talk to me till midnight, which, seeing you’ve a long journey before you to-morrow, would be equally fatiguing and injudicious, you would never be able to convince me that your young friend acted wisely. The idea of accepting that unhappy man (whose death, between ourselves, was a gain to everybody but himself, though, of course, I shall not say so to poor Charles, who in his amiability contrived to keep up a sort of affection for his brother); but the notion of accepting him to prevent anybody guessing she was in love with Lewis seems to me about the most feeble-minded expedient that ever occurred to the imagination, even of a woman; it’s like cutting one’s throat to cure a sore finger. I don’t admire the principle of judging actions by their results, or I should say the result of this has been just what I should have expected—viz., to make everybody miserable. However, though she has done a foolish thing, that is very different from doing a deliberately wicked one. Well, I suppose we must not be too hard upon her, poor little thing; I dare say Lewis, at all events, will be magnanimous enough to overlook it, in consideration of her correct taste in properly appreciating his good qualities; however, I’ll do my best to explain the matter to him, and put it in as favourable a light as my conscience will allow me. And so wishing you a good journey, I’ll be off. I have a notion it won’t be very long before Lewis and I shall follow you; we shall not be many hours in England before we beat up your quarters, depend upon it. Lewis will have some strange revelations to make to Governor Grant that will cause his venerable locks to stand on end in amazement. Ah! it’s a queer world. Well, good-bye, Mrs. Leicester: I expect you and I should become good friends in time, though you’re quite mistaken if you fancy that young woman acted sensibly in accepting her scampish cousin, when all the time she was in love with another man.”
And thus Richard Frere fairly talked himself out of the house, leaving Laura especially astonished at his brusquerie, and decidedly of opinion that she had mismanaged the affair and done her friend’s cause irreparable injury.
CHAPTER LXVII.—RELATES HOW, THE ECLIPSE BEING OVER, THE SUN BEGAN TO SHINE AGAIN.
In the meantime, Lewis having awoke from his long sleep, and finding himself all the better and stronger for his nap, had just breakfasted with much appetite when Antonelli appeared and handed him a note. It was from Laura (written before her interview with Frere), informing him of their intended departure on the morrow, begging him to call upon her immediately he returned to England, which, as soon as his health would permit, she advised him to do without loss of time, and winding up with a hint that, in regard to the matter which especially interested him, he might make himself quite easy, for that everything could be most satisfactorily explained.
Lewis read and re-read the note. “The matter that especially interested him!”—that could have but one meaning. Oh, yes I Annie had cleared herself—she had never accepted Lord Bellefield; or, if she had, she had been cheated into doing so. Annie was good and true—the Annie of his imagination—the bright, fair, loving, gentle being his soul worshipped! But he must have certainty—he must not again be the dupe of his own wishes; no, he must have certainty, and he must have it at once. Wait till his return to England? Why, that might be days, weeks hence! And was he all that time to suffer the tortures of suspense? It was not to be thought of. He must see Laura before her departure and learn the truth. But this would necessitate a visit to the Palazzo Grassini, in which he must run the chance of encountering the General or Annie. And as his thoughts reverted to her, the idea for the first time occurred to him of the mental suffering she must have undergone if, as he now believed, she had indeed truly loved him, and been in some unaccountable manner forced by circumstances to consent to the engagement with her cousin. Then he remembered the scene in the Square of St. Mark, and a sense of the cruelty of his own conduct towards her overwhelmed him. This decided the question. He would at all risks see Laura; and if—as he now did not for a moment doubt—her explanation proved satisfactory, he would entreat her to obtain Annie’s forgiveness. She must forgive him when she came to know all he had suffered—when she heard how ill he had been: and as he thought of his illness the somewhat perplexing question occurred to him how he was to reach the Palazzo Grassini in his present weak state? Never mind; where there was a will there was a way. He would do it, he was determined; and so he summoned Antonelli, and to the alarm of that worthy man, who fancied the fever had again flown to the brain, and that his beloved master was delirious, announced that he was going out to pay a visit, and requested his assistance in dressing himself.
It was not till his toilet was completed and he attempted to walk downstairs that he became aware how weak and helpless his illness had left him, and it required all his resolution to persevere in his expedition. Luckily the distance was short, and he was enabled to perform some part of it in a gondola; still, by the time he reached the Palazzo Grassini his strength was so completely exhausted that if he had been required to proceed a hundred yards further he would have been unable to accomplish the task. Having inquired if Mrs. Leicester was at home and received an answer in the affirmative, he continued—
“Then show me up to her boudoir unannounced; I will hold you blameless for doing so.”
The servant, who knew how intimate Lewis had been there before the coming of the Grant party, and how his visits had ceased with their arrival, naturally enough conjectured that the young painter was for some reason desirous to avoid encountering any of the General’s family, and complied with his request unhesitatingly. But the domestic in question, who chanced to be the same individual who had admitted Frere, was not aware of the additional and, to the parties concerned, somewhat important fact, that since he had performed that service Miss Grant and his mistress had changed places, and that at the moment he was conducting Lewis to the boudoir that apartment was tenanted by Annie Grant, while Laura was engaged in solemn conclave with Richard Frere in the library. Thus it fell out that when the door of the boudoir was noiselessly opened, Annie Grant, who had remained there after she had despatched Laura on her difficult mission to Ursa Major, and more majorum, from the time of Niobe downwards, had indulged her feelings with a hearty cry, was wiping her eyes and trying to make herself believe that her troubles must be “working to an end,” and that dim on the horizon of her future fate there might be discerned a good time coming. Annie thus pondering, and thus engaged, saw a tall, bending figure enter, in whose well-known features, their expression softened and spiritualised by severe illness, she needed no announcement to recognise Lewis Arundel.
The windows of Laura’s boudoir were shaded from the burning rays of an Italian sun by (literally) Venetian blinds, which kept out not only the heat, but in great measure the light also; and Lewis, whose eyes were dizzy and his head swimming from weakness, perceiving a female figure advancing towards him, naturally conjectured it to be Laura, and accosted her as follows—
“You are no doubt surprised to see me here, but after perusing your note I could not rest till I had learned the truth from your own lips, and as you are to quit Venice to-morrow, there was no time to lose; so I resolved, coûte qui coûte, to make the effort, and here I am.”
He paused for a reply, but obtaining none, looked up in surprise, and perceived Annie Grant standing pale and trembling before him. Completely overcome by this unexpected encounter, he contrived to stammer out—
“I beg pardon, I believed I was addressing Mrs. Leicester. I must go and seek her,” and turned to put his design into execution; but his strength was unequal to the task, and leaning against a marble slab, he remained motionless, utterly unable to proceed. For a moment Annie paused as if thunder-stricken, then her woman’s heart awoke within her, and in an instant she was by his side, bringing a chair for him to sit down.
“Oh, Mr. Arundel, how wrong, how mad of you to venture out,” she exclaimed, her anxiety for him overpowering every other feeling; “you will bring on a return of the fever. Why, you are so weak that you can scarcely stand; pray sit down.”
Advancing a step, Lewis took the chair from her, and leaning on the back for support, said with a faint smile—
“I have indeed somewhat miscalculated my strength, Miss Grant; I am very, very weak,” and as he spoke he sank upon the seat, while the bright flush, which the excitement of beholding Annie had called into his cheeks, faded to the most deathlike paleness: his companion became alarmed.
“You are faint,” she said; “let me ring for assistance.”
A tray, with a decanter of water and some glasses, stood upon a table near; Lewis’s eye fell upon them.
“It is merely the unaccustomed exertion,” he said feebly, “it will pass away in a moment.”
Annie caught the direction of his glance. “You would like a glass of water,” she exclaimed, “let me give you one;” and suiting the action to the word, she filled a glass with the sparkling liquid and handed it to him. He took it with a slight inclination of the head, drank it eagerly, and was about to rise, in order to put down the glass, when Annie, by a deprecating gesture, prevented him, and taking it from his trembling fingers replaced it on the table. As she turned from doing so, their eyes met, and she perceived that his were fixed on her features with a deep, earnest, scrutinising gaze, as though he strove to read in her countenance the history of her inner life. For a moment she met his gaze with a bright, truthful, unshrinking look; then, unable to bear the power of his eagle eye, she turned away with a blush and a smile, half tender, half reproachful, for Annie was no stoic, and every feeling of her heart revealed itself in her tell-tale countenance. Lewis could bear it no longer—speak he must.
“Miss Grant—Annie,” he said, and as he pronounced her Christian name his deep voice trembled with suppressed emotion, “when I came here to-day I had no thought of seeing you; but accident (if, indeed, in this strange, complicated life anything may be so considered) has determined it otherwise, and the opportunity shall not be lost. Not very many days since I was so grievously ill that the chances were strongly against my rallying; it has pleased God to spare my life a little longer; but such an escape as this gives rise to deep and solemn thoughts. While I lay upon the bed of sickness, which had so nearly proved the bed of death, I learned to read my own heart—my past life glided as it were in review before me, and my faults and errors, no longer hidden by the mists of self-deceit or of passion, revealed themselves clearly in the light of an awakened conscience: above them all stood forth in its evil beauty the master-demon pride, and I saw how it had embittered my whole existence, and how, if ever I hoped to obtain even peace of mind, much more happiness, I must relax no effort until I should subdue it. Annie, I have loved you long; you cannot, do not doubt it; but because I deemed you richer than I was, and of higher rank, I was too proud to own it to you. Years of mental torture have been my punishment: I do not complain that this should have been so—I do not impugn the justice of the decree; on the contrary, I acknowledge it with deep contrition. I sinned, and it was fitting I should pay the penalty, however bitter; but there was a grief I was not prepared for, and in which I could not discern retributive justice; for whatever a slanderous world may say, my love for you has been deep, pure, and disinterested, the truest, most earnest feeling of my inmost soul. Annie, I will be frank with you, and even if my presumption ruins my cause, I have suffered too much from concealment not to tell you the whole truth. When, distracted by my hopeless passion for you, and maddened by the insults of one who is now no more, I tore myself away from Broadhurst, and left you, as I deemed, for ever, the most bitter pang proceeded from a secret belief, which even despair could not banish, that I read in your soft glances assurance that had I dared to urge my suit, I might have learned I had not loved in vain; and in the midst of my desolation I was happy, deeply happy, in the thought. Then a ray of light broke in upon the darkness—a strange chain of events led to the discovery that I was heir to an ancient and honourable name and an ample fortune, and I waited but to obtain legal evidence of the fact, ere I hastened to tell you of my affection, in the fond hope of eliciting that I was beloved again: once assured of that, I determined that nothing should prevent my winning your hand—all obstacles must yield before such a love as mine. With these feelings burning in my breast, imagine the dismay which overwhelmed me on learning by a letter from your father that scarcely twenty-four hours after I had quitted Broadhurst, you, of your own free will, had renewed your engagement with your cousin. Hear me out,” he continued, as Annie, who with blushing cheeks and tearful eyes, had remained as though spell-bound, drinking in his every tone, attempted eagerly to interrupt him—“hear me out, and then if you can explain this mystery, the devotion of a life-time shall plead forgiveness for my having misjudged you. How I lived through the wretchedness that letter caused me, I do not know. I believed I was going mad, for a time I was mad, and railed at Heaven for having created a being so fair and false as then I deemed you. Oh! the misery, the heavy, crushing grief, when the heart adores, with all its faculty of loving, one whom the reason points out as light, fickle, and all unworthy to have called forth such true affection. For two years this black veil of doubt and mistrust hung between your image and my spirit—I cast from me any idea of claiming the rank and riches that were my birthright, for I valued them only as they could bring me nearer to you; and went forth a wanderer, tormented by the consciousness, doubly humiliating to one of my proud nature, that although I believed you unworthy of my affection, I still loved you devotedly as ever. The first person who won me from my gloomy thoughts, and led me to hope your conduct might be satisfactorily explained, was your kind friend Laura, who in her honest singleness of heart could not believe in the possibility of the fickleness of which I imagined you. guilty—and I (though her arguments failed to convince my reason), how I loved her for her unbelief! I could say much more—could tell you of the agony of mind I endured, when unseen by you I watched you leaning on his arm and smiling upon him, and deemed my worst fears realised, and that you loved him; but it is needless—Annie, I cannot look on you and believe you false; if indeed you ever loved me, I know that, despite appearances, you have been true to that affection, and that you love me still. Annie, dearest, tell me that it is so?”
He ceased, and with his hands clasped, as those of some votary adoring his saint, sat gazing on the April of smiles and tears that played over the expressive features of her he loved, until reading in her tender glances the secret her lips refused to speak, happiness lent him strength, and springing to her side, he drew her unresistingly towards him, and reproved the coral lips for their silence by sealing his forgiveness upon them with a loving kiss. And as Annie, albeit there is no reason to doubt that she was an exceedingly moral and well-conducted young lady, did not appear to discern any great impropriety in this act, but, on the contrary, disengaged herself from his embrace gently and tenderly, the probabilities are, looking at the matter in a correct light, and with an artist eye (an optical delusion, popularly supposed to fulfil one of the main duties of charity by clothing the naked), that the view she took of the affair was a right one. And then by degrees, having declared that it was impossible she could ever tell him anything about it, but that Laura knew—would not he go and ask Laura at once? (a proposition Lewis coolly but decidedly rejected), she contrived, she never knew how, to enable him to guess the truth, which he did very quickly and cleverly, and found so perfectly satisfactory that his anger (such mild anger!) instantly changed to the most unmitigated pity, an emotion so nearly akin to that other Christian virtue, love, that we fear we shall lay ourselves open to the charge of writing an actual love scene if we pursue the subject any further. And as it is a well-ascertained fact that young persons strictly brought up and never allowed to inflame their imaginations and gain perverted views of life by perusing those inventions of the enemy of man- (and woman-) kind, works of fiction, either never fall in love at all or do so according to parental act of parliament, passed in the year one of the reign of good king Mammon, we (lest we incur the high displeasure of any of this monarch’s respectable subjects) will say no more about it. But when Laura, grieved at what she considered the unsatisfactory issue of her interview with Richard Frere, returned to her boudoir to make the best report her conscience would allow of to Annie, she was especially surprised, and a little frightened, to discover her friend, with heightened colour, downcast eyes, and a bright smile playing about the corners of her mouth, sitting on a sofa by the side of what Laura would have taken for the ghost of Lewis Arundel, only that ghosts do not in a general way look intensely happy, and are not usually addicted to holding young ladies’ hands caressingly between their spectral fingers. However, the ghost soon vindicated his claim to the protection of the Habeas Corpus Act by rising and shaking Laura’s hand cordially, and taking the initiative in conversation by exclaiming—
“My dear, kind Mrs. Leicester, I owe all my happiness to you.” Then Laura began to surmise what had happened, and in the excess of her joy scolded Lewis so vigorously for his madness in venturing out, and Annie for her folly in allowing him to talk, that she was forced to stop in the midst of her harangue to declare herself a virago, and to laugh so heartily at her own vehemence that in order to save herself from becoming hysterical she was fain to betake herself to her own bedroom and indulge in the feminine luxury of a good cry. And then Lewis and Annie sat and looked into each other’s eyes; their joy was too full for words, but such silence as theirs is far more eloquent, for as there is a grief too deep for tears, so is there happiness which language is powerless to express, and such happiness did they experience at that moment. At length Lewis spoke.
“Dearest,” he said, in a low, soft voice that trembled with the tenderness which filled his soul, “I must leave you now; there are many reasons which forbid my meeting your father till we reach England and I am prepared to prove to him all that your trustful, loving heart believes because I tell you that it is so. Until we meet in our own happy country, which for the future will be as dear to me for your sake as lately it has been for the same cause hateful, our engagement must remain a secret from all but Laura.”
“But will that be right?” pleaded Annie, looking up wistfully into the face of him who would be from thenceforth her oracle.
It is a fearful responsibility when, through the affections, we gain such a hold over a living soul that the judgment lies dormant, and the thing which seems good in our eyes appears so in theirs also; such influence is indeed a mighty talent committed to our charge, and most careful should we be lest we abuse the trust reposed in us. Lewis felt this strongly, and paused to reconsider his decision. His chief reason for wishing that General Grant might not be immediately informed of his declaration was the difficult position in which it would place that gallant officer in regard to Lord Bellefield’s relations. How could he, for instance, expect Lord Ashford to believe that his brother-in-law had used all possible exertion to secure the murderer of his son when Annie Grant, that son’s destined bride, was affianced to a man who, but for the catastrophe which had taken place, would have met Lord Bellefield in a duel? the altercation and subsequent challenge being so completely a matter of notoriety in Venice that it was certain that some account of them, probably an exaggerated and distorted one, would find its way to England. But this was a reason which he could not give Annie, as he correctly imagined that the affair at the Casino had been kept from her knowledge. Thus the more he reflected the more certain he became that his original determination was a right one. Accordingly he replied—
“Trust me, dear one; concealment is as foreign to my nature as to your own. My faults (and I have only too many) do not lie in that direction; but, to the best of my judgment, I believe that in wishing your father should, for the present, remain ignorant of our engagement, I am consulting your interest and his quite as much as my own. Believe me, love, I would sacrifice anything, even the cherished hope of one day calling you my own, rather than influence you to do aught for which your conscience could afterwards upbraid you.”
And Annie did believe him, with the strong, unhesitating faith of perfect love. Had he advanced the most incredible assertion—declared, for instance, that he had discovered perpetual motion, squared the circle, and set the Thames on fire, Annie would equally and implicitly have believed him. Had he deceived her, her only refuge from a universal scepticism would have been to die. Then came the “sweet sorrow” of a lovers’ parting—sweet in the many evidences of affection which the occasion calls forth, and sorrowful by reason of the anxious thoughts to which quitting those we love, even under the happiest auspices, necessarily gives rise. Annie’s bright eyes were dim with tears, and Lewis’s mouth, no longer sternly compressed, trembled with the emotion he in vain attempted to conceal, as, with a murmured “God bless and protect you, my own darling!” he tore himself away.
In the meanwhile, scarcely had Richard Frere quitted the Grassini Palace than he encountered General Grant, fretting and fuming under the weight of a burden of minor miseries, and full of complaints of the abominable misdemeanours of the Venetian officials, amongst which, by no means the lightest, was the culpable stupidity which prevented them from speaking or understanding English, together with the obstinate prejudice with which they refused to acknowledge that by adding the letter O to the termination of words in that language they immediately became Italian—
“I said ‘requiro uno passporto’ to them, sir, half-a-dozen times over, and nobody shall ever make me believe they did not know what that meant!” was his indignant complaint.
Of course Frere’s ready sympathy entailed on him a request that if he could spare the time to go back to the office with him, the General would esteem it such a great favour, and of course, though his conscience reproached him for being away from “poor, solitary. Lewis” for so many hours, he did what was required of him; and of course, having said A,—B, C, and D followed as a matter of necessity, until, before he had gone through the alphabet of the General’s commissions, several hours had elapsed, and Lewis, having found his way back to his lodgings, was reclining in an easy-chair enjoying a feast of happy memories and bright anticipations, when Frere, hot, tired, and dissatisfied with his morning’s work, flung down his cotton umbrella, and throwing himself, very much unbuttoned, in a kind of dishevelled heap upon the nearest chair, began—
“Well, confound this climate, say I, where a man can’t get through a morning’s business without coming home more like a piece of hot boiled beef than a temperate Christian—here’s a state of dissolution for a free-born Briton to be in. I tell you what it is, young man, if you keep me here much longer I shall become a mere walking skeleton—flesh and blood literally can’t stand it, and I shall have to go home and be married in my bones.”
“By which ceremony I suppose you hope to become possessed of an additional rib to make up for your loss of substance,” suggested Lewis, smiling at the odd, quaint way in which his friend described his troubles.
“Yes, it’s all very well for you to sit there and laugh at a fellow,” returned Frere grumpily, “but if you had been parading about this oven of a place for two hours, tied like a kettle to Governor Grant’s tail, as I have been, you would find it no such laughing matter, I can tell you. He is obstinate and wrong-headed as an elderly mule too, making a fuss about trifles that do not signify a bit one way or the other. Why cannot he take life coolly and quietly as—as——?”
Here he came to an abrupt conclusion, having discovered that the grumbling tenor of the speech was somewhat at variance with the ending he had intended to make to it—viz., “as I do.” Lewis finished it for him.
“As a sensible man should do, I suppose you were going to observe.”
Frere detected the covert satire and shook his fist threateningly at his friend.
“You had better be civil, you know, or I may be tempted to give you the thrashing I have owed you so long. I could not have a better opportunity than now, when you are so weak that you can scarcely walk across the room alone.”
“Perhaps I may be stronger than you are aware of,” returned Lewis; “what do you think about my being able to go out, for instance——?”
“Think,” replied Frere dogmatically; “why, I think that if you attempt it a week hence it will be too soon. Dr. Grabafee says a fortnight, but his is scarcely an unprejudiced opinion; however, I’ll take care you don’t set foot outside this room within a week.”
Lewis turned away to hide a smile, while Frere, still suffering from heat, and not having another available button which could be respectably unfastened, pulled off his neckcloth, and thus relieved, resumed—“Who do you think I have been lecturing this morning?”
Lewis professed his ignorance, and Frere continued—
“Only a certain young lady, in whose proceedings I’ve an idea you take particular interest—one Miss Annie Grant.”
Lewis started as Frere pronounced this name, but recovering himself, asked in an elaborately indifferent tone of voice, “Pray when did this interesting colloquy take place, and what might be the subject thereof?”
“The colloquy, as you call it, took place some four hours ago; and the subject thereof was the young woman’s conduct towards your precious self. Now, don’t go and fly into a passion,” continued Frere, as Lewis coloured and seemed about to make some hasty rejoinder; “remember, life ought to be taken easily and quietly by a sensible man, and of course you consider yourself one: however, I took the liberty to tell Miss General Grant a few home truths that she will be none the worse for hearing.”
He then proceeded, after his own fashion, to give an account of his conversation with Annie, and his subsequent interview with Laura, concluding his recital thus—
“So the upshot of the whole affair, and a very unsatisfactory one I’m afraid you’ll think it, is this. When you had left Broadhurst, Ma’amselle Annie found herself in a bit of a fix, and not being a man or Rose Arundel, she, after the fashion of her silly sex, did a weak and injudicious thing; but as I said to the other young woman, who, by the way, seems to have the best sense of the two, that’s very different from doing a deliberately wicked one, and therefore, perhaps, Lewis may be induced to look over it.”
“For Heaven’s sake, my dear fellow, don’t tell me any more about it, you will drive me frantic with your detestable common-sense platitudes,” exclaimed Lewis, springing from his chair impatiently; “at least you would have done so,” he continued more quietly, “if I had not happened to have seen Miss Grant myself since your well-meant but somewhat unnecessary interview with her, and learned from her own sweet lips that she forgives me for having so hastily and ungenerously misjudged her.”
“Eh! what! has the young woman been here in my absence?” returned Frere, greatly scandalised. “Oh! this will never do! I don’t allow such liberties to be taken with my patient; besides, I don’t consider the proceeding by any means a correct one; she might have found you in bed, with your nightcap on, for aught she could tell to the contrary.”
“Do you know what is reported to have occurred when a mountain objected to come at Mahomet’s bidding?” asked Lewis quietly.
“Why, Mahomet went to the mountain, to be sure, like an arrant humbug as he was; but what has that got to do with the case in question? Why, you don’t mean to say,” continued Frere, as a sudden light broke in upon him—“you don’t mean to say that you’ve been to call upon her?”
“I am afraid I must confess that such is the alarming fact,” was the cool reply.
“Well! I have known many insane actions in my life, certainly,” growled Frere, making fruitless attempts to re-unbutton his already enfranchised garments, “but this”—here he nearly tore a wristband off his shirt in his pursuit of coolness under difficulties—“is the very maddest thing I ever did hear of—a man that was on the point of death here not ten days ago to rush out of bed the moment one’s back is turned for the sake of seeing——”
“She is looking so sweetly pretty, Frere,” interrupted Lewis; “and those eyes—there never were such eyes seen in the world before.”
“Oh, of course not,” returned Frere viciously. “Patent double-actioned, high-pressure, sky-blue revolvers, made to look every way at once, see through mill-stones, and peep round the corner into the bargain, they are, no doubt; but if she could use them to no better purpose than to lure out, at the risk of his life, a foolish boy that ought to have had more sense—but it’s a mere waste of words talking to you,” he continued, catching a smile on Lewis’s features; “and here have I gone and ruined my other shirt, and this one is at the wash—psha! I mean to say, ruined my other wash—that is, washed my other ruin—hang me if I know what I mean to say—only if you’re not the worse for this—bother the boy, how absurdly happy he’s looking! So it’s all right between you, eh! Lewis? Well, Heaven knows, you have suffered enough to deserve that it should be so, my poor fellow, and though you must have been mad to go out, and I ought to be very angry with you, yet, as it has ended, and always supposing it does not do you any harm, why I am heartily glad you did it;” and so saying, Frere, whose feelings, and the heat together, were decidedly too many for him, made a precipitate retreat into the bedroom, where, for the present, we will leave him.