CHAPTER VII.
About an hour after his liberation, Algernon Grey sat alone in his chamber at the Golden Stag, absorbed in deep meditation. The servants came and went, bringing down from the castle all those parts of his baggage which had been carried up during his imprisonment, but he took no heed of them; and even Frill, the page, obtained little notice, though he endeavoured strongly to attract attention by eloquent speech and graceful demeanour. The great question on which man's fate turns so frequently throughout life: "How shall I act at this next step?" was then before his eyes; but his mind wandered back into the past, and, scrutinizing what had occurred during the last three days, Algernon Grey could not free himself altogether from the reproaches of his own heart. "I have been weak," he said, "I have been wrong; I have yielded to circumstances, where I should have resisted them; I have been tender in tone and manner, where I should have been cold as ice. Better, far better, that she should think me rude, discourteous, unkind, than that she should have hereafter to say, that I did her wrong and sought her love secretly, when I could not ask it honourably. Even now it is far wiser to encounter any sort of reproach than give good cause for dark, well-founded accusation. I will go--that is determined. To-morrow's sunset shall not find me in Heidelberg."
His thoughts ran on from that starting point into the future, and he asked himself, "What was before him; what was the path he should pursue; what was the end to which it would lead?" The prospect was dark and gloomy: no light shone upon it; no variety appeared to cheer it, but one wild waste of life spread out before him, overhung with clouds, and bearing nought to shelter or console. He felt like one of those anchorites of old, who voluntarily quitted the sunshine and the richness of cultivated nature, to plunge into the gloom and sterility of the desert. He felt that, at that moment, there was beauty and brightness around him, all that could charm the eye or captivate the heart; that gaiety and pleasure, the exercise of the mind, the sport of the fancy, the kindling of passion, the ecstasy of love, the wild enthusiastic delights of a free heart revelling undisturbed in the enjoyment of the best gifts of Heaven, were ready for his grasp, if he chose to seize them, with but one obstacle--but that obstacle, to his mind, insurmountable. He felt that he was about to fly them all, voluntarily to resign everything that his heart longed for; with the parched mouth and thirsty lip to renounce the cooling draught of the deep well of happiness open before him; and to speed on through the arid desert of existence, with no one to support or cheer, with not one spring of the sweet waters of comfort to give him hope along his desolate course. Barren, barren spread out the years before him. As he looked through the long sunless vista, it seemed as if an open tomb was all that closed the far perspective to receive him at the end of his weary journey, and afford the dull sleep of death and corruption. "May it come soon!" he thought, "may it come soon!" and, with his hands pressed upon his eyes, he remained pondering bitterly over his sad, strange fate.
"Ah, Algernon," cried a voice, as the door opened, "you look marvellous joyful over your emancipation. One would think you had been in a dungeon a whole year, to see your intemperate gaiety at the recovery of your freedom. But I knew how it would be, and I told the Electress the result. I urged her strongly to keep you in your soft bondage, telling her, that to set you at liberty was but to restore you to the slavery of a most perverse education.--But how goes it, my good cousin?"
"Well, I thank you, William," answered Algernon Grey, rising and shaking off his gloom, determined to encounter Lovet's keen jests with a careless tone. "Faith, you are quite right, my cousin. The cheerful society that you afforded me every day in prison made captivity so sweet, that I could have staid in it for ever."
"See the ingratitude of man!" cried Lovet, laughing. "I have given him up one-third of my whole time, and yet he is not satisfied, although, by the code of love and gallantry, as he well knows, the other two-thirds were not my own to give; they were pledged, pawned, impignorated, and I might as well have stolen a jewel out of Madam de Laussitz's ear, or taken any ring off her finger but one, with as much right and justice as I could have taken one minute more than I did to bestow upon my kinsman's affairs. Did I not thrice see the Elector? Did I not twice see the Electress? Did I not make love to seven of her ladies? Did I not bow nine times to nine old gentlemen? Did I not fee a page for an audience? And actually embrace a chamberlain--the most disgusting task of all--entirely to obtain his liberty? although I knew the first use he would make of it would be to work his own unhappiness and my disappointment."
"Nay, William, nothing of the kind," replied Algernon Grey. "We are all upon the search for happiness, you and I alike; and each must seek his in his own way. I thank you for all the trouble you have taken; but birds when they are free will use their wings; and so will I to-morrow. I have not been so long accustomed to a cage as to love its neighbourhood."
"Stay, stay," cried Lovet. "Your pardon, my good cousin! I am not on the search for happiness; that is a wild-goose chase, always beginning, never ending; still disappointing, offering fruition nowhere. Pleasure, pleasure is what I seek--the honey that is in every flower. If we exhaust one, why let us fly on to another. The bee for ever, Algernon! That industrious insect is my emblem. Good faith! I win ask the heralds if I may not put it in my arms. Like it, I seek the sweets of life, wherever they are to be found; and the wild thyme, or the cultivated rose is all the same to me."
"But a spendthrift-bee," answered Algernon Grey; "for you lay up no store for the future, but consuming all the honey that you find, and building no waxy cells for future years. After all, the emblem is not a pleasant one; for were you as thrifty as the best, our master, Fate, would come and smoke you in the hive."
"I will give him no cause," answered Lovet, gaily; "for I will eat my honey while I have got it, and hoard none to tempt his ruthless hands. But a truce to bantering, Algernon; I have really laboured hard to set you free, thinking that a much better way of spending my time than piping to you in prison, like Blondel to good King Richard. But now what is it you intend to do? I have trusted and hoped, that a few hours' quiet reflection, in an airy room up three pair of stairs, would turn the fresh must of your young proprieties to good sound wine, and teach you that where you have all before you that can make life happy, it is needless to go, like a drunken man with a purse full of gold, and flip the ducats with your thumb-nail into a draw-well."
"What do you mean?" asked his cousin; "I intend to throw nothing away that is good. Base coin is as well in a draw-well as anywhere else."
"Nay, nay, be frank," exclaimed Lovet; "I mean that you do not surely intend to quit this place so soon as you have once threatened."
"I see no reason why I should stay," answered Algernon Grey.
"What! not love?" cried the other. "Nay, my good cousin, do not look detected! Can you suppose, that I have not seen, that I do not know? By every sign and token, from an untied collar, to a hat put on wrongside before--from a sigh in the middle of a well-turned sentence, to an answer made as irrelevant to the purpose as an old maid's comment on last Sunday's sermon, you are in love, man--up to the neck in that soft quagmire, love. And, good faith! I must own, too, that, considering your inexperience of such things, and the resistance of your nature to all sweet influences, you have not chosen amiss--bright eyes, sweet lips, a cheek like a ripe peach, hair bright and glossy as the sunshine on a bank of moss, a form that might have made Helen envious, and false Paris doubly false."
Algernon Grey seated himself at the table again, and leaned his head upon his hand, with his eyes thoughtfully bent down, and a red spot in his cheek. He would not, he could not say that he did not love; but he was pained that his clear-sighted cousin had divined the truth.
In the mean time Lovet proceeded, seeing clearly that Algernon did not listen; but trusting that a word or two at least would fall through the inattentive ear upon the mind, and produce, perhaps, a more lasting effect than if they were listened to and answered.
"Stay, Algernon, stay," he cried; "stay and be happy. Cast not away from you, for vain fantasies, joy that is seldom afforded to any man more than once in life--opportunities which neglected never return, and once lost, leave unceasing regret behind them. Stay, and make her yours."
"Make her mine!" exclaimed Algernon Grey. "How?"
"Oh! a thousand courses are open," answered his cousin. "Shall I point them out?"
Algernon waved his hand and shook his head, with a bitter smile; "I see none," he answered.
"Well, listen," replied Lovet. "This Herbert, this uncle, is a soldier to fortune--a man of no rank or position to bar the path to one of your name and station. Troublous times are coming on; and over this fair Palatinate will, ere long, roll a sea of disasters, which will break bonds, shake ties, and, in a wide chaos of confusion, leave opportunities which a wise lover would profit by."
"Nay, nay," cried Algernon Grey, starting up and raising himself to his full height, "no more of such a theme; you do not understand me, William."
"Right well, my cousin," replied Lovet, with one of his sarcastic smiles; "but I thought it best to put the worst case first, and set your shrewish puritanism in arms, by displaying the path that any other wicked worldlings would take. The fair lady's heart is, doubtless, more than half gone already; and though, perhaps, like all these proud beauties, she might start a little at first from the thought of such unconditional surrender, yet that said little tyrant Love would compel obedience to his commands. Then, however, there is another course to take. The high-stilted course, in all respects suited to your stiff and magnificent ideas."
"Ay, what is that?" cried Algernon Grey, turning quickly toward him, and betrayed, by a sudden gleam of hope, into a greater display of his feelings than he could have desired.
Lovet suppressed the smile, that half curled his lip, ere his cousin saw it; though he knew well that even to have raised up for a moment a vision of happiness before his cousin's eyes, was so much gained for his own plans. "The matter, methinks, is very easy," he answered; "you have nought to do but first to make her yours beyond recall; and then, being much too virtuous to remain in an unhallowed union, give her the deepest proof of your tenderness and love by breaking this boy-marriage of yours with the Lady Catherine. What right have fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, or grandfathers and guardians either, to pledge a boy of fifteen by a vow at the altar to an engagement for life, the very nature of which he does not understand? It is both absurd and wicked; there may be many doubts whether it is lawful--"
"None, none," cried Algernon Grey; "it has taken place a hundred times. Poor Essex and myself are in the same sad case."
"Ay, but he is worse off than you," answered Lovet; "for he, like a fool, went back and took her home, while you have wisely staid away with the broad sea between you. Now, though the lady and her good friends may very likely, as the matters stand, hold fast by an engagement which secures to her high rank and large possessions as your wife; yet, if she finds you entangled irrevocably with another, she will soon consent to that which you desire, and on a joint petition to the peers this baby-matrimony will be soon annulled."
"She will not consent," said Algernon Grey, bitterly; "at least her friends will not;" and then he added, fixing his eyes upon Lovet, "and is it you, William, who can wish that I should thus treat your own fair cousin?"
"Oh," answered Lovet, with a laugh, "it will not break her heart. I know her well--better than you do, Algernon; and I advise you for the happiness of both. This is no common case of perfidy. What does she know of you to make her love you? or give one sigh because you love another? Do you think, my fair cousin, that your great qualities are so apparent, or your fine person so attractive, that one short sight of you at the altar at the age of fifteen, tricked out in a white satin doublet, purfled with blue, and laced with gold, is quite sufficient to make her die of love for you? or, what were more marvellous still, to preserve a holy constancy of maidenly affection during seven long years of absence? Pooh, pooh! she is not of that spirit at all, I can tell you. If she thought of you at all, when last she saw you, it was but as a pretty, well-dressed doll; and doubtless, had they left you with her then, she would have stuck a new farthingale round your neck better to her taste, or put you into a cradle and tried to rock you to sleep. She has got other notions now; but, for aught we know, you may not be the object of them."
"Perhaps not," replied Algernon Grey, setting his teeth hard; "perhaps not, Lovet,--I have reason to think so!--But now mark me, my good cousin, and you know that I am firm in keeping my resolutions; I have seen a fair and lovely creature here, beautiful, kind, innocent, high minded. I would as soon pollute that creature, if I could, as I would destroy the beauty of her face; I would as soon bring wretchedness into her heart, as I would break those lovely limbs upon the rack--so, once for all, no more of this. I shall leave Heidelberg to-morrow."
Lovet paused, and thought for a moment, laying his hand upon his brow, with a studied air of meditation: "I thought it was on Saturday next," he said, "that the Elector went."
"That the Elector went!" repeated Algernon Grey; "I know not what you mean, William."
"Pshaw, my good cousin," answered Lovet; "you do not suppose that I am not aware Frederic has been urging you to go with him in this expedition to Bohemia. I do not mean to say that you are making your love for Agnes Herbert an excuse to me for a rash consent to the Elector's wild and unprofitable scheme; but you will not deny, that, tempted by the prospect of renown in arms, and strange adventures in a distant country, you have taken advantage of the offer, thinking at the same time to divert your mind from what you judge dangerous thoughts, and quit a society that you love too much."
"I will deny it altogether," answered Algernon Grey, calmly. "The Elector has never mentioned the name of Bohemia in my hearing; I was not aware he had accepted this thorny crown, or that he was going either soon or late."
"Why, it is all over the castle and the town," cried Lovet; "and if he have not asked you, he will do it, be you sure. Craven goes with him--"
"And the Princess?" demanded Algernon.
"She goes, or follows immediately," said his cousin, "like a true dame of romance, she tells me, with but two ladies and two waiting women, some half-dozen antique gentlemen, and a troop of horse."
Algernon Grey mused, calculating whether it was probable that Agnes would be one of those selected to accompany the Electress. At length he asked, in a somewhat hesitating manner, "Did you hear the ladies' names who go with her?"
"Oh, yes," answered Lovet; "one was the Baroness L[oe]wenstein, whom you saw the other night; the other a Countess, with a hard name I do not recollect, and would not utter if I did; all I know, alas! is, that it is not Laussitz.--But be prepared, my fair cousin: for, depend upon it, the Elector will ask you; and, if you are not mad, you will plead some other occupations; for nothing will come of this rash scheme but disaster and hard blows. He is a gallant Prince, it is true, and will, doubtless, have to aid him a brave and manly chivalry; but the odds against him are too great. Spain and Savoy, and Burgundy, the imperial power and three-fourths of the empire, papal gold and intrigue, and Italian mercenaries enough to conquer a new world; while France negotiates, England hesitates, and Holland takes care of itself. You had better frame some excuse; so with that warning I will leave you; for there is a pair of soft violet eyes looking for me as I ride up the hill."
Algernon Grey smiled. It was not at his cousin's allusion to the Countess of Laussitz, but rather, that Lovet should think he could be deterred by such arguments as had been used. The reader may inquire if Lovet thought they would deter him. It would seem not; and even Algernon Grey became suspicious as he meditated.
"I will make myself sure," he said, after pondering for some time. "It is more than probable she will remain with the Electress-mother; and if she do, this adventure is as good as any other to fill up a space of time.--I will go up and take leave of her and her uncle to-night; for, perchance I may not see them at the court to-morrow."
His heart sank as he thought of that leave-taking; and he shrank from the task, which he felt it would not be courteous to leave unperformed. Minutes and hours passed by; and it was late in the evening before he went; but at length he set out on foot, and, taking his way by what is still called, I believe, the Burg-weg, he reached the gates of the castle, and obtained admission. As usual, the courts and passages were filled with a moving multitude; but Algernon Grey walked straight on, noticing no one till he reached the tower in which Colonel Herbert's lodging was situated, and, mounting the stairs, he knocked at the heavy oaken door. A voice said,--"Come in;" but it was not that of the English officer; and the moment after he stood before Agnes Herbert, who sat writing at a table alone. She started up, when she saw him, with a joyful smile; and, giving him her hand, congratulated him on his liberation. But, after a few brief sentences had been spoken, her manner became more grave; and she said, "You were seeking my uncle; but he has just gone forth, leaving me to copy this paper for him."
"I came," said Algernon Grey, in a calm and firm, but, in spite of himself, a very sad tone, "to bid him adieu, as I thought it more than likely, from his busy occupations, that I might not see him at the court to-morrow morning."
"Adieu!" said Agnes. "Are you going soon, then?" and as she spoke her face turned deadly pale.
"I must go, I fear, to-morrow," replied Algernon Grey, "as soon as I have taken leave of the Elector and the Electress. The hour named for receiving me is at eleven. Will you be there?"
"I think not," answered Agnes, in a voice that trembled slightly.
"Then, dear lady, I will bid you farewell now," said Algernon Grey, using a strong command over every word and every tone. "Believe me, I am deeply grateful for all the kindness you have shown me, and shall remember the days I have passed here, though several have been days of imprisonment, as amongst the brightest things of life."
He had intended, when he went thither, to explain to her his situation; and had Agnes uttered one word, which could have led to the subject, it would have been done at once. But for a time she remained silent; and he felt that to obtrude such a topic would be but too plainly to indicate the feelings of his heart towards herself.
When she did reply, she merely said, "You are generous to express any gratitude to me. I have but shown you common kindness, while all the debt is on my side. I, too, shall recollect these hours with pleasure, as having enabled me, however poorly, to show the thankfulness that is in my heart for the noble and gallant conduct which delivered me at a moment when a terrible death seemed certain. I do not think my uncle will be present, either, to-morrow; but I know he will grieve much not to see you before you go; and if you like to give him such satisfaction, you will find him at the fort, called the Trutzkaiser, where he is causing some alterations to be made."
She spoke quite calmly, though her cheek still remained colourless. At one or two words, indeed, her voice trembled; but there was no other emotion visible.
Algernon Grey took her hand, and pressed his lips upon it, saying, "Farewell! Agnes, farewell!"
"Farewell!" she answered; "may you ever be as happy as I am sure you deserve!"
He shook his head sadly, withdrew, and closed the door.
The moment he was gone, Agnes sank into the chair where she had been sitting, covered her eyes with her hand, and seemed to gasp for breath. The next instant, however, she raised her head high, cast back the glossy hair from her face, and exclaimed, "This is nonsense, this is folly! People, with their idle warnings, have put such vain imaginations in my head. But they are gone, and that is over;" and, drawing the paper to her, she strove to write again.