Volume Two—Chapter Four.
When Don Luis reached the palace of the Marchioness of Corcunda, where he had learned that Donna Clara and her father were residing, he saw light streaming from all the windows, and sounds of revelry met his ear. He paused for a moment, doubtful whether he should enter the scene of festivity; but, being still habited in his full dress of the morning, he felt that he was in a proper costume, having also a modest consciousness that he should not be unwelcome to the lady of the mansion, nor, he trusted, to Donna Clara. He therefore boldly approached the door, working his way through a crowd of lackeys, chairmen, and linkboys, and ascended a flight of steps leading to the habitable part of the mansion, following a gay and laughing party of the young and happy. The anterooms were already crowded with company, and in one of them a servant pointed out the marchioness standing ready to receive her guests. As he advanced towards her, people stared at him as one whom their eyes were not accustomed to meet; but none of the fair or young frowned, or seemed displeased at his appearance. Bowing gracefully, he mentioned his name, and expressed his anxiety to pay his respects to Gonçalo Christovaö and his daughter.
“Oh, I have heard of your exploit and gallantry, Senhor Don Luis,—and I know that Gonçalo Christovaö will be equally anxious again to thank you for the service you rendered his daughter. You will find him on the way to the ball-room,” said the old Marchioness, coldly.
“And Donna Clara?” said Luis, hesitating.
“Her father will inform you,” answered the Marchioness, in the same tone as before.
What these words could mean Luis could not tell, though they seemed to forebode that he would not be as welcome as he hoped; but he could not inquire further, as he had received a strong hint to proceed; bowing, therefore, to the old lady, he looked eagerly among the crowd for Gonçalo Christovaö, to have his doubts removed, but he could nowhere perceive him.
While stopped in his progress by the crowd, a voice, which had once sounded like the sweetest melody to his ear, arrested his attention, and sent a strange thrill, more of pain than pleasure, through his frame; when he beheld before him his cousin Theresa, leaning on the arm of a youth, whose eyes were bent on her as if enchanted with her beauty. He at once recognised the young Marquis of Tavora, whom he recollected in his boyhood; and though, at first, a pang of angry jealousy shot across his bosom, he at once banished the feeling as unworthy of himself, knowing that though, during his absence, the marquis had proved his successful rival, it was owing more to Donna Theresa’s ambition and vanity than to any unfair advantage he had taken. Notwithstanding all the affectionate attentions of her betrothed husband, Donna Theresa’s manner seemed cold and indifferent, and she returned but short replies to his observations; and when she smiled, to Don Luis her smile appeared forced and unnatural. He gazed at the young pair with grief at his heart.
“Alas!” he thought, “that I should have wasted my best feelings on one so incapable of those tender affections which form the chief jewels of the sex. Oh! woman, woman! lovely and angelic as thou appearest, if thy heart has become cold and callous by contact with the world, how valueless, how empty thou art! Unhappy youth!—she loves him not;—I see it in that forced smile, that cold eye,—and yet he seems not to have discovered it—I pity him!”
Such thoughts, very natural to a rejected lover, and very soothing to his vanity, passing through his mind, he was unwilling to address her, and would have passed unnoticed, when her eye caught his regarding her. For a single moment a blush passed across her features, but the next, holding out her hand, with a smile, she led the young marquis towards him; and, to avoid being guilty of marked rudeness, he was obliged to kiss the fair hand she offered.
“What! you seemed to have forgotten me, my good cousin,” she said, in a gay tone, “though I hear you intend honouring me by your presence at my marriage. Ah, you do not remember Don Luis of Tavora. Permit me to introduce my most loving cousin, who has travelled all over the world, I believe; or, at least, to England, and other barbarous countries, where the sun shines only once in the year, and then half the day is obscured by a thick fog, while for six months the ground is covered with snow. Oh, dreadful! I would get rid of such a country altogether: it makes me shiver to think of it, even in this warm room. You have no idea, senhor marquis, how my cousin blinked his eyes when he first came back to clear skies and sunshine, so accustomed had he been to live in the dark.”
While Donna Theresa was thus speaking, the gentlemen exchanged the usual compliments.
“Ah, I am glad to see he has not forgotten how to bow properly, or, I rather suspect, he has picked up the art since his return. I protest that, the first day he came back, he had no notion of bending his body, like the English, who, I hear, are either born with one joint only, and that is in their necks, or else they become stiffened from their forgetting to use them. Now, you are going to defend your friends, but don’t attempt it; I hate them, with their stiff pride and supercilious airs, thinking every people their inferiors who do not possess such good roads and fine horses as themselves. There was one man who came here, an English lord, I forget his dreadful name, but it pained my mouth to attempt to pronounce it, who compared everything he saw with his own country; and, because our habits and manners differed from those to which he was accustomed, he must needs consider ours far less civilised, and took no trouble to conceal his opinion.”
“Though at first rather distant in manner, I was received by many with great cordiality and kindness, and saw much to admire in their manners and institutions,” answered Luis, wishing to protect the character of his friends.
“I know nothing about their institutions,” exclaimed Donna Theresa, in a pettish tone, “but I know their impertinent superciliousness will make them enemies wherever they go—so talk no more about them. By-the-bye, I hear you have been vying in your exploits with that renowned hero Don Quixote, and rescuing distressed damsels from the power of brigands by the strength of your single arm, and with the aid of your faithful squire Pedro. Everybody in Lisbon is prepared to look upon you as a complete Knight Errant. I heard all about it from Donna Clara herself, who speaks warmly in praise of your gallantry, I assure you; and if she does not think you are perfection itself, she thinks you very near it. I believe if anything could make her angry, it would have been my abusing you to her, but, instead of that, it almost made her cry.”
“Where is Donna Clara?” exclaimed Luis, interrupting her eagerly: “I have a packet to deliver to her.”
“You will find her in the ball-room, the admired of all beholders, and of none more so than of the Conde San Vincente, of whose lynx-eyed jealousy beware; and now, as I see that you are anxious to deliver your message, I will not detain you. Farewell, Luis!” she spoke in a softer tone.
“I wronged her,” muttered Luis, as he hastened to the ball-room. “Her heart is not turned to stone. Such dwells not in the female breast.”
As his eye distinguished Donna Clara at the further end of the room, he endeavoured to regulate his pace as etiquette required; but his eagerness impelled him on till he had arrived close to her, when it occurred to him that in his hurry he had not considered how he should address her. She had, however, perceived him, when a richer hue mounted to her cheeks, and her eyes beamed with a brighter light, as she timidly held out her hand. Their eyes met, it was but for a moment; but they there read more than Plato, Aristotle, or all the ancient philosophers ever wrote—at all events what they prized far more. He took that delicate hand, and pressed it with ardour to his lips, and it seemed to inspire him with abundance to say, but yet she was the first to speak.
“Oh! Don Luis, I have been wishing to meet you, to thank you again for your bravery and goodness in rescuing my father and me from the robbers, and for protecting us on our way back. I have often thought of it since—” When Clara had got thus far, she stopped, and wished she had expressed herself differently; besides, she did not know to what it might lead.
Don Luis then thought it high time to speak, to relieve her embarrassment, expressing his happiness at again meeting her, with many inquiries respecting her health, to which she made suitable answers, when he continued—“I have been fortunate in recovering the casket of jewels, the loss of which so much concerned you, and I came hither this evening on purpose to deliver it, not expecting to find a ball going forward.”
“How kind, how thoughtful of you!” she exclaimed, repaying him with a sweet smile. “Do not deliver them now, but come to-morrow morning early, when I am sure my father will join with me in thanking you for all your attention to us, if you will take care of them a little longer.”
“I would not willingly part with aught belonging to Donna Clara;” and Luis bowed, as many other gentlemen were bowing to ladies near him. But there was a look which accompanied that bow, unseen by any but the lady to whom it was made, which caused her heart to beat quicker than usual. Now Luis, when he entered the room, had most certainly not intended to tell Clara that he loved her, nor had he yet done so, because he was not aware of it himself, but he quickly found it out in the course of their conversation, besides discovering that he was not indifferent to her; a circumstance adding considerably to his boldness in speaking.
It may seem extraordinary to some of our readers that Don Luis should have carried on so interesting a conversation with Clara, unheard by any persons who surrounded them; but such was the fact, for lovers quickly learn to lower their voices and restrain their actions, as we have always heard: indeed, a friend of ours, a miserable younger son, once made an arrangement with a young lady of fortune sufficient for them both, to elope with him, while her unconscious mamma was sitting on the other side of the room. The young lady was severely punished for her fault, by the just indignation of her friends, who refused to have any intercourse with her till, by the death of several relations of her husband’s, a coronet was placed on her brow, when their hearts relented towards her, and they thought she had acted very wisely. The moral of this anecdote is, that chaperones must not be too confident because they keep the young ladies near them.
Luis claimed Donna Clara’s hand, and led her forth to dance: they then wandered together through several rooms, where they fancied that they were unobserved. The temptation was very great, and he yielded to it. His words were few and low; but Clara’s ears were quick, and she heard every one of them; for they were such as she would not have lost for worlds. She longed to ask him to repeat them again, but as she could not do that, she told him they made her very happy; for, at that moment, poor girl, she forgot all but the present. She looked up, and beheld the dark eye of the Count glaring at her from among the crowd. In an instant her joy was turned to anguish; and like a thunderbolt, the recollection of her father’s stern decree, and of some dreadful words the friar had once spoken to her, rushed upon her mind.
Luis saw the sudden change in her countenance; but, knowing not the cause, supposed that an illness had seized her, when, forgetful of all his former caution, he exclaimed, “Speak, my beloved, are you ill?”
His agitation was marked by the Count, though his words reached no other ears but hers.
“Oh no, no! Leave me, in mercy,” she answered, her voice trembling with alarm: “I am not ill, but I have acted very wrong; I ought to have told you at once of the lot to which I am destined; but oh! believe me, I forgot it in the joy of seeing you. See, the fierce glance of the Count San Vincente is cast on me. Oh! pardon me, that I must now tell you so, I am condemned to wed that dark man, or to assume the veil.”
A chill weight pressed on Luis’s heart. “Was the bright fabric he had just raised up but a vain illusion?” he asked himself.
Donna Clara was the first to recover herself; she continued, speaking more calmly: “Go now, and confide in me. Yesterday I might have been compelled to accept the Count; but now no earthly power shall make me wed him. The confidence of your love will give me strength to resist all the temptations, and to despise all the threats which are held out to cause me to do that which I knew was wrong, and against which my heart revolted. Come to-morrow, for my father has ever been kind, and he may relent. Tell him openly of our love, and I will beseech him not to sacrifice me to the Count: to you, surely, he can have no objection, and, for very gratitude for what you have done for him, he cannot refuse you.”
The last few sentences were spoken while Luis was conducting her to her seat. Unperceived by either, the Count had followed them at a distance, where he stood watching them among the crowd. Clara looked up into her young lover’s face, and smiled. “Fear not, Luis, we may yet be happy,” she said; but scarcely had she uttered the words, when, as if by some fascination she could not resist, she again beheld from afar the basilisk eyes of the Count glaring on her; but though their glance did not wither her, it at once recalled all her fears and forebodings, and brought clearly to her remembrance her father’s words. Her gentle heart sank within her: she could not allow Luis to leave her with hopes which she felt too truly must inevitably be blighted. “Luis,” she said, “I cannot deceive myself, and I must not deceive you. My doom, I fear, is sealed. My father, I remember, told me, though I scarce noted his words, that his honour was pledged to the Count, that if I did not wed him, I should become the bride of Heaven, for that such was my mother’s dying wish. That I will not wed him, I have assured you, and I know you trust me; the rest is in the hands of Heaven, and in Heaven alone can I confide. Oh! Luis, once again I pray you to leave me. Farewell! for we ought not to meet again.”
Luis saw by her looks that his remaining would agitate and pain her more. “At your bidding, beloved one, I leave you now. I will see your father to-morrow, and urge my claim; he cannot be so cruel as thus barbarously to sacrifice you. Farewell!” Saying which, with grief in his tone and look, he tore himself from her side, and hastily threading his way through the crowd of guests, he rushed from the palace.
Clara remained unconscious of all that was passing around, till the Count and her brother approached her. “Who was the gentleman with whom you have been dancing?” said the latter. “He seemed an intimate acquaintance.”
The tones of her brother’s voice aroused her.
“Don Luis d’Almeida; to whom your gratitude is due for rescuing your father and sister from the power of brigands,” answered Clara, with greater firmness than she could have supposed herself to possess; but her womanly pride was roused at the tone of the question, and at the presence of the Count.
“He seemed to presume, then, too much on the service he was so fortunate to perform, for the Count tells me he was engaged in long and earnest conversation with you, which he does not approve, and would have interrupted, had not the etiquette of society prevented him.”
“The Count was employed in a truly noble occupation,” answered Clara, her gentle spirit excited beyond endurance at the unauthorised interference of the Count and her brother: “nor do I know by what right he claims the privilege of directing my conduct.”
“By that of being your affianced husband, my fair sister; and as his friend, I must guard his interests as well as yours,” said her brother. “He requests your hand for the next dance, and will then better urge his own claims.” Upon this the Count advanced, assuming the softest smile, and in the blandest voice made his request.
Clara shrunk from him, as she answered, “I can dance no more; and I beg the Conde San Vincente will not deceive himself by supposing that any claims he can urge will afford me otherwise than pain.”
“Is this, then, madam, the answer I may expect to-morrow—for which I have waited patiently a whole month?” exclaimed the Count, fiercely.
“Such is the only one I can ever be induced to give,” returned Clara, with firmness. “Though, had not the Conde San Vincente drawn the answer from me now, I should have preferred giving it through my father.”
The Count’s brow lowered, and again that ominous glance shot from his eyes. “I give you till to-morrow to alter your determination, madam,” he whispered, between his closed teeth; “for I was led to expect a very different answer; when, if I find that a rival has influenced it, as you have given me just cause to suspect, remember that his heart’s blood shall pay for his audacity. I will not lose so fair a prize without wreaking my vengeance on him who has ventured to deprive me of it.”
Clara turned pale at these words, which her brother could not hear; and though they increased her horror and hatred of the speaker, she smothered the feeling for the moment, for the sake of one who, from the contrast, was every instant becoming dearer to her. “Oh, no,” she answered, “you have no rival but the Church, which claims me, if I become not your bride; yet, as a man, a noble, and a Christian, do not urge your claim. I can never love you; but surely that is not a crime: and I will never wed where I cannot love, for that would indeed be crime. Then spare me, for my fate is in your power.”
The Count smiled darkly, as he spoke. “You know that I love you, lady, and my love is not a weak, puny passion, to be thrown aside at pleasure; nor will I yield it to any power but the Church, against which even I cannot strive; so do not persuade yourself, that I am, like a boy, to be gained over, by prayers or tears, to do what I should most assuredly repent of. For the present, I yield to your wishes, and leave you; but to-morrow I shall return, and claim the fulfilment of your father’s promise.” The Count, on this, bowed profoundly, and joined her brother, who was standing at some little distance, and to whom he expressed his conviction that he possessed a rival in his sister’s affections in the person of Don Luis d’Almeida, when they together left the palace.
Poor Clara watched their departure with anxiety. What fears does love conjure up in a woman’s breast! She knew her brother’s fiery temper, and dreaded the Count’s vindictive disposition. They might encounter Don Luis; they would quarrel, and he would fall a victim to their anger. She longed to be able to seek Don Luis, and to warn him of his danger; or to have some trusty messenger whom she could send to assist him; but she felt that she was helpless, and so completely did her agitation overcome her, that she was obliged to fly to her own chamber, to give way to her feelings in tears. The old marchioness was excessively angry when she found that the Count had quitted the party, and she could nowhere see Donna Clara. The fidalgo, who had been deeply engaged in a game of cards, knew nothing of his daughter; and when, at last, it was discovered that she had retired to her chamber, which no persuasions could induce her to leave, the old lady grew more sour than ever, and vowed she would never again be guilty of the folly and wickedness of giving a party to please any human beings, as other old ladies have often since done, when their soirées have not gone off as well as they expected. Balls in those days, in Portugal, were very solemn affairs, the stately and sedate cotillon being the only dance allowed, people endeavouring, by outward gravity and decorum, to make amends for universal license and depravity of morals; hoops, bag-wigs, and swords, not increasing any inclination for saltatory amusements. How far better is the graceful and animating waltz, the inspiriting galop, and the conversational quadrille, of the present day, with the really correct behaviour so general in society.
Now, we dare say, some of our readers will accuse us of having again fallen into the errors of romance writers, in describing Donna Clara’s hasty acknowledgment of her love for Don Luis; and, in our defence, we affirm, in the first place, that such was the fact—which ought to be sufficient. And that none may deem her unmaidenly, it must be remembered that she had naturally thought of him every day since they first met, that she had contrasted him with the Count, for whom she had from the first felt a dislike, and that Don Luis proved he had thought of her and her wishes, by recovering her mother’s jewels; besides, he was a very handsome, noble person, and her equal in birth; but, above all, he told her he loved her, and she believed him. Why should she not? More than a month had passed since they first met; and though they had not since personally encountered each other, they had, every day and hour, in spirit; for their love was of that pure essence which neither time nor space can divide, which, born in heaven, outlives decay, and against which neither the powers of the earth, nor the spirits of darkness, can prevail; that heavenly spark which, in an instant kindled, burns brightly for eternity! Love at first sight! We pity the heart-withered worldlings who deem this impossible; who, because the furnace of society has seared and hardened their feelings, laugh and sneer at all the refined and tender sentiments which gentle nature implanted in the bosom of man; though such they truly cannot experience, yet the young and innocent may, and we know, are often thus blessed. We say blessed, for a few moments of such pure ecstasy are of incomparably far greater value than a whole life of apathetic indifference. Those who require confirmation of the truth of our history, we must remind, that Lisbon is considerably to the south of the latitude of Verona, for we firmly believe that a certain William Shakespeare never drew a character not true to life. Now, he tells how, in Verona, the young and ardent Romeo and Juliet loved, and loved so truly, that they died for love; and yet their love in one instant sprung to life, and flourished bright and lovely to the end. Before concluding, we may quote some words spoken by Juliet on their second meeting, and then we think Clara will not be accused of precipitancy:—
Juliet.
“Three words, dear Romeo, and good night, indeed.
If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,
Where, and what time, thou wilt perform the rite;
And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay,
And follow thee, my lord, throughout the world.”