Under False Pretences: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

"Twice, Reverend Father. Once on the boat between Cologne and Mainz; and once, for a moment only, in the quadrangle of the Cathedral at Mainz."

"And then did he bear his present name?"

For a moment Dino's mouth twitched uneasily. A faint colour crept into his cheeks. "Reverend Father," he said, hesitatingly, "I did not ask his name."

The priest raised the lamp to the level of his head, and again looked penetratingly into his pupil's face. There was a touch of wonder, of pity, perhaps also of some displeasure, expressed in this fixed gaze. It lasted so long that Dino turned a little pale, although he did not flinch beneath it. Finally, the Prior lowered the lamp, gave it back to him, and walked away in silence, with his head lowered and his hands behind his back. Dino followed to light him down the dark corridors, and at the door of the Prior's cell, fell on his knees, as the custom was in the monastery, to receive the Prior's blessing. But, either from forgetfulness or some other reason which passed unexplained, Padre Cristoforo entered and closed the door behind him, without noticing the young man's kneeling figure. It was the first time such an omission had occurred since Dino came to San Stefano. Was it merely an omission and not a punishment? Dino had, for the first time in his life, evaded a plain answer to a question, and concealed from Padre Cristoforo something which Padre Cristoforo would certainly have thought that he ought to know. Had Padre Cristoforo divined the truth?

According to the notions current amongst Italians, and particularly amongst many members of their church, Dino felt himself justified in equivocating in a case where absolute truth would not have served his purpose. His conscience did not reproach him for want of truthfulness, but it did for want of confidence in Padre Cristoforo. For he loved Padre Cristoforo; and Padre Cristoforo loved him.

Brian Luttrell's illness was a long and severe one. He lay insensible for some time, and awoke to wild delirium, which lasted for many days. The Brothers of San Stefano nursed him with the greatest care, and it was observable that the Prior himself spent a good deal of time in the patient's room, and showed unusual interest in his progress towards recovery. The Prior understood English; but if he had hoped to gather any information concerning Brian's history from the ravings of his delirium he was mistaken. Brian's mind ran upon the incidents of his childhood, upon the tour that he had made with his father when he was a boy, upon his school-days; not upon the sad and tragic events with which he had been connected. He scarcely ever mentioned the names of his mother or brother. Like Falstaff, when he lay a-dying, be "babbled of green fields," and nothing more.

At one time he grew better: then he had a relapse, and was very near death indeed; but at last the power of youth re-asserted itself, and he came slowly back to life once more. But it was as a man who had been in another world; who had faced the bitterness of death and the darkness of the grave.

He was as much startled when he looked at himself for the first time in a looking-glass as a girl who has lost her beauty after a virulent attack of small-pox. Not that he had ever had much beauty to boast of; but the look of youth and hope which had once brightened his eyes was gone; his cheeks were sunken, his temples hollow, his features drawn and pinched with bodily pain and weakness. And—greatest change perhaps of all—his hair had turned from brown to grey; an alteration so striking and visible that, as he put down the little mirror which had been brought to him, he murmured to himself, with a bitter smile—"My own mother would not know me now." And then he turned his face away from the light, and lay silent and motionless for so long a space of time that the lay-brother who waited on him thought that he was sleeping.

When he rose from his bed and was able to sit in the sunny garden or the cloisters, spring had come in all its tender glow of beauty, and sent a thrill of fresh life through the sick man's veins.

Nature had always been dear to Brian. He loved the sights and sounds of country life. The hills, the waving trees, tranquil skies and running water calmed and refreshed his jaded brain and harrassed nerves. The broad fields, crimsoning with anemones, purpling with hyacinth and auricula; the fresh green of the fig trees, the lovely tendrils of the newly shooting vines even the sight of the oxen with their patient eyes, and the homely, feathered creatures of the farmyard, clucking and strutting at the sandalled feet of the black-robed, silent, lay-brothers who brought them food—all these things acted like an anodyne upon Brian's stricken heart. There was a life beside that of feeling; a life of passive, peaceful repose; the life of "stocks and stones," and happy, unresponsive things, amidst which he could learn to bear his burden patiently.