This was the last letter Florence ever received from him; long ere she read its welcome news the hand that penned it was cold, the heart that dictated it forgotten to throb far beneath the blue waters, lowly laid among the coral reefs. The "Recluse" was to touch at the Cape, but it never cast anchor in sight of Table Mountain. In vain Florence scanned the papers, in vain she read the ship news; time passed on, and no letter came. News arrived that some terrific gales had swept the ocean at the time the "Recluse" was expected to reach Cape Town, and it was surmised she had run past, and would perhaps steer for Madagascar. Two more anxious months passed away, in which the Earl and family left the Towers for their town residence—still no news of the vessel; by-and-by the Earl himself, who had been the most sanguine, began to despond, and grow anxious. The papers were full of the missing vessel, in which some of the flower of the land had sailed. Lady Florence grew pale and paler still, as vessel after vessel arrived, and no news of the missing ship. By this time it ought to have long since arrived in India, and doubts became almost certain conjectures that she was lost. Still it was possible that she might have put in at some out of the way harbour in a disabled condition, and hope still lingered in many a mourner's breast. A war ship was sent out by the Admiralty and scoured the seas in search of her; every port was called at, but without avail. After a long age of suspense, and hope deferred which sickens the heart, the frigate returned without tidings, and the "Recluse" was struck from the Navy List. Lady Florence still hoped, so long is it before we bid hope depart! Ships had been lost ere this for years; he was such a fine swimmer he might have been picked up by a vessel, which had sailed to the other end of the world, or cast on a barren rock, and like Alexander Selkirk might come back after long years. About a year after the search a little vessel arrived at Liverpool with news, the only news ever gained of the "Recluse," and it was only cruel tidings that rekindles dying expectation to quench it again. This vessel had seen the "Recluse" drifting—a mastless hulk, on its beam ends, in a fearful hurricane off the Cape, lat. 40° 7', long. 35° 13'; not a soul was on deck, and she had neither bowsprit nor rudder. The little vessel herself could render no assistance, though she scudded under bare poles so near as to read her name on the stern. Shortly after she heard a gun of distress, and the last thing she saw was the ill-fated vessel lying in the trough of a monstrous billow which she could never surmount. They fancied this sea had swamped her, as they neither saw nor heard more of her afterwards. They declared her case was quite hopeless, and a worse hurricane they had never weathered.
Such was the news which banished the last ray of hope from every breast;—no, not from every breast, one still madly hoped on. But it was a hope that belied itself, for the despairing Florence showed her belief, though she owned it not, by wearing the garb of mourning. It was a hope which killed its victim. As the power of swimming holds up the shipwrecked mariner only a little longer on the wide waters, and makes the pang of sinking at last only more intense, as he strikes for the light far in front which he knows he has not the strength to reach, so Florence's only fed her despair. This despairing, unbelieving grief was like a blight at the core; the heart's woe slowly, but surely, worked its desolations on the fair, frail bearer. It was slowly received, but lasting; as the frost at night imperceptibly, but surely, freezes the waters that sleep beneath its chilling breath; or better still, the unseen, unnoticed, petrifying water hardens, chills, deadens, the living grass that grows green on its banks—so with Lady Florence, the grief at first discredited, then doubted, and little by little gradually imbibed into her heart, and believed—whilst she denied the pang that killed her, showed its outward ravages on the pale cheek, tinted with a hectic flush that told its tale, and in the eye unnaturally bright. Her friends saw the dire premonitions of her fate, and her brother took the best medical advice. But the heart's wounds are not to be cured, and when the seat of life is touched, when the root is blighted, woe to the branches!
When the doctor saw his patient he pronounced it at once a lost case; that fast decline no mortal hand could arrest, its stay could only be gained by an immediate removal to a warmer climate. Madeira was first chosen, but as the Villa Reale at Naples had every comfort of an English house the doctor decided on her departure thither, stating that every hour spent in this damp, foggy country was a day lost. The Earl and Countess, deeply grieved not only at the untimely death of the young and promising soldier, who had perished,
"As on that night of stormy water
When love, who sent, forgot to save
The young, the beautiful, the brave,
The lonely hope of Sestos' daughter—"
but also at the near prospect of another loss to add to their woe, delayed not in obeying their medical adviser, and at once started for Naples in their yacht, "The Star of the Sea." The voyage was specially recommended, so they sailed with the invalid about to end her short life amid the flowers and myrtle-groves of Ausonia's sunny clime and favoured shores!
CHAPTER X.
"And one, o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fanned;
She faded midst Italian flowers,
The last of that bright band!"—Hemans.
Though we have not mentioned the grief of the Countess for her only brother's death, owing to the greater and more distracting woe of Lady Florence's engaging our attention, it must not be inferred from thence she did not deeply and long feel her irreparable loss. After her husband and children, there was no living being who had so entwined himself round the young mother's heart as her brother had ever done. She had had, it might be said, his entire moral education in her training from a child; he had grown a credit to his mistress, besides combining all, in his appearance and manners, that most captivates woman's heart. She was at once proud and delighted with her pupil:—proud to see her careful and painstaking bringing up had been so well developed, and exceeded her highest expectations; delighted to see how he reflected credit on her family; and, most of all, found an anxious well-wisher in her husband. But alas for early promise! alas for youthful hopes! The pride of her eyes, the idol of her heart, had been rudely snatched away. All her long watching,—just when the plant was beginning to reflect glory on its trainer,—had proved in vain. The child of so many prayers had early been called hence; his sun had gone down whilst it was yet day; in the very spring of its sunshine, at the very hour when his rays were most cherished, the eclipse had come on and the Countess felt a double pang in thus losing not only her brother, but as it were her son,—for so she almost regarded him. Her father, too, was an object of solicitude; he had lost the prop of his old age, his only surviving son; and so heavily had the loss fallen on him, it seemed as if he too would soon follow the light of his eyes to the tomb.
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; and Ellen was now learning, by sad experience, that to be great is not to be happy,—to be rich is not to be free from care. The Weird was fast fulfilling; one by one, in the bloom of their age, the flowers of the family were falling off. Lady Arranmore was gone; now Lady Florence was going;—who would be the next to follow? These were sad thoughts, which often cast a shadow on Ellen's fair face. She was still so young, but seemed as if she was to be stricken again and again, and when she looked on her lord, her children, and all over whom the Weird had its fatal power, she trembled! Her own sorrows were partly lessened by the task of comforting and sympathising with the griefs of others. She had her father in his sonless woe, and Florence in her declining health; and, like all tender minds, she forgot her own in alleviating another's misery. She had also her children to think of, and almost seemed unable to grasp all her duties, and do all that was required. Had she not had a higher Comforter, she could never have borne up against such a complication of disasters; but she had learned that lesson which is the last a Christian is perfected in,—to cast all her care on a greater than any earthly friend, and to feel sure all was for the best,—good would spring from evil;—yes, often the shadow goes before the blessing, the cloud before the refreshing shower, and the shower before the rainbow! The darkest hour is the hour before dawn; and faith must not tremble at the dimness of darkness, but look forward to the bright sun that follows.