Such complete pre-occupation had his agitation and trouble over my mind, that it was long ere I could attempt to recall how I had evoked this burst of pa.s.sion, and by what words I had stirred him so to address me.
Suddenly the truth flashed boldly out; I perceived the whole nature of the error. He had, in fact, interrupted iny explanation at a point which made it seem that I was seeking his grandaughter in marriage. Not waiting to hear me out, he deemed the allusions to my name, my family arms, and my fortune, were intended to convey a proposal to make her my wife. Alas! I needed no longer to wonder at his repugnance, nor speculate further on the energy of his refusal. How entertain such a thought for his poor child! It were, indeed, to weave Cyprus with the garland of the Bride!
Impatient any longer to lie under the misconception--at heart, perhaps, vexed to think how wrongfully he must have judged me when deeming me capable of the thought--I hastened back to the Villa, determined at once to rectify the error and make him hear me out, whatever pains the interview should cost either.
On gaining the house I found that Sir Gordon had just driven from the door. Miss Howard, who for two days had been indisposed, was still in her room. Resolving, then, to make my explanation in writing, I went to my room; on the table lay a letter addressed to me, the writing of which was scarcely dry. It ran thus:--
"My dearest Friend,
"If I, in part, foresaw the possibility of what your words to-day a.s.sured me, and yet did not guard against the hazard, the sad circ.u.mstances of my lot in life are all I can plead in my favour. I have never ceased to reproach myself that I had not been candid and open with you at first, when our intimacy was fresh. Afterwards, as it became friendship, the avowal was impossible. I must not trust myself with more. I have gone from home for a day or two, that when we meet again the immediate memory of our last interview should have been softened. Be to me--to her, also--as though the words were never spoken; nor withdraw any portion of your affection from those you have rescued from the greatest of all calamities.
"Yours ever,
"Gordon Howard."
The mystery grew darker and more impenetrable; hara.s.sing, maddening suspicions, mixed themselves up in my brain, with thoughts too terrible for endurance. I saw that, in Sir Gordon"s error as to my intentions, he had unwittingly disclosed the existence of a secret--a secret whose meaning seemed fraught with dreadful import; that he would never have touched upon this mysterious theme, save under the false impression my attempted proposal had induced, was clear enough; and, that thus I had unwittingly wrung from him an avowal which, under other circ.u.mstances, he had never been induced to make.
I set about to think over every word I had used in our last interview--each expression I had employed, torturing the simplest phrases by interpretations the most remote and unlikely, that thereby some clue should present itself to this mystery: but, charge my memory how I could, reflect and ponder as I might, the words of his letter had a character of more deep and serious meaning than a mere refusal of my proposition, taken in what sense it might, could be supposed to call for. At moments, thoughts would flash across my brain so terrible in their import, that had they dwelt longer I must have gone mad. They were like sudden paroxysms of some agonising disease, coming and recurring at intervals. Just as one of these had left me, weak, worn out, and exhausted, a carriage, drawn by four post-horses, drew up to the door of the Villa, and the instant after my servant knocked at my door, saying, "La Comtesse de Favancourt is arrived, sir, and wishes to see you."
Who was there whose presence I would not rather have faced?--that gay and heartless woman of fashion, whose eyes, long practised to read a history in each face, would soon detect in my agitated looks that "something had occurred," nor cease till she had discovered it. In Sir Gordon"s absence, and as Lucy was still indisposed, I had no alternative but to receive her.
Scarcely had I entered the drawing-room than my worst fears were realised. She was seated in an arm-chair, and lay back as if fatigued by her journey; but on seeing me, without waiting to return my greeting of welcome, she asked, abruptly,--
"Where"s Sir Gordon?--where"s Miss Howard? Haven"t they been expecting me?"
I answered, that Sir Gordon had gone over to the Brianza for a day; that Miss Howard had been confined to her room, but, I was certain, had only to learn her arrival to dress and come down to her.
"Is this said _de bonne foi?_" said she, with a smile where the expression was far more of severity than sweetness. "Are you treating me candidly, Mr. Templeton? or is this merely another exercise of your old functions as Diplomatist?"
I started, partly from actual amazement, partly from a feeling of indignant shame, at the accusation; but, recovering at once, a.s.sured her calmly and respectfully that all I had said was the simple fact, without the slightest shade of equivocation.
"So much the better," said she gaily; "for I own to you I was beginning to suspect our worthy friends of other motives. You know what a tiresome world of puritanism and mock propriety we live in, and I was actually disposed to fear that these dear souls had got up both the absence and the illness not to receive me."
"Not to receive you! Impossible!" said I, with unfeigned astonishment.
"The Howards, whom I have always reckoned as your oldest and most intimate friends----"
"Oh, yes! very old friends, certainly: but remember that these are exactly the kind of people who take upon them to be severer than all the rest of the world, and are ten times as rigid and unforgiving as one"s enemies. Now, as I could not possibly know how this affair might have been told to them----"
"What affair? I"m really quite in the dark to what you allude."
"I mean my separation from Favancourt."
"Are you separated from your husband, Lady Blanche?" asked I, in a state of agitation in strong contrast to her calm and quiet manner.
"What a question, when all the papers have been discussing it these three weeks! And from an old admirer, too! Shame on you, Mr. Templeton!"
I know not how it was, but the levity of this speech, given as it was, made my cheek flush till it actually seemed to burn.
"Nay, nay, I didn"t mean you to blush so deeply," said she, "And what a dear, sweet, innocent kind of life you must have been leading here, on this romantic lake, to be capable of such soft emotions! Oh, dear!"
sighed she, weariedly. "You men have an immense advantage in your affairs of the heart; you can always begin as freshly with each new affection, and be as youthful in sentiment with each new love, as we are with our only pa.s.sion. Now I see it all; you have been getting up a "_tendre_" here for somebody or other:--not Taglioni, I hope, for I see that is her Villa yonder,--There, don"t look indignant. This same Lake of Como has long been known to be the paradise of _danseuses_ and opera-singers; and I thought it possible you might have dramatised a little love-story to favour the illusion. Well, well," said she, sighing, "so that you have not fallen in love with poor Lucy Howard----"
"And why not with her?" said I, starting, while in my quick-beating heart and burning temples a sense of torturing pain went through me.
"Why not with her?" reiterated she, pausing at each word, and fixing her eyes steadfastly on me, with a look where no affected astonishment existed; "why not with her?--did you say this?"
"I did; and do ask, What is there to make it strange that one like her should inspire the deepest sentiment of devotion, even from one whose days are so surely numbered as mine are--so unworthy to hope--to win her?"
"Then you really are unaware! Well, I must say this was not treating you fairly. I thought every one knew it, however; and I conclude they themselves reasoned in the same way. Come, I suppose I must explain; though, from your terrified face and staring eyeb.a.l.l.s, I wish the task had devolved on some other. Be calm and collected, or I shall never venture upon it.--Well, poor dear Lucy inherits her mother"s malady--she is insane!"
Broken half-words, stray fragments of speech, met my ears, for she went on to talk of the terrible theme with the volubility of one who revelled in a story of such thrilling horror. I, however, neither heard nor remembered more; pa.s.sages of well-remembered interest flashed upon my mind, but, like scenes lit up by some lurid light, glowed with meanings too direful to dwell on.
How I parted from her--how I left the Villa and came hither, travelling day and night, till exhausted strength could bear no more--are still memories too faint to recall; the realities of these last few days have less vividness than my own burning, wasting thoughts: nor can I, by any effort, separate the terrible recital she gave from my own reflections upon it.
I must never recur to this again--nor will I reopen the page whereon it is written: I have written this to test my own powers of mind, lest I too----
Shakspeare, who knew the heart as none, save the inspired, have ever known it, makes it the test of sanity to recall the events of a story in the same precise order, time after time, neither changing nor inverting them. This is Lear"s reply to the accusation of madness, when yet his intelligence was unclouded,--"I will the matter re-word, which madness would gabble from."
CHAPTER VIII. _Lerici, Gulf of Spezzia_
Another night of fever! The sea, beating heavily upon the rocks, prevented sleep; or worse--filled it with images of shipwreck and storm. I sat till nigh midnight on the terrace--poor Sh.e.l.ley"s favourite resting-place--watching the night as it fell, at first in gloomy darkness, and then bright and starlit. There was no moon, but the planets, reflected in the calm sea, were seen like tall pillars of reddish light; and although all the details of the scenery were in shadow, the bold outlines of the distant Apennines, and of the Ponto Venere and the Island of Palmaria, were all distinctly marked out. The tall masts and taper spars of the French fleet at anchor in the bay were also seen against the sky, and the lurid glow of the fires spangled the surface of the sea. Strange chaos of thought was mine! At one moment, Lord Byron was before me, as, seated on the taffrail of the "Bolivar,"
with all canva.s.s stretched, he plunged through the blue waters; his fair brown hair spray-washed and floating back with the breeze; his lip curled with the smile of insolent defiance; and his voice ringing with the music of his own glorious verse. Towards midnight the weather suddenly changed; to the total stillness succeeded a low but distant moaning sound, which came nearer and nearer, and at last a "Levanter,"
in all its fury, broke over the sea, and rolled the mad waves in ma.s.ses towards the sh.o.r.e. I have seen a storm in the Bay of Biscay, and I have witnessed a "whole gale" off the coast of Labrador, but for suddenness, and for the wild tumult of sea and wind commingled, I never saw any thing like this. Not in huge rolling mountains, as in the Atlantic, did the waves move along, but in short, abrupt jets, as though impelled by some force beneath; now, skimming each over each, and now, spiriting up into the air, they threw foam and spray around them like gigantic fountains. As abruptly as the storm began, so did it cease; and as the wind fell, the waves moved more and more sluggishly; and in a s.p.a.ce of time inconceivably brief, nothing remained of the hurricane save the short plash of the breakers, and at intervals some one, long, thundering roar, as a heavier ma.s.s threw its weight upon the strand. It was just then, ere the sea had resumed its former calm, and while still warring with the effects of the gale, I thought I saw a boat lying keel uppermost in the water, and a man grasping with all the energy of despair to catch the slippery planks, which rose and sank with every motion of the tide. Though apparently far out at sea, all was palpable and distinct to my eyes as if happening close to where I sat. A grey darkness was around, and yet at one moment--so brief as to be uncountable--I could mark his features, beautifully handsome and calm even in his drowning agony; at least so did their wan and wearied expression strike me. Poor Sh.e.l.ley! I fancied you were before me; and, long after the vision pa.s.sed away, a faint, low cry, continued to ring in my ears--the last effort of the voice about to be hushed for ever.
Then the whole picture changed, and I beheld the French fleet all illuminated, as if for a victory; the decks and yards crowded with seamen, and echoing with their triumphant cheers; while on the p.o.o.p-deck of the "Souverain" stood a pale and sickly youth, thoughtful and sad, his admiral"s uniform carelessly half-b.u.t.toned, and his unbelted sword carried negligently in his hand. This was the Prince de Joinville, as I had seen him the day before, when visiting the fleet. I could not frame to my mind where and over whom the victory was won; but disturbed fears for our own naval supremacy flitted constantly across me, and every word I had heard from the French captain who had accompanied me in my visit kept sounding in my ears: as, for instance, while exhibiting the Paixhan"s cannons, he added,--"Now, here is an arm your ships have not acquired." Such impressions must have gone deeper than, at the time, I knew of, for they made the substance of a long and painful dream; and when, awaking suddenly, the first object I beheld was the French fleet resting still and tranquil in the bay, my heart expanded with a sense of relief unspeakably delightful.
So, then, I must hence. These Levanters usually continue ten or twelve days, and then are followed by the Tramontana, as is called the wind from the Apennines; and this same Tramontana is all but fatal to those as weak as I am. How puzzling--I had almost said, how impossible--to know any thing about climate! and how invariably, on this as on most other subjects, mere words usurp the place of ideas! It is enough to say "Italy," to suggest hope to the consumptive man; and yet, what severe trials does this same boasted climate involve! These scorching autumnal suns; and cold, cutting breezes, wherever shade is found;--the genial warmth of summer, here; and yonder, in that alley, the piercing air of winter;--vicissitudes that wake up the extremes of every climate, occur each twenty-four hours. And he, whose frail system can barely sustain the slightest shock, must now learn to accommodate itself to atmospheres of every density; now vapour charged and heavy, now oxygenated to a point of stimulation that, even in health, would be felt as over-exciting.
There is something of the same kind experienced here intellectually: the every-day tone of society is trifling and frivolous to a degree; the topics discussed are of a character which, to our practical notions, never rise above mere levity; and even where others of a deeper interest are introduced, the mode of treating them is superficial and meagre. Yet, every now and then, one meets with some high and great intelligence, some man of wide reflection and deep research; and then, when hearing the words of wisdom in that glorious language, which unites Teutonic vigour with every Gallic elegance, you feel what a people this might be who have such an interpreter for their thoughts and deeds. In this way I remember feeling when first I heard Italian from the lips of a truly great and eloquent speaker. He was a small old man, slightly bowed in the shoulders--merely enough so to exhibit to more advantage the greater elevation of a n.o.ble head, which rose like the dome of a grand cathedral; his forehead, wide and projecting over the brows which were heavy, and would have been almost severe in their meaning, save for the softened expression of his large brown eyes; his hair, originally-black, was now grey, but thick and ma.s.sive, and hang in locky folds, like the antique, on his neck and shoulders. In manner he was simple, quiet, and retiring, avoiding observation, and seeking rather companionship with those whose un.o.btrusive habits made them unlikely for peculiar notice. When I met him he was in exile. Indeed I am not certain if the ban of his offence be recalled; whether or not, the voice of all Italy now invokes his return, and the name of Gioberti is a.s.sociated with the highest and the n.o.blest views of national freedom.
Well, indeed, were it for the cause of Italy if her progress were to be entrusted to men like this--if the great principles of reform were to be committed to intelligences capable of weighing difficulties, avoiding and accommodating dangers. So late as the day before last I had an opportunity of seeing a case in point. It is but a few weeks since the good people of Lucca, filled with new wine and bright notions of liberty, compelled their sovereign to abdicate. There is no denying that he had no other course open to him; for if the Grand Duke of Tuscany could venture to accord popular privileges, supported as he was by a very strong body of n.o.bles, whose possessions will always a.s.sure them a great interest in the state, the little kingdom of Lucca had few, if any, such securities. Its sovereign must either rule or be ruled. Now, he had not energy of character for the one--he did not like the other.
Austria refused to aid him--not wishing, probably, to add to the complication of Ferrara; and so he abdicated. Now comes _le commencement du fin_. The Luccese gained the day: they expelled the Duke--they organised a national guard--they illuminated--they protested, c.o.c.kaded, and--are ruined! Without trade, or any of its resources, this little capital, like almost all those of the German duchies, lived upon "the Court." The sovereign was not only the fount of honour, but of wealth!
Through his household flowed the only channel by which industry was nurtured: it was his court and his dependants whose wants employed the active heads and hands of the entire city. The Duke is gone--the palace closed--the courtyard even already half gra.s.s-grown! Not an equipage is to be heard or seen; not even a footman in a court livery rides past; and all the recompense for this is the newly conferred privileges of liberty, to a people who recognise in freedom, not a new bond of obligation, but an unbridled license of action. The spirit of our times is, however, against this. The inspired grocers, who form the Guardia Civica, are our only guides now; it will be curious enough to see where they will lead us.
When thinking of Italian liberty, or Unity, for that is the phrase in vogue, I am often reminded of the Irish priest who was supposed by his parishioners to possess an unlimited sway over the seasons, and who, when hard-pushed to exercise it, at last declared his readiness to procure any kind of weather that three farmers would agree upon, well knowing, the while, how diversity of interest must for ever prevent a common demand. This is precisely the case. An Italian kingdom to comprise the whole Peninsula would be impossible. The Lombards have no interests in common with the Neapolitans. Venice is less the sister than the rival of Genoa. How would the haughty Milanese, rich in every thing that const.i.tutes wealth, surrender their station to the men of the South, whom they despise and look down upon? None would consent to become Provincial; and even the smallest states would stand up for the prerogative of separate ident.i.ty.
"A National" Guard slowly paces before the gate, within which Royalty no longer dwells; and the banner of their independence floats over their indigence! Truly, they have torn up their mantle to make a cap of Liberty, and they must bear the cold how they may!
As for the Duke himself, I believe he deserves the epithet I heard a Frenchman bestow upon him--he is a _Pauvre Sire!_ There is a fatal consistency, certainly, about the conduct of these Bourbon Princes in moments of trying emergency! They never will recognise danger till too late to avert it. The Prince of Lucca, like Charles Dix, laughed at popular menace, and yet had barely time to escape from popular vengeance. There was a Ball at the palace on the very night when the tumult attained its greatest importance; frequent messages were sent by the Ministers, and more than one order to the troops given during the progress of the entertainment. A despatch was opened at the supper-table; and as the Crown Prince led out his fair partner--an English beauty, by-the-by--to the _cotillon_, he whispered in her ear, "We must keep it up late, for I fancy we shall never have another dance in this _salle!_" And this is the way Princes can take leave of their inheritance; and so it is, the "divine right" can be understood by certain "Rulers of the people."
If the defence of Monarchy depended on the lives and characters of monarchs, how few could resist Republicanism! though, perhaps, every thing considered, there is no station in life where the same number of good and graceful qualities is so certain to win men"s favour and regard. Maginn used to say, that we "admire wit in a woman as we admire a few words spoken plain by a parrot."
The speech was certainly not a very gallant one; but I half suspect that our admiration of royal attainments is founded upon a similar principle.
Kings can rarely be good talkers, because they have not gone through the great training-school of talk--which is, conversation. This is impossible where there is no equality; and how often does it occur to monarchs to meet each other, and when they do, what a stilted, unreal thing, must be their intercourse! Of reigning sovereigns, the King of Prussia is perhaps the most gifted in this way; of course, less endowed with that shrewd appreciation of character, that intuitive perception of every man"s bias, which marks the Monarch of the Tuileries, but possessed of other and very different qualities, and with one especially which never can be overvalued--an earnest sincerity of purpose in every thing. There is no escaping from the conviction, that here is a man who reflects and wills, and whose appeal to conscience is the daily rule of life. The Nationality of Germany is his great object, and for it he labours as strenuously--may it be as successfully!--as ever his "Great"
predecessor did to accomplish the opposite. What a country would it be if the same spirit of nationality were to prevail from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and "Germany" have a political signification as well as a geographical one!
After all, if we have outlived the age of heroic monarchy, we have happily escaped that of royal debauches. A celebrated Civil Engineer of our day is reported to have said, in his examination before a parliamentary committee, that he regarded "rivers as intended by Providence to supply navigable ca.n.a.ls;" in the same spirit one might opine certain characters of royalty were created to supply materials for Vaudevilles.