"I--I beg your pardon, madam," I stammered, resuming my seat. "I once had a dear friend of that name. Pray, go on."
"For ten years the refugee contrived to keep his little Hortense in the safe and pleasant shelter of her Flemish home. He led a wandering life, no one knew where; and earned his money, no one knew how. Travel-worn and careworn, he was prematurely aged, and at fifty might well have been mistaken for a man of sixty-five or seventy. Poor and broken as he was, however, Monsieur de Sainte Aulaire was every inch a gentleman of the old school; and his little girl was proud of him, when he came to the school to see her. This, however, was very seldom--never oftener than twice or three times in the year. When she saw him for the last time, Hortense was about thirteen years of age. He looked paler, and thinner, and poorer than ever; and when he bade her farewell, it was as if under the presentiment that they might meet no more. He then told her, for the first time, something of his story, and left with her at parting a small coffer containing his decorations, a few trinkets that had been his mother"s, and his sword--the badge of his n.o.bility."
The lady"s voice faltered. I neither spoke nor stirred, but sat like a man of stone.
Then she went on again:--
"The father never came again. The child, finding herself after a certain length of time thrown upon the charity of her former instructors, was glad to become under-teacher in their school. The rest of her history may be told in a few words. From under-teacher she became head-teacher, and at eighteen pa.s.sed as governess into a private family. At twenty she removed to Paris, and set foot for the first time in the land of her fathers. All was now changed in France. The Bourbons reigned again, and her father, had he reappeared, might have reclaimed his lost estates.
She sought him far and near. She employed agents to discover him. She could not believe that he was dead. To be once again clasped in his arms--to bring him back to his native country---to see him resume his name and station--this was the bright dream of her life. To accomplish these things she labored in many ways, teaching and writing; for Hortense also was proud--too proud to put forward an unsupported claim.
For with her father were lost the t.i.tle-deeds and papers that might have made the daughter wealthy, and she had no means of proving her ident.i.ty.
Still she labored heartily, lived poorly, and earned enough to push her inquiries far and wide--even to journey hither and thither, whenever she fancied, alas! that a clue had been found. Twice she travelled into Switzerland, and once into Italy, but always in vain. The exile had too well concealed, even from her, his _sobriquet_ and his calling, and Hortense at last grew weary of failure. One fact, however, she succeeded in discovering, and only one--namely, that her father had, many years before, made some attempt to establish his claims to the estates, but that he had failed for want either of sufficient proof, or of means to carry on the _proces_. Of even this circ.u.mstance only a meagre law-record remained, and she could succeed in learning no more. Since then, a claim has been advanced by a remote branch of the Sainte Aulaire family, and the cause is, even now, in course of litigation."
She paused, as if fatigued by so long talking; but, seeing me about to speak, prevented me with a gesture of the hand, and resumed:--
"Hortense de Ste. Aulaire continued to live in Paris for nearly five years, at the end of which time she left it to seek out the members of her mother"s family. Finding them kindly disposed towards her, she took up her abode amongst them in the calm seclusion of a remote Scotch town.
There, even there, she still hoped, still employed agents; still yearned to discover, if not her father, at least her father"s grave. Several years pa.s.sed thus. She continued to earn a modest subsistence by her pen, till at length the death of one of those Scotch relatives left her mistress of a small inheritance. Money was welcome, since it enabled her to pursue her task with renewed vigor. She searched farther and deeper. A trivial circ.u.mstance eagerly followed up brought a train of other circ.u.mstances to light. She discovered that her father had a.s.sumed a certain name; she found that the bearer of this name was a wandering man, a conjuror by trade; she pursued the vague traces of his progress from town to town, from county to county, sometimes losing, sometimes regaining the scattered links. Sir, he was my father--I am that Hortense. I have spent my life seeking him--I have lived for this one hope. I have traced his footsteps here to Saxonholme, and here the last clue fails. If you know anything--if you can remember anything---"
Calm and collected as she had been at first, she was trembling now, and her voice died away in sobs. The firelight fell upon her face--upon the face of my lost love!
I also was profoundly agitated.
"Hortense," I said, "do you not know, that he who stood beside your father in his last hour, and he who so loved you years ago, are one and the same? Alas! why did you not tell me these things long since?"
"Did _you_ stand beside my father"s deathbed?" she asked brokenly.
"I did."
She clasped her hands over her eyes and shuddered, as if beneath the pressure of a great physical pain.
"O G.o.d!" she murmured, "so many years of denial and suffering! so many years of darkness that might have been dispelled by a word!"
We were both silent for a long time. Then I told her all that I remembered of her father; how he came to Saxonholme--how he fell ill--how he died, and was buried. It was a melancholy recital; painful for me to relate--painful for her to hear--and interrupted over and over again by questions and tears, and bursts of unavailing sorrow.
"We will visit his grave to-morrow," I said, when all was told.
She bent her head.
"To-morrow, then," said she, "I end the pilgrimage of years."
"And--and afterwards?" I faltered.
"Afterwards? Alas! friend, when the hopes of years fall suddenly to dust and ashes, one feels as if there were no future to follow?"
"It is true," I said gloomily. "I know it too well."
"You know it?" she exclaimed, looking up.
"I know it, Hortense. There was a moment in which all the hope, and the fulness, and the glory of my life went down at a blow. Have you not heard of ships that have gone to the bottom in fair weather, suddenly, with all sail set, and every hand on board?"
She looked at me with a strange earnestness in her eyes, and sighed heavily.
"What have you been doing all this time, fellow-student?" she asked, after a pause.
The old name sounded very sweet upon her lips!
"I? Alas!--nothing."
"But you are a surgeon, are you not?"
"No. I never even went up for examination. I gave up all idea of medicine as a profession when my father died."
"What are you, then?"
"An idler upon the great highway--a book-dreamer--a library fixture."
Hortense looked at me thoughtfully, with her cheek resting on her hand.
"Have you done nothing but read and dream?"
"Not quite. I have travelled."
"With what object?"
"A purely personal one. I was alone and unhappy, and--"
"And fancied that purposeless wandering was better for you than healthy labor. Well, you have travelled, and you have read books. What more?"
"Nothing more, except--"
"Except what?"
I chanced to have one of the papers in my pocket, and so drew it out, and placed it before her.
"I have been a rhymer as well as a dreamer," I said, shyly. "Perhaps the rhymes grew out of the dreams, as the dreams themselves grew out of something else which has been underlying my life this many a year. At all events I have hewn a few of them into shape, and trusted them to paper and type--and here is a critique which came to me this morning with some three or four others."
She took the paper with a smile half of wonder, half of kindness, and, glancing quickly through it, said:--
"This is well. This is very well. I must read the book. Will you lend it to me?"
"I will give it to you," I replied; "if I can give you that which is already yours."
"Already mine?"
"Yes, as the poet in me, however worthless, is all and only yours! Do you suppose, Hortense, that I have ever ceased to love you? As my songs are born of my sorrow, so my sorrow was born of my love; and love, and sorrow, and song, such as they are, are of your making."
"Hush!" she said, with something of her old gay indifference. "Your literary sins must not be charged upon me, fellow-student! I have enough of my own to answer for. Besides, I am not going to acquit you so easily. Granted that you have written a little book of poetry--what then? Have you done nothing else? Nothing active? Nothing manly?
Nothing useful?"