Book: My Novel, Volume 10.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> My Novel, Volume 10.




"Not so, Mr. Leslie; for I suspect that he cannot answer it, and that you
can. Well, I will ask something that it seems to me you may grant
without hesitation. Should you see Dr. Riccabocca, tell him that I am in
England, and so leave it to him to communicate with me or not; but
perhaps you have already done so?"

"Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, bowing low, with pointed formality,
"excuse me if I decline either to disclaim or acquiesce in the knowledge
you impute to me. If I am acquainted with any secret intrusted to me by
Dr. Riccabocca, it is for me to use my own discretion how best to guard
it. And for the rest, after the Scotch earl, whose words your Lordship
has quoted, refused to touch the hand of Marmion, Douglas could scarcely
have called Marmion back in order to give him--a message!"

Harley was not prepared for this tone in Mr. Egerton's protege, and his
own gallant nature was rather pleased than irritated by a haughtiness
that at least seemed to bespeak independence of spirit. Nevertheless,
L'Estrange's suspicions of Randal were too strong to be easily set aside,
and therefore he replied, civilly, but with covert taunt,

"I submit to your rebuke, Mr. Leslie, though I meant not the offence you
would ascribe to me. I regret my unlucky quotation yet the more, since
the wit of your retort has obliged you to identify yourself with Marmion,
who, though a clever and brave fellow, was an uncommonly--tricky one."
And so Harley, certainly having the best of it, moved on, and joined
Egerton, and in a few minutes more both left the room.

"What was L'Estrange saying to you?" asked Frank. "Something about
Beatrice, I am sure."

"No; only quoting poetry."

"Then what made you look so angry, my dear fellow? I know it was your
kind feeling for me. As you say, he is a formidable rival. But that
can't be his own hair. Do you think he wears a toupet? I am sure he was
praising Beatrice. He is evidently very much smitten with her. But I
don't think she is a woman to be caught by mere rank and fortune! Do
you? Why can't you speak?"

"If you do not get her consent soon, I think she is lost to you," said
Randal, slowly; and before Frank could recover his dismay, glided from
the house.




CHAPTER IX.

Violante's first evening at the Lansmeres had passed more happily to her
than the first evening under the same roof had done to Helen. True that
she missed her father much, Jemima somewhat; but she so identified her
father's cause with Harley that she had a sort of vague feeling that it
was to promote that cause that she was on this visit to Harley's parents.
And the countess, it must be owned, was more emphatically cordial to her
than she had ever yet been to Captain Digby's orphan. But perhaps the
real difference in the heart of either girl was this, that Helen felt awe
of Lady Lansmere, and Violante felt only love for Lord L'Estrange's
mother. Violante, too, was one of those persons whom a reserved and
formal person, like the countess, "can get on with," as the phrase goes.
Not so poor little Helen,--so shy herself, and so hard to coax into more
than gentle monosyllables. And Lady Lansmere's favourite talk was always
of Harley. Helen had listened to such talk with respect and interest.
Violante listened to it with inquisitive eagerness, with blushing
delight. The mother's heart noticed the distinction between the two, and
no wonder that that heart moved more to Violante than to Helen. Lord
Lansmere, too, like most gentlemen of his age, clumped all young ladies
together as a harmless, amiable, but singularly stupid class of the
genus-Petticoat, meant to look pretty, play the piano, and talk to each
other about frocks and sweethearts. Therefore this animated, dazzling
creature, with her infinite variety of look and play of mind, took him by
surprise, charmed him into attention, and warmed him into gallantry.
Helen sat in her quiet corner, at her work, sometimes listening with
almost mournful, though certainly unenvious, admiration at Violante's
vivid, yet ever unconscious, eloquence of word and thought, sometimes
plunged deep into her own secret meditations. And all the while the work
went on the same, under the small, noiseless fingers. This was one of
Helen's habits that irritated the nerves of Lady Lansmere. She despised
young ladies who were fond of work. She did not comprehend how often it
is the resource of the sweet womanly mind, not from want of thought, but
from the silence and the depth of it. Violante was surprised, and
perhaps disappointed, that Harley had left the house before dinner, and
did not return all the evening. But Lady Lansmere, in making excuse for
his absence, on the plea of engagements, found so good an opportunity to
talk of his ways in general,--of his rare promise in boyhood, of her
regret at the inaction of his maturity, of her hope to see him yet do
justice to his natural powers,--that Violante almost ceased to miss him.

And when Lady Lansmere conducted her to her room, and, kissing her cheek
tenderly, said, "But you are just the person Harley admires,--just the
person to rouse him from melancholy dreams, of which his wild humours are
now but the vain disguise"--Violante crossed her arms on her bosom, and
her bright eyes, deepened into tenderness, seemed to ask, "He melancholy
--and why?"

On leaving Violante's room, Lady Lansmere paused before the door of
Helen's; and, after musing a little while, entered softly.

Helen had dismissed her maid; and, at the moment Lady Lansmere entered,
she was kneeling at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped before her
face.

Her form, thus seen, looked so youthful and child-like, the attitude
itself was so holy and so touching, that the proud and cold expression on
Lady Lansmere's face changed. She shaded the light involuntarily, and
seated herself in silence that she might not disturb the act of prayer.

When Helen rose, she was startled to see the countess seated by the fire,
and hastily drew her hand across her eyes. She had been weeping.

Lady Lansmere did not, however, turn to observe those traces of tears,
which Helen feared were too visible. The countess was too absorbed in
her own thoughts; and as Helen timidly approached, she said--still with
her eyes on the clear low fire--"I beg your pardon, Miss Digby, for my
intrusion; but my son has left it to me to prepare Lord Lansmere to learn
the offer you have done Harley the honour to accept. I have not yet
spoken to my Lord; it may be days before I find a fitting occasion to do
so; meanwhile I feel assured that your sense of propriety will make you
agree, with me that it is due to Lord L'Estrange's father, that strangers
should not learn arrangements of such moment in his family before his own
consent be obtained."

Here the countess came to a full pause; and poor Helen, finding herself
called upon for some reply to this chilling speech, stammered out, scarce
audibly,

"Certainly, madam, I never dreamed of--"

"That is right, my dear," interrupted Lady Lansmere, rising suddenly, and
as if greatly relieved. "I could not doubt your superiority to ordinary
girls of your age, with whom these matters are never secret for a moment.
Therefore, of course, you will not mention, at present, what has passed
between you and Harley, to any of the friends with whom you may
correspond."

"I have no correspondents, no friends, Lady Lansmere," said Helen,
deprecatingly, and trying hard not to cry.

"I am very glad to hear it, my dear; young ladies never should have.
Friends, especially friends who correspond, are the worst enemies they
can have. Good-night, Miss Digby. I need not add, by the way, that
though we are bound to show all kindness to this young Italian lady,
still she is wholly unconnected with our family; and you will be as
prudent with her as you would have been with your correspondents, had you
had the misfortune to have any."

Lady Lansmere said the last words with a smile, and left an ungenial kiss
(the stepmother's kiss) on Helen's bended brow. She then left the room,
and Helen sat on the seat vacated by the stately, unloving form, and
again covered her face with her hands, and again wept. But when she rose
at last, and the light fell upon her face, that soft face was sad indeed,
but serene,--serene, as with some inward sense of duty, sad, as with the
resignation which accepts patience instead of hope.




CHAPTER X.

The next morning Harley appeared at breakfast. He was in gay spirits,
and conversed more freely with Violante than he had yet done. He seemed
to amuse himself by attacking all she said, and provoking her to
argument. Violante was naturally a very earnest person; whether grave or
gay, she spoke with her heart on her lips, and her soul in her eyes. She
did not yet comprehend the light vein of Harley's irony, so she grew
piqued and chafed; and she was so lovely in anger; it so brightened the
beauty and animated her words, that no wonder Harley thus maliciously
teased her. But what, perhaps, she liked still less than the teasing--
though she could not tell why--was the kind of familiarity that Harley
assumed with her,--a familiarity as if he had known her all her life,--
that of a good-humoured elder brother, or a bachelor uncle. To Helen,
on the contrary, when he did not address her apart, his manner was more
respectful. He did not call her by her Christian name, as he did
Violante, but "Miss Digby," and softened his tone and inclined his head
when he spoke to her. Nor did he presume to jest at the very few and
brief sentences he drew from Helen, but rather listened to them with
deference, and invariably honoured them with approval. After breakfast
he asked Violante to play or sing; and when she frankly owned how little
she had cultivated those accomplishments, he persuaded Helen to sit down
to the piano, and stood by her side while she did so, turning over the
leaves of her music-book with the ready devotion of an admiring amateur.
Helen always played well, but less well than usual that day, for her
generous nature felt abashed. It was as if she were showing off to
mortify Violante. But Violante, on the other hand, was so passionately
fond of music that she had no feeling left for the sense of her own
inferiority. Yet she sighed when Helen rose, and Harley thanked Miss
Digby for the delight she had given him.

The day was fine. Lady Lansmere proposed to walk in the garden. While
the ladies went up-stairs for their shawls and bonnets, Harley lighted
his cigar, and stepped from the window upon the lawn. Lady Lansmere
joined him before the girls came out.

"Harley," said she, taking his arm. "what a charming companion you have
introduced to us! I never met with any that both pleased and delighted
me like this dear Violante. Most girls who possess some power of
conversation, and who have dared to think for themselves, are so
pedantic, or so masculine; but she is always so simple, and always still
the girl. Ah, Harley!"

"Why that sigh, my dear mother?"

"I was thinking how exactly she would have suited you,--how proud I
should have been of such a daughter-in-law, and how happy you would have
been with such a wife."

Harley started. "Tut," said he, peevishly, "she is a mere child; you
forget my years."

"Why," said Lady Lansmere, surprised, "Helen is quite as young as
Violante."

"In dates-yes. But Helen's character is so staid; what it is now it will
be ever; and Helen, from gratitude, respect, or pity, condescends to
accept the ruins of my heart, while this bright Italian has the soul of a
Juliet, and would expect in a husband all the passion of a Romeo. Nay,
Mother, hush. Do you forget that I am engaged,--and of my own free will
and choice? Poor dear Helen! /A propos/, have you spoken to my father,
as you undertook to do?"

"Not yet. I must seize the right moment. You know that my Lord requires
management."

"My dear mother, that female notion of managing us men costs you ladies a
great waste of time, and occasions us a great deal of sorrow. Men are
easily managed by plain truth. We are brought up to respect it, strange
as it may seem to you!"

Lady Lansmere smiled with the air of superior wisdom, and the experience
of an accomplished wife. "Leave it to me, Harley, and rely on my Lord's
consent."

Harley knew that Lady Lansmere always succeeded in obtaining her way with
his father; and he felt that the earl might naturally be disappointed in
such an alliance, and, without due propitiation, evince that
disappointment in his manner to Helen. Harley was bound to save her from
all chance of such humiliation. He did not wish her to think that she
was not welcomed into his family; therefore he said, "I resign myself to
your promise and your diplomacy. Meanwhile, as you love me, be kind to
my betrothed."

"Am I not so?"

"Hem. Are you as kind as if she were the great heiress you believe
Violante to be?"

"Is it," answered Lady Lansmere, evading the question--"is it because one
is an heiress and the other is not that you make so marked a difference
in your own manner to the two; treating Violante as a spoilt child, and
Miss Digby as--"

"The destined wife of Lord L'Estrange, and the daughter-in-law of Lady
Lansmere,--yes."

The countess suppressed an impatient exclamation that rose to her lips,
for Harley's brow wore that serious aspect which it rarely assumed save
when he was in those moods in which men must be soothed, not resisted.
And after a pause he went on, "I am going to leave you to-day. I have
engaged apartments at the Clarendon. I intend to gratify your wish, so
often expressed, that I should enjoy what are called the pleasures of my
rank, and the privileges of single-blessedness,--celebrate my adieu to
celibacy, and blaze once more, with the splendour of a setting sun, upon
Hyde Park and May Fair."

"You are a positive enigma. Leave our house, just when you are betrothed
to its inmate! Is that the natural conduct of a lover?"

"How can your woman eyes be so dull, and your woman heart so obtuse?"
answered Harley, half laughing, half scolding. "Can you not guess that I
wish that Helen and myself should both lose the association of mere ward
and guardian; that the very familiarity of our intercourse under the same
roof almost forbids us to be lovers; that we lose the joy to meet, and
the pang to part. Don't you remember the story of the Frenchman, who for
twenty years loved a lady, and never missed passing his evenings at her
house. She became a widow. 'I wish you joy,' cried his friend; 'you may
now marry the woman you have so long adored.' 'Alas!' said the poor
Frenchman, profoundly dejected; 'and if so, where shall I spend my
evenings?'"

Here Violante and Helen were seen in the garden, walking affectionately
arm in arm.

"I don't perceive the point of your witty, heartless anecdote," said Lady
Lansmere, obstinately. "Settle that, however, with Miss Digby. But to
leave the very day after your friend's daughter comes as a guest!--what
will she think of it?"

Lord L'Estrange looked steadfastly at his mother. "Does it matter much
what she thinks of me,--of a man engaged to another; and old enough to
be--"

"I wish to heaven you would not talk of your age, Harley; it is a
reflection upon mine; and I never saw you look so well nor so handsome."
With that she drew him on towards the young ladies; and, taking Helen's
arm, asked her, aside, "If she knew that Lord L'Estrange had engaged
rooms at the Clarendon; and if she understood why?" As while she said
this she moved on, Harley was left by Violante's side.

"You will be very dull here, I fear, my poor child," said he.

"Dull! But why will you call me child? Am I so very--very child-like?"

"Certainly, you are to me,--a mere infant. Have I not seen you one; have
I not held you in my arms?"

VIOLANTE.--"But that was a long time ago!"

HARLEY.--"True. But if years have not stood still for you, they have not
been stationary for me. There is the same difference between us now that
there was then. And, therefore, permit me still to call you child, and
as child to treat you!"

VIOLANTE.--"I will do no such thing. Do you know that I always thought I
was good-tempered till this morning."

HARLEY.--"And what undeceived you? Did you break your doll?"

VIOLANTE (with an indignant flash from her dark eyes).---"There!--again!
--you delight in provoking me!"

HARLEY.--"It was the doll, then. Don't cry; I will get you another."

Violante plucked her arm from him, and walked away towards the countess
in speechless scorn. Harley's brow contracted, in thought and in gloom.
He stood still for a moment or so, and then joined the ladies.

"I am trespassing sadly on your morning; but I wait for a visitor whom I
sent to before you were up. He is to be here at twelve. With your
permission, I will dine with you tomorrow, and you will invite him to
meet me."

"Certainly. And who is your friend? I guess--the young author?"

"Leonard Fairfield," cried Violante, who had conquered, or felt ashamed,
of her short-lived anger.

"Fairfield!" repeated Lady Lansmere. "I thought, Harley, you said the
name was Oran."

"He has assumed the latter name. He is the son of Mark Fairfield, who
married an Avenel. Did you recognize no family likeness?--none in those
eyes, Mother?" said Harley, sinking his voice into a whisper.

"No;" answered the countess, falteringly.

Harley, observing that Violante was now speaking to Helen about Leonard,
and that neither was listening to him, resumed in the same low tone, "And
his mother--Nora's sister--shrank from seeing me! That is the reason why
I wished you not to call. She has not told the young man why she shrank
from seeing me; nor have I explained it to him as yet. Perhaps I never
shall."

"Indeed, dearest Harley," said the countess, with great gentleness,
"I wish you too much to forget the folly--well, I will not say that word
--the sorrows of your boyhood, not to hope that you will rather strive
against such painful memories than renew them by unnecessary confidence
to any one; least of all to the relation of--"

"Enough! don't name her; the very name pains me. And as to confidence,
there are but two persons in the world to whom I ever bare the old
wounds,--yourself and Egerton. Let this pass. Ha!--a ring at the bell--
that is he!"




CHAPTER XI.

Leonard entered on the scene, and joined the party in the garden. The
countess, perhaps to please her son, was more than civil,--she was
markedly kind to him. She noticed him more attentively than she had
hitherto done; and, with all her prejudices of birth, was struck to find
the son of Mark Fairfield the carpenter so thoroughly the gentleman. He
might not have the exact tone and phrase by which Convention stereotypes
those born and schooled in a certain world; but the aristocrats of Nature
can dispense with such trite minutia? And Leonard had lived, of late at
least, in the best society that exists for the polish of language and the
refinement of manners,--the society in which the most graceful ideas are
clothed in the most graceful forms; the society which really, though
indirectly, gives the law to courts; the society of the most classic
authors, in the various ages in which literature has flowered forth from
civilization. And if there was something in the exquisite sweetness of
Leonard's voice, look, and manner, which the countess acknowledged to
attain that perfection in high breeding, which, under the name of
"suavity," steals its way into the heart, so her interest in him was
aroused by a certain subdued melancholy which is rarely without
distinction, and never without charm. He and Helen exchanged but few
words. There was but one occasion in which they could have spoken apart,
and Helen herself contrived to elude it. His face brightened at Lady
Lansmere's cordial invitation, and he glanced at Helen as he accepted it;
but her eye did not meet his own.

"And now," said Harley, whistling to Nero, whom his ward was silently
caressing, "I must take Leonard away. Adieu! all of you, till to-morrow
at dinner. Miss Violante, is the doll to have blue eyes or black?"

Violante turned her own black eyes in mute appeal to Lady Lansmere, and
nestled to that lady's side as if in refuge from unworthy insult.




CHAPTER XII.

"Let the carriage go to the Clarendon," said Harley to his servant; "I
and Mr. Oran will walk to town. Leonard, I think you would rejoice at an
occasion to serve your old friends, Dr. Riccabocca and his daughter?"

"Serve them! Oh, yes." And there instantly returned to Leonard the
recollection of Violante's words when, on leaving his quiet village, he
had sighed to part from all those he loved; and the little dark-eyed girl
had said, proudly, yet consolingly, "But to SERVE those you love!" He
turned to L'Estrange, with beaming, inquisitive eyes.

"I said to our friend," resumed Harley, "that I would vouch for your
honour as my own. I am about to prove my words, and to confide the
secrets which your penetration has indeed divined,--our friend is not
what he seems." Harley then briefly related to Leonard the particulars
of the exile's history, the rank he had held in his native land, the
manner in which, partly through the misrepresentations of a kinsman he
had trusted, partly through the influence of a wife he had loved, he had
been drawn into schemes which he believed bounded to the emancipation of
Italy from a foreign yoke by the united exertions of her best and bravest
sons.

"A noble ambition!" interrupted Leonard, manfully. "And pardon me, my
Lord, I should not have thought that you would speak of it in a tone that
implies blame."

"The ambition in itself was noble," answered Harley; "but the cause to
which it was devoted became defiled in its dark channel through Secret
Societies. It is the misfortune of all miscellaneous political
combinations, that with the purest motives of their more generous members
are ever mixed the most sordid interests, and the fiercest passions of
mean confederates. When those combinations act openly, and in daylight,
under the eye of Public Opinion, the healthier elements usually prevail;
where they are shrouded in mystery, where they are subjected to no censor
in the discussion of the impartial and dispassionate, where chiefs
working in the dark exact blind obedience, and every man who is at war
with law is at once admitted as a friend of freedom, the history of the
world tells us that patriotism soon passes away. Where all is in public,
public virtue, by the natural sympathies of the common mind, and by the
wholesome control of shame, is likely to obtain ascendancy; where all is
in private, and shame is but for him who refuses the abnegation of his
conscience, each man seeks the indulgence of his private vice. And hence
in Secret Societies (from which may yet proceed great danger to all
Europe) we find but foul and hateful Eleusinia, affording pretexts to the
ambition of the great, to the license of the penniless, to the passions
of the revengeful, to the anarchy of the ignorant. In a word, the
societies of these Italian Carbonari did but engender schemes in which
the abler chiefs disguised new forms of despotism, and in which the
revolutionary many looked forward to the overthrow of all the
institutions that stand between Law and Chaos. Naturally, therefore,"
added L'Estrange, dryly, "when their schemes were detected, and the
conspiracy foiled, it was for the silly, honest men entrapped into the
league to suffer, the leaders turned king's evidence, and the common
mercenaries became--banditti." Harley then proceeded to state that it
was just when the /soi-disant/ Riccabocca had discovered the true nature
and ulterior views of the conspirators he had joined, and actually
withdrawn from their councils, that he was denounced by the kinsman who
had duped him into the enterprise, and who now profited by his treason.
Harley next spoke of the packet despatched by Riccabocca's dying wife,
as it was supposed, to Mrs. Bertram; and of the hopes he founded on the
contents of that packet, if discovered. He then referred to the design
which had brought Peschiera to England,--a design which that personage
had avowed with such effrontery to his companions at Vienna, that he had
publicly laid wagers on his success.

"But these men can know nothing of England, of the safety of English
laws," said Leonard, naturally. "We take it for granted that Riccabocca,
if I am still so to call him, refuses his consent to the marriage between
his daughter and his foe. Where, then, the danger? This count, even if
Violante were not under your mother's roof, could not get an opportunity
to see her. He could not attack the house and carry her off like a
feudal baron in the middle ages."

"All this is very true," answered Harley. "Yet I have found through life
that we cannot estimate danger by external circumstances, but by the
character of those from whom it is threatened. This count is a man of
singular audacity, of no mean natural talents,--talents practised in
every art of duplicity and intrigue; one of those men whose boast it is
that they succeed in whatever they undertake; and he is, here, urged on
the one hand by all that can whet the avarice, and on the other, by all
that can give invention to despair. Therefore, though I cannot guess
what plan he may possibly adopt, I never doubt that some plan, formed
with cunning and pursued with daring, will be embraced the moment he
discovers Violante's retreat,--unless, indeed, we can forestall all peril
by the restoration of her father, and the detection of the fraud and
falsehood to which Peschiera owes the fortune he appropriates. Thus,
while we must prosecute to the utmost our inquiries for the missing
documents, so it should be our care to possess ourselves, if possible,
of such knowledge of the count's machinations as may enable us to defeat
them. Now, it was with satisfaction that I learned in Germany that
Peschiera's sister was in London. I knew enough both of his disposition
and of the intimacy between himself and this lady, to make me think it
probable he will seek to make her his instrument and accomplice, should
he require one. Peschiera (as you may suppose by his audacious wager) is
not one of those secret villains who would cut off their right hand if it
could betray the knowledge of what was done by the left,--rather one of
those self-confident vaunting knaves of high animal spirits, and
conscience so obtuse that it clouds their intellect, who must have some
one to whom they can boast of their abilities and confide their projects.
And Peschiera has done all he can to render this poor woman so wholly
dependent on him as to be his slave and his tool. But I have learned
certain traits in her character that show it to be impressionable to
good, and with tendencies to honour. Peschiera had taken advantage of
the admiration she excited, some years ago, in a rich young Englishman,
to entice this admirer into gambling, and sought to make his sister both
a decoy and an instrument in his designs of plunder. She did not
encourage the addresses of our countryman, but she warned him of the
snare laid for him, and entreated him to leave the place lest her brother
should discover and punish her honesty. The Englishman told me this
himself. In fine, my hope of detaching this lady from Peschiera's
interests, and inducing her to forewarn us of his purpose, consists but
in the innocent, and, I hope, laudable artifice, of redeeming herself,--
of appealing to, and calling into disused exercise, the better springs of
her nature."

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.