"My boy--my son--you bear this as you ought. Contempt will soon efface--"

Sidney started to his feet, and his whole countenance was changed.

"Contempt--yes, for him! But for her--she knows it not--she is no party to this--I cannot believe it--I will not! I--I----" and he rushed out of the room. He was absent till nightfall, and when he returned, he endeavoured to appear calm--but it was in vain.

The next day brought him a letter from Camilla, written unknown to her parents,--short, it is true (confirming the sentence of separation contained in her father's), and imploring him not to reply to it,--but still so full of gentle and of sorrowful feeling, so evidently worded in the wish to soften the anguish she inflicted, that it did more than soothe--it even administered hope.

Now when Mr. Robert Beaufort had recovered the ordinary tone of his mind sufficiently to indite the letter Sidney had just read, he had become fully sensible of the necessity of concluding the marriage between Philip and Camilla before the publicity of the lawsuit. The action for the ejectment could not take place before the ensuing March or April. He would waive the ordinary etiquette of time and mourning to arrange all before. Indeed, he lived in hourly fear lest Philip should discover that he had a rival in his brother, and break off the marriage, with its contingent advantages. The first announcement of such a suit in the newspapers might reach the Spencers; and if the young man were, as he doubted not, Sidney Beaufort, would necessarily bring him forward, and ensure the dreaded explanation. Thus apprehensive and ever scheming, Robert Beaufort spoke to Philip so much, and with such apparent feeling, of his wish to gratify, at the earliest possible period, the last wish of his son, in the union now arranged--he spoke, with such seeming consideration and good sense, of the avoidance of all scandal and misinterpretation in the suit itself, which suit a previous marriage between the claimant and his daughter would show at once to be of so amicable a nature,--that Philip, ardently in love as he was, could not but a.s.sent to any hastening of his expected happiness compatible with decorum. As to any previous publicity by way of newspaper comment, he agreed with Mr. Beaufort in deprecating it. But then came the question, What name was he to bear in the interval?

"As to that," said Philip, somewhat proudly, "when, after my mother's suit in her own behalf, I persuaded her not to bear the name of Beaufort, though her due--and for my own part, I prized her own modest name, which under such dark appearances was in reality spotless--as much as the loftier one which you bear and my father bore;--so I shall not resume the name the law denies me till the law restores it to me. Law alone can efface the wrong which law has done me."

Mr. Beaufort was pleased with this reasoning (erroneous though it was), and he now hoped that all would be safely arranged.

That a girl so situated as Camilla, and of a character not energetic or profound, but submissive, dutiful, and timid, should yield to the arguments of her father, the desire of her dying brother--that she should not dare to refuse to become the instrument of peace to a divided family, the saving sacrifice to her father's endangered fortunes--that, in fine, when, nearly a month after Arthur's death, her father, leading her into the room, where Philip waited her footstep with a beating heart, placed her hand in his--and Philip falling on his knees said, "May I hope to retain this hand for life?"--she should falter out such words as he might construe into not reluctant acquiescence; that all this should happen is so natural that the reader is already prepared for it. But still she thought with bitter and remorseful feelings of him thus deliberately and faithlessly renounced. She felt how deeply he had loved her--she knew how fearful would be his grief. She looked sad and thoughtful; but her brother's death was sufficient in Philip's eyes to account for that. The praises and grat.i.tude of her father, to whom she suddenly seemed to become an object of even greater pride and affection than ever Arthur had been--the comfort of a generous heart, that takes pleasure in the very sacrifice it makes--the acquittal of her conscience as to the motives of her conduct--began, however, to produce their effect. Nor, as she had lately seen more of Philip, could she be insensible of his attachment--of his many n.o.ble qualities--of the pride which most women might have felt in his addresses, when his rank was once made clear; and as she had ever been of a character more regulated by duty than pa.s.sion, so one who could have seen what was pa.s.sing in her mind would have had little fear for Philip's future happiness in her keeping--little fear but that, when once married to him, her affections would have gone along with her duties; and that if the first love were yet recalled, it would be with a sigh due rather to some romantic recollection than some continued regret. Few of either s.e.x are ever united to their first love; yet married people jog on, and call each other "my dear" and "my darling" all the same. It might be, it is true, that Philip would be scarcely loved with the intenseness with which he loved; but if Camilla's feelings were capable of corresponding to the ardent and impa.s.sioned ones of that strong and vehement nature--such feelings were not yet developed in her. The heart of the woman might still be half concealed in the vale of the virgin innocence. Philip himself was satisfied--he believed that he was beloved: for it is the property of love, in a large and n.o.ble heart, to reflect itself, and to see its own image in the eyes on which it looks. As the Poet gives ideal beauty and excellence to some ordinary child of Eve, worshipping less the being that is than the being he imagines and conceives--so Love, which makes us all poets for a while, throws its own divine light over a heart perhaps really cold; and becomes dazzled into the joy of a false belief by the very l.u.s.tre with which it surrounds its object.

The more, however, Camilla saw of Philip, the more (gradually overcoming her former mysterious and superst.i.tious awe of him) she grew familiarised to his peculiar cast of character and thought, so the more she began to distrust her father's a.s.sertion, that he had insisted on her hand as a price--a bargain--an equivalent for the sacrifice of a dire revenge. And with this thought came another. Was she worthy of this man?--was she not deceiving him? Ought she not to say, at least, that she had known a previous attachment, however determined she might be to subdue it? Often the desire for this just and honourable confession trembled on her lips, and as often was it checked by some chance circ.u.mstance or some maiden fear. Despite their connection, there was not yet between them that delicious intimacy which ought to accompany the affiance of two hearts and souls. The gloom of the house; the restraint on the very language of love imposed by a death so recent and so deplored, accounted in much for this reserve. And for the rest, Robert Beaufort prudently left them very few and very brief opportunities to be alone.

In the meantime, Philip (now persuaded that the Beauforts were ignorant of his brother's fate) had set Mr. Barlow's activity in search of Sidney; and his painful anxiety to discover one so dear and so mysteriously lost was the only cause of uneasiness apparent in the brightening Future. While these researches, hitherto fruitless, were being made, it so happened, as London began now to refill, and gossip began now to revive, that a report got abroad, no one knew how (probably from the servants) that Monsieur de Vaudemont, a distinguished French officer, was shortly to lead the daughter and sole heiress of Robert Beaufort, Esq., M.P., to the hymeneal altar; and that report very quickly found its way into the London papers: from the London papers it spread to the provincial--it reached the eyes of Sidney in his now gloomy and despairing solitude. The day that he read it he disappeared.

CHAPTER XIX.

"Jul.... Good lady, love him!

You have a n.o.ble and an honest gentleman.

I ever found him so.

Love him no less than I have done, and serve him, And Heaven shall bless you--you shall bless my ashes."

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Double Marriage.

We have been too long absent from f.a.n.n.y; it is time to return to her.

The delight she experienced when Philip made her understand all the benefits, the blessings, that her courage, nay, her intellect, had bestowed upon him, the blushing ecstasy with which she heard (as they returned to H----, the eventful morning of her deliverance, side by side, her hand clasped in his, and often pressed to his grateful lips) his praises, his thanks, his fear for her safety, his joy at regaining her--all this amounted to a bliss, which, till then, she could not have conceived that life was capable of bestowing. And when he left her at H----, to hurry to his lawyer's with the recovered doc.u.ment, it was but for an hour. He returned, and did not quit her for several days. And in that time he became sensible of her astonishing, and, to him, it seemed miraculous, improvement in all that renders Mind the equal to Mind; miraculous, for he guessed not the Influence that makes miracles its commonplace. And now he listened attentively to her when she conversed; he read with her (though reading was never much in his vocation), his unfastidious ear was charmed with her voice, when it sang those simple songs; and his manner (impressed alike by grat.i.tude for the signal service rendered to him, and by the discovery that f.a.n.n.y was no longer a child, whether in mind or years), though not less gentle than before, was less familiar, less superior, more respectful, and more earnest.

It was a change which raised her in her own self-esteem. Ah, those were rosy days for f.a.n.n.y!

A less sagacious judge of character than Lilburne would have formed doubts perhaps of the nature of Philip's interest in f.a.n.n.y. But he comprehended at once the fraternal interest which a man like Philip might well take in a creature like f.a.n.n.y, if commended to his care by a protector whose doom was so awful as that which had ingulfed the life of William Gawtrey. Lilburne had some thoughts at first of claiming her, but as he had no power to compel her residence with him, he did not wish, on consideration, to come again in contact with Philip upon ground so full of humbling recollections as that still overshadowed by the images of Gawtrey and Mary. He contented himself with writing an artful letter to Simon, stating that from f.a.n.n.y's residence with Mr. Gawtrey, and from her likeness to her mother, whom he had only seen as a child, he had conjectured the relationship she bore to himself; and having obtained other evidence of that fact (he did not say what or where), he had not scrupled to remove her to his roof, meaning to explain all to Mr. Simon Gawtrey the next day. This letter was accompanied by one from a lawyer, informing Simon Gawtrey that Lord Lilburne would pay L200. a year, in quarterly payments, to his order; and that he was requested to add, that when the young lady he had so benevolently reared came of age, or married, an adequate provision would be made for her. Simon's mind blazed up at this last intelligence, when read to him, though he neither comprehended nor sought to know why Lord Lilburne should be so generous, or what that n.o.ble person's letter to himself was intended to convey.

For two days, he seemed restored to vigorous sense; but when he had once clutched the first payment made in advance, the touch of the money seemed to numb him back to his lethargy: the excitement of desire died in the dull sense of possession.

And just at that time f.a.n.n.y's happiness came to a close. Philip received Arthur Beaufort's letter; and now ensued long and frequent absences; and on his return, for about an hour or so at a time, he spoke of sorrow and death; and the books were closed and the songs silenced. All fear for f.a.n.n.y's safety was, of course, over; all necessity for her work; their little establishment was increased. She never stirred out without Sarah; yet she would rather that there had been some danger on her account for him to guard against, or some trial that his smile might soothe.

His prolonged absences began to prey upon her--the books ceased to interest--no study filled up the dreary gap--her step grew listless-her cheek pale--she was sensible at last that his presence had become necessary to her very life. One day, he came to the house earlier than usual, and with a much happier and serener expression of countenance than he had worn of late.

Simon was dozing in his chair, with his old dog, now scarce vigorous enough to bark, curled up at his feet. Neither man nor dog was more as a witness to what was spoken than the leathern chair, or the hearth-rug, on which they severally reposed.

There was something which, in actual life, greatly contributed to the interest of f.a.n.n.y's strange lot, but which, in narration, I feel I cannot make sufficiently clear to the reader. And this was her connection and residence with that old man. Her character forming, as his was completely gone; here, the blank becoming filled--there, the page fading to a blank. It was the tatter, total Deathliness-in-Life of Simon, that, while so impressive to see, renders it impossible to bring him before the reader in his full force of contrast to the young Psyche.

He seldom spoke--often, not from morning till night; he now seldom stirred. It is in vain to describe the indescribable: let the reader draw the picture for himself. And whenever (as I sometimes think he will, after he has closed this book) he conjures up the idea he attaches to the name of its heroine, let him see before her, as she glides through the humble room--as she listens to the voice of him she loves--as she sits musing by the window, with the church spire just visible--as day by day the soul brightens and expands within her--still let the reader see within the same walls, greyhaired, blind, dull to all feeling, frozen to all life, that stony image of Time and Death! Perhaps then he may understand why they who beheld the real and living f.a.n.n.y blooming under that chill and ma.s.s of shadow, felt that her grace, her simplicity, her charming beauty, were raised by the contrast, till they grew a.s.sociated with thoughts and images, mysterious and profound, belonging not more to the lovely than to the sublime.

So there sat the old man; and Philip, though aware of his presence, speaking as if he were alone with f.a.n.n.y, after touching on more casual topics, thus addressed her:

"My true and my dear friend, it is to you that I shall owe, not only my rights and fortune, but the vindication of my mother's memory. You have not only placed flowers upon that gravestone, but it is owing to you, under Providence, that it will be inscribed at last with the Name which refutes all calumny. Young and innocent as you now are, my gentle and beloved benefactress, you cannot as yet know what a blessing it will be to me to engrave that Name upon that simple stone. Hereafter, when you yourself are a wife, a mother, you will comprehend the service you have rendered to the living and the dead!"

He stopped--struggling with the rush of emotions that overflowed his heart. Alas, THE DEAD! what service can we render to them?--what availed it now, either to the dust below, or to the immortality above, that the fools and knaves of this world should mention the Catherine whose life was gone, whose ears were deaf, with more or less respect? There is in calumny that poison that, even when the character throws off the slander, the heart remains diseased beneath the effect. They say that truth comes sooner or later; but it seldom comes before the soul, pa.s.sing from agony to contempt, has grown callous to men's judgments.

Calumniate a human being in youth--adulate that being in age;--what has been the interval? Will the adulation atone either for the torture, or the hardness which the torture leaves at last? And if, as in Catherine's case (a case, how common!), the truth come too late--if the tomb is closed--if the heart you have wrung can be wrung no more--why the truth is as valueless as the epitaph on a forgotten Name! Some such conviction of the hollowness of his own words, when he spoke of service to the dead, smote upon Philip's heart, and stopped the flow of his words.

f.a.n.n.y, conscious only of his praise, his thanks, and the tender affection of his voice, stood still silent-her eyes downcast, her breast heaving.

Philip resumed:

"And now, f.a.n.n.y, my honoured sister, I would thank you for more, were it possible, even than this. I shall owe to you not only name and fortune, but happiness. It is from the rights to which you have a.s.sisted me, and which will shortly be made clear, that I am able to demand a hand I have so long coveted--the hand of one as dear to me as you are. In a word, the time has, this day, been fixed, when I shall have a home to offer to you and to this old man--when I can present to you a sister who will prize you as I do: for I love you so dearly--I owe you so much--that even that home would lose half its smiles if you were not there. Do you understand me, f.a.n.n.y? The sister I speak of will be my wife!"

The poor girl who heard this speech of most cruel tenderness did not fall, or faint, or evince any outward emotion, except in a deadly paleness. She seemed like one turned to stone. Her very breath forsook her for some moments, and then came back with a long deep sigh. She laid her hand lightly on his arm, and said calmly:

"Yes--I understand. We once saw a wedding. You are to be married--I shall see yours!"

"You shall; and, later, perhaps, I may see your own."

"I have a brother. Ah! if I could but find him--younger than I am--beautiful almost as you!"

"You will be happy," said f.a.n.n.y, still calmly.

"I have long placed my hopes of happiness in such a union! Stay, where are you going?"

"To pray for you," said f.a.n.n.y, with a smile, in which there was something of the old vacancy, as she walked gently from the room. Philip followed her with moistened eyes. Her manner might have deceived one more vain. He soon after quitted the house, and returned to town.

Three hours after, Sarah found f.a.n.n.y stretched on the floor of her own room--so still--so white--that, for some moments, the old woman thought life was gone. She recovered, however, by degrees; and, after putting her hands to her eyes, and muttering some moments, seemed much as usual, except that she was more silent, and that her lips remained colourless, and her hands cold like stone.

CHAPTER XX.

"Vec. Ye see what follows.

Duke. O gentle sir! this shape again!"--The Chances.

That evening Sidney Beaufort arrived in London. It is the nature of solitude to make pa.s.sions calm on the surface--agitated in the deeps.

Sidney had placed his whole existence in one object. When the letter arrived that told him to hope no more, he was at first rather sensible of the terrible and dismal blank--the "void abyss"--to which all his future was suddenly changed, than roused to vehement and turbulent emotion. But Camilla's letter had, as we have seen, raised his courage and animated his heart. To the idea of her faith he still clung with the instinct of hope in the midst of despair. The tidings that she was absolutely betrothed to another, and in so short a time since her rejection of him, let loose from all restraint his darker and more tempestuous pa.s.sions. In a state of mind bordering upon frenzy, he hurried to London--to seek her--to see her; with what intent--what hope, if hope there were--he himself could scarcely tell. But what man who has loved with fervour and trust will be contented to receive the sentence of eternal separation except from the very lips of the one thus worshipped and thus foresworn?

The day had been intensely cold. Towards evening the snow fell fast and heavily. Sidney had not, since a child, been before in London; and the immense City, covered with a wintry and icy mist, through which the hurrying pa.s.sengers and the slow-moving vehicles pa.s.sed, spectre-like, along the dismal and slippery streets-opened to the stranger no hospitable arms. He knew not a step of the way--he was pushed to and fro--his scarce intelligible questions impatiently answered--the snow covered him--the frost pierced to his veins. At length a man, more kindly than the rest, seeing that he was a stranger to London, procured him a hackney-coach, and directed the driver to the distant quarter of Berkeley Square. The snow balled under the hoofs of the horses--the groaning vehicle proceeded at the pace of a hea.r.s.e. At length, and after a period of such suspense, and such emotion, as Sidney never in after-life could recall without a shudder, the coach stopped--the benumbed driver heavily descended--the sound of the knocker knelled loud through the m.u.f.fled air--and the light from Mr. Beaufort's hall glared full upon the dizzy eyes of the visitor. He pushed aside the porter, and sprang into the hall. Luckily, one of the footmen who had attended Mrs.

Beaufort to the Lakes recognised him; and, in answer to his breathless inquiry, said,--

"Why, indeed, Mr. Spencer, Miss Beaufort is at home--up-stairs in the drawing-room, with master and mistress, and Monsieur de Vaudemont; but--"

Sidney waited no more. He bounded up the stairs--he opened the first door that presented itself to him, and burst, unannounced and unlooked-for, upon the eyes of the group seated within. He saw not the terrified start of Mr. Robert Beaufort--he heeded not the faint, nervous exclamation of the mother--he caught not the dark and wondering glace of the stranger seated beside Camilla--he saw but Camilla herself, and in a moment he was at her feet.

"Camilla, I am here!--I, who love you so--I, who have nothing in the world but you! I am here--to learn from you, and you alone, if I am indeed abandoned--if you are indeed to be another's!"

He had dashed his hat from his brow as he sprang forward; his long fair hair, damp with the snows, fell disordered over his forehead; his eyes were fixed, as for life and death, upon the pale face and trembling lips of Camilla. Robert Beaufort, in great alarm, and well aware of the fierce temper of Philip, antic.i.p.ative of some rash and violent impulse, turned his glance upon his destined son-in-law. But there was no angry pride in the countenance he there beheld. Philip had risen, but his frame was bent--his knees knocked together--his lips were parted--his eyes were staring full upon the face of the kneeling man.

Suddenly Camilla, sharing her father's fear, herself half rose, and with an unconscious pathos, stretched one hand, as if to shelter, over Sidney's head, and looked to Philip. Sidney's eyes followed hers. He sprang to his feet.

"What, then, it is true! And this is the man for whom I am abandoned!