CHAPTER II.
LOVE; PARTING; A DEATH-BED.--AFTER ALL HUMAN NATURE IS A BEAUTIFULFABRIC; AND EVEN ITS IMPERFECTIONS ARE NOT ODIOUS TO HIM WHO HAS STUDIEDTHE SCIENCE OF ITS ARCHITECTURE, AND FORMED A REVERENT ESTIMATE OF ITSCREATOR.
IT is a noticeable thing how much fear increases love. I mean--for theaphorism requires explanation--how much we love in proportion to ourfear of losing (or even to our fear of injury done to) the belovedobject. 'Tis an instance of the reaction of the feelings: the loveproduces the fear, and the fear reproduces the love. This is one reason,among many, why women love so much more tenderly and anxiously than wedo; and it is also one reason among many why frequent absences are,in all stages of love, the most keen exciters of the passion. I neverbreathed, away from Isora, without trembling for her safety. I trembledlest this Barnard, if so I should still continue to call her persecutor,should again discover and again molest her. Whenever (and that wasalmost daily) I rode to the quiet and remote dwelling I had procuredher, my heart beat so vehemently, and my agitation was so intense,that on arriving at the gate I have frequently been unable, for severalminutes, to demand admittance. There was, therefore, in the mysteriousdanger which ever seemed to hang over Isora, a perpetual irritation toa love otherwise but little inclined to slumber; and this constantexcitement took away from the torpor into which domestic affection toooften languishes, and increased my passion even while it diminished myhappiness.
On my arrival now at Isora's, I found her already stationed at thewindow, watching for my coming. How her dark eyes lit into lustre whenthey saw me! How the rich blood mantled up under the soft cheek whichfeeling had refined of late into a paler hue than it was wont, when Ifirst gazed upon it, to wear! Then how sprang forth her light step tomeet me! How trembled her low voice to welcome me! How spoke, fromevery gesture of her graceful form, the anxious, joyful, all-animatinggladness of her heart! It is a melancholy pleasure to the dry, harshafterthoughts of later life, to think one has been thus loved; and onemarvels, when one considers what one is now, how it could have everbeen! That love _of ours_ was never made for after years! It could neverhave flowed into the common and cold channel of ordinary affairs! Itcould never have been mingled with the petty cares and the low objectswith which the loves of all who live long together in this sordid andmost earthly earth are sooner or later blended! We could not have sparedto others an atom of the great wealth of our affection. We were misersof every coin in that boundless treasury. It would have pierced me tothe soul to have seen Isora smile upon another. I know not even, had wehad children, if I should not have been jealous of my child! Was thisselfish love? yes, it was, intensely, wholly selfish; but it was a lovemade so only by its excess; nothing selfish on a smaller scale pollutedit. There was not on earth that which the one would not have forfeitedat the lightest desire of the other. So utterly were happiness and Isoraentwined together that I could form no idea of the one with which theother was not connected. Was this love made for the many and miry roadsthrough which man must travel? Was it made for age, or, worse than age,for those cool, ambitious, scheming years that we call mature, in whichall the luxuriance and verdure of things are pared into tame shapes thatmimic life, but a life that is estranged from Nature, in which artis the only beauty and regularity the only grace? No, in my heartof hearts, I feel that our love was not meant for the stages of lifethrough which I have already passed; it would have made us miserable tosee it fritter itself away, and to remember what it once was. Betteras it is! better to mourn over the green bough than to look upon thesapless stem. You who now glance over these pages, are you a mother? Ifso, answer me one question: Would you not rather that the child whomyou have cherished with your soul's care, whom you have nurtured atyour bosom, whose young joys your eyes have sparkled to behold, whoselightest grief you have wept to witness as you would have wept not foryour own; over whose pure and unvexed sleep you have watched and prayed,and, as it lay before you thus still and unconscious of your vigil, haveshaped out, oh, such bright hopes for its future lot,--would you notrather that while thus young and innocent, not a care tasted, not acrime incurred, it went down at once into the dark grave? Would younot rather suffer this grief, bitter though it be, than watch thepredestined victim grow and ripen, and wind itself more and more aroundyour heart, and when it is of full and mature age, and you yourself arestricken by years, and can form no new ties to replace the old that aresevered, when woes have already bowed the darling of your hope, whom woenever was to touch, when sins have already darkened the bright, seraph,unclouded heart which sin never was to dim,--behold it sink day by dayaltered, diseased, decayed, into the tomb which its childhood had invain escaped? Answer me: would not the earlier fate be far gentler thanthe last? And if you _have_ known and wept over that early tomb, ifyou have seen the infant flower fade away from the green soil of youraffections; if you have missed the bounding step, and the laughingeye, and the winning mirth which made this sterile world a perpetualholiday,--Mother of the Lost, if you have known, and you still pine forthese, answer me yet again! Is it not a comfort, even while you mourn,to think of all that that breast, now so silent, has escaped? The cream,the sparkle, the elixir of life, it had already quaffed: is it not sweetto think it shunned the wormwood and the dregs? Answer me, even thoughthe answer be in tears! Mourner, your child was to you what my early andonly love was to me; and could you pierce down, down through a thousandfathom of ebbing thought, to the far depths of my heart, you would therebehold a sorrow _and a consolation_ that have something in unison withyour own!
When the light of the next morning broke into our room, Isora was stillsleeping. Have you ever observed that the young, seen asleep and by themorning light, seem much younger even than they are? partly because theair and the light sleep of dawn bring a fresher bloom to the cheek,and partly, because the careless negligence and the graceful posturesexclusively appropriated to youth, are forbidden by custom and formalitythrough the day, and developing themselves unconsciously in sleep, theystrike the eye like the ease and freedom of childhood itself. There,as I looked upon Isora's tranquil and most youthful beauty, over whichcircled and breathed an ineffable innocence,--even as the finer andsubtler air, which was imagined by those dreamy bards who kindled thesoft creations of naiad and of nymph, to float around a goddess,--Icould not believe that aught evil awaited one for whom infancy itselfseemed to linger,--linger as if no elder shape and less delicate huewere meet to be the garment of so much guilelessness and tenderness ofheart. I felt, indeed, while I bent over her, and her regular and quietbreath came upon my cheek, that feeling which is exactly the reverse toa presentiment of ill. I felt as if, secure in her own purity, shehad nothing to dread, so that even the pang of parting was lost in theconfidence which stole over me as I then gazed.
I rose gently, went to the next room, and dressed myself; I heard myhorse neighing beneath, as the servant walked him lazily to and fro.I re-entered the bed-chamber in order to take leave of Isora; she wasalready up. "What!" said I, "it is but three minutes since I left youasleep, and I stole away as time does when with you."
"Ah!" said Isora, smiling and blushing too, "but for my part, I thinkthere is an instinct to know, even if all the senses were shut up,whether the one we love is with us or not. The moment you left me, Ifelt it at once, even in sleep, and I woke. But you will not, no, youwill not leave me yet!"
I think I see Isora now, as she stood by the window which she hadopened, with a woman's minute anxiety, to survey even the aspect of theclouds, and beseech caution against the treachery of the skies. I thinkI see her now, as she stood the moment after I had torn myself from herembrace, and had looked back, as I reached the door, for one partingglance,--her eyes all tenderness, her lips parted, and quivering withthe attempt to smile, the long, glossy ringlets (through whose ravenhue the _purpureum lumen_ broke like an imprisoned sunbeam) straying indishevelled beauty over her transparent neck; the throat bent in mutedespondency; the head drooping; the arms half extended, and droppinggradually as my ste
ps departed; the sunken, absorbed expression of face,form, and gesture, so steeped in the very bitterness of dejection,--allare before me now, sorrowful, and lovely in sorrow, as they were beheldyears ago, by the gray, cold, comfortless light of morning!
"God bless you,--my own, own love," I said; and as my look lingered,I added, with a full but an assured heart; "and He will!" I tarriedno more: I flung myself on my horse, and rode on as if I were speeding_to_, and not _from_, my bride.
The noon was far advanced, as, the day after I left Isora, I foundmyself entering the park in which Devereux Court is situated. I did notenter by one of the lodges, but through a private gate. My horse wasthoroughly jaded; for the distance I had come was great, and I hadridden rapidly; and as I came into the park, I dismounted, and, throwingthe rein over my arm, proceeded slowly on foot. I was passing through athick, long plantation, which belted the park and in which several walksand rides had been cut, when a man crossed the same road which I took,at a little distance before me. He was looking on the ground, andappeared wrapt in such earnest meditation that he neither saw nor heardme. But I had seen enough of him, in that brief space of time, to feelconvinced that it was Montreuil whom I beheld. What brought him hither,him, whom I believed in London, immersed with Gerald in politicalschemes, and for whom these woods were not only interdicted ground, butto whom they must have also been but a tame field of interest, afterhis audiences with ministers and nobles? I did not, however, pauseto consider on his apparition; I rather quickened my pace towards thehouse, in the expectation of there ascertaining the cause of his visit.
The great gates of the outer court were open as usual: I rodeunheedingly through them, and was soon at the door of the hall. Theporter, who unfolded to my summons the ponderous door, uttered, whenhe saw me, an exclamation that seemed to my ear to have in it more ofsorrow than welcome.
"How is your master?" I asked.
The man shook his head, but did not hasten to answer; and, impressedwith a vague alarm, I hurried on without repeating the question. On thestaircase I met old Nicholls, my uncle's valet; I stopped and questionedhim. My uncle had been seized on the preceding day with gout in thestomach; medical aid had been procured, but it was feared ineffectually,and the physicians had declared, about an hour before I arrived, that hecould not, in human probability, outlive the night. Stifling the risingat my heart, I waited to hear no more: I flew up the stairs; I was atthe door of my uncle's chamber; I stopped there, and listened; allwas still; I opened the door gently; I stole in, and, creeping to thebedside, knelt down and covered my face with my hands; for I requireda pause for self-possession, before I had courage to look up. When Iraised my eyes, I saw my mother on the opposite side; she sat on a chairwith a draught of medicine in one hand, and a watch in the other. Shecaught my eye, but did not speak; she gave me a sign of recognition, andlooked down again upon the watch. My uncle's back was turned to me,and he lay so still that, for some moments, I thought he was asleep; atlast, however, he moved restlessly.
"It is past noon!" said he to my mother, "is it not?"
"It is three minutes and six seconds after four," replied my mother,looking closer at the watch.
My uncle sighed. "They have sent an express for the dear boy, Madam?"said he.
"Exactly at half-past nine last evening," answered my mother, glancingat me.
"He could scarcely be here by this time," said my uncle, and he movedagain in the bed. "Pish, how the pillow frets one!"
"Is it too high?" said my mother.
"No," said my uncle, faintly, "no--no--the discomfort is not in thepillow, after all: 'tis a fine day; is it not?"
"Very!" said my mother; "I wish you could go out."
My uncle did not answer: there was a pause. "Ods fish, Madam, are thosecarriage wheels?"
"No, Sir William--but--"
"There _are_ sounds in my ear; my senses grow dim," said my uncle,unheeding her: "would that I might live another day; I should notlike to die without seeing him. 'Sdeath, Madam, I do hear somethingbehind!--Sobs, as I live!--Who sobs for the old knight?" and my uncleturned round, and saw me.
"My dear--dear uncle!" I said, and could say no more.
"Ah, Morton," cried the kind old man, putting his hand affectionatelyupon mine. "Beshrew me, but I think I have conquered the grim enemy nowthat you are come. But what's this, my boy?--tears--tears,--why, littleSid--no, nor Rochester either, would ever have believed this if I hadsworn it! Cheer up, cheer up."
But, seeing that I wept and sobbed the more, my uncle, after a pause,continued in the somewhat figurative strain which the reader hasobserved he sometimes adopted, and which perhaps his dramatic studieshad taught him.
"Nay, Morton, what do you grieve for?--that Age should throw off itsfardel of aches and pains, and no longer groan along its weary road,meeting cold looks and unwilling welcomes, as both host and comrade growweary of the same face, and the spendthrift heart has no longer quipor smile wherewith to pay the reckoning? No, no: let the poor pedlershuffle off his dull pack, and fall asleep. But I am glad you are come:I would sooner have one of your kind looks at your uncle's stale saws orjests than all the long faces about me, saving only the presence ofyour mother;" and with his characteristic gallantry, my uncle turnedcourteously to her.
"Dear Sir William!" said she, "it is time you should take your draught;and then would it not be better that you should see the chaplain? hewaits without."
"Ods fish," said my uncle, turning again to me, "'tis the way with themall: when the body is past hope comes the physician, and when the soulis past mending comes the priest. No, Madam, no, 'tis too late foreither.--Thank ye, Morton, thank ye" (as I started up--took the draughtfrom my mother's hand, and besought him to drink it), "'tis of no use;but if it pleases thee, I must,"--and he drank the medicine.
My mother rose, and walked towards the door: it was ajar; and, as my eyefollowed her figure, I perceived, through the opening, the black garb ofthe chaplain.
"Not yet," said she, quietly; "wait." And then gliding away, seatedherself by the window in silence, and told her beads.
My uncle continued: "They have been at me, Morton, as if I had been apagan; and I believe, in their hearts, they are not a little scandalizedthat I don't try to win the next world by trembling like an ague. Faithnow, I never could believe that Heaven was so partial to cowards; norcan I think, Morton, that Salvation is like a soldier's muster-roll, andthat we may play the devil between hours, so that, at the last moment,we whip in, and answer to our names. Ods fish, Morton, I could tell theea tale of that; but 'tis a long one, and we have not time now. Well,well, for my part, I deem reverently and gratefully of God, and do notbelieve He will be very wroth with our past enjoyment of life, if wehave taken care that others should enjoy it too; nor do I think, withthy good mother, and Aubrey, dear child! that an idle word has the sameweight in the Almighty's scales as a wicked deed."
"Blessed, blessed, are they," I cried through my tears, "on whose soulsthere is as little stain as there is on yours!"
"Faith, Morton, that's kindly said; and thou knowest not how strangelyit sounds, after their exhortations to repentance. I know I have had myfaults, and walked on to our common goal in a very irregular line; but Inever wronged the living nor slandered the dead, nor ever shut my heartto the poor,--'t were a burning sin if I had,--and I have loved all menand all things, and I never bore ill-will to a creature. Poor Ponto,Morton, thou wilt take care of poor Ponto, when I'm dead,--nay, nay,don't grieve so. Go, my child, go: compose thyself while I see thepriest, for 't will please thy poor mother; and though she thinksharshly of me now, I should not like her to do so _to-morrow_! Go, mydear boy, go."
I went from the room, and waited by the door, till the office of thepriest was over. My mother then came out, and said Sir William hadcomposed himself to sleep. While she was yet speaking, Gerald surprisedme by his appearance. I learned that he had been in the house for thelast three days, and when I heard this, I involuntarily accounted forthe appearance of Montreuil. I s
aluted him distantly, and he returnedmy greeting with the like pride. He seemed, however, though in a lessdegree, to share in my emotions; and my heart softened to him for it.Nevertheless we stood apart, and met not as brothers should have met bythe death-bed of a mutual benefactor.
"Will you wait without?" said my mother.
"No," answered I, "I will watch over him." So I stole in, with a lightstep, and seated myself by my uncle's bed-side. He was asleep, and hissleep was as hushed and quiet as an infant's. I looked upon his face,and saw a change had come over it, and was increasing sensibly: butthere was neither harshness nor darkness in the change, awful as it was.The soul, so long nurtured on benevolence, could not, in parting, leavea rude stamp on the kindly clay which had seconded its impulses so well.
The evening had just set in, when my uncle woke; he turned very gently,and smiled when he saw me.
"It is late," said he, and I observed with a wrung heart, that his voicewas fainter.
"No, Sir, not very," said I.
"Late enough, my child; the warm sun has gone down; and 'tis a good timeto close one's eyes, when all without looks gray and chill: methinksit is easier to wish thee farewell, Morton, when I see thy faceindistinctly. I am glad I shall not die in the daytime. Give me thyhand, my child, and tell me that thou art not angry with thine old unclefor thwarting thee in that love business. I have heard tales of thegirl, too, which made me glad, for thy sake, that it is all off, thoughI might not tell thee of them before. 'Tis very dark, Morton. I have hada pleasant sleep. Ods fish, I do not think a bad man would have slept sowell. The fire burns dim, Morton: it is very cold. Cover me up; doublethe counterpane over the legs, Morton. I remember once walking in theMall; little Sid said, 'Devereux'--it is colder and colder, Morton;raise the blankets more over the back; 'Devereux,' said littleSid--faith, Morton, 'tis ice now--where art thou?--is the fire out, thatI can't see thee? Remember thine old uncle, Morton--and--and--don'tforget poor--Ponto. Bless thee, my child; bless you all!"
And my uncle died!