CHAPTER VII.
I RETURN HOME AND HEAR NEWS OF COUNTESS LUKSTEIN.
From Lukstein we rode hot-foot down the Vintschgau Thal to Meran, andthence by easy stages to Verona, in Italy. I had no great fear ofpursuit or detection after the first day, since the road was muchfrequented by travellers, and neither my spurs, nor my pistol, nor theminiature of Julian bore any marks by which Jack or myself could besingled out. At Verona an inflammation set up in my wounded shoulder,very violent and severe, so that I lay in that town for some weeksdelirious and at death's door. Indeed, but for Jack's assiduous carein nursing me, I must infallibly have lost my life.
At length, however, being somewhat recovered, I was carried southwardsto Naples, and thence we wandered from town to town through theprovinces of Italy until, in the year 1686, the fulness of the springrenewed my blood and set my fancies in a tide towards home. Jackaccompanied me to England and took up his abode in my house inCumberland, being persuaded without much difficulty to abandon hispretence of studying the law, and to throw in his lot with me for goodand all.
"My estates need a steward," said I, "and I--God knows I need afriend." And with little more talk the bargain was struck.
During all this time, however, I had not so much as breathed a word tohim concerning the doings of that night in Castle Lukstein. At firstthe matter was too hot in my thoughts, and even afterwards, when thehorror of my memories had dimmed, I could not bring myself to thepoint of speech. Had it not been for the appearance and interventionof the Countess, doubtless I should have blurted out the tale longbefore. But with her face ever fixed within my view, I could notspeak; I could only picture it desolate with grief, and washed with apitiful rain of tears. Moreover, I knew that Jack would account mystory as the story of a worthy exploit, and I shrank from his praiseas from a burning iron.
'Twould have, nevertheless, been strange had not my ravings in mydelirium disclosed some portion of the night's incidents, and thatthey did so I understood from a certain speech Jack once made me.'Twas when I was yet lying sick at Verona. One morning, when I wascome to my senses after a feverish night, he walked over to my bedsidefrom the chair where he had been watching.
"I have been a common fool," says he, and repeats the remark, shiftinga foot to and fro on the floor; and then he claps his hand upon mine.
"God send me such a friend as you, Morrice, if ever trouble comes tome!" says he, and so gets him quickly from the room.
Often did I wonder how much I had betrayed, but I had reasonsubsequently to believe that 'twas very little; just enough to assurehim that I had not flinched from the conflict, with probably somerevelation of the fear in which I engaged upon it.
'Twas in the last days of March that I saw once more the rollingslopes of Yewbarrow, streaked here and there with a ribbon of snow,and my house at the base of it, its grey tiles shining in the sunsetlike glass; and a homely restfulness settled upon my spirit, andlooking back upon the last months of purposeless wandering, I resolvedto pass my days henceforward in a placid ordering of my estate.
This feeling of peace, however, stayed with me no great while, thevery monotony of a quiet life casting me back upon my troubledrecollections. As a relief, I sought diversion with Jack's readyassistance in the pleasures of the field. Hawking, hunting,and climbing--for which somehow my companion never acquired ataste--filled out the hours of daylight We chased the fox on footalong ridges of the hills; we hunted the red deer in the forestsabout Styhead; we walked miles across fell and valley to watch awrestling-match or attend a fair. In a word, we lived a clean,open-air life of wholesome activity.
But alas! 'Twas of little profit to me. I would get me tired to bedonly to plunge into a whirlpool of unrestful dreams, and toss thereuntil the morning. Sometimes it would be the door of the littlestaircase to the Count's bedroom. I would see it opening and openingperpetually, and yet never wide open; or again, it would grow giganticin size, and swing back across the world as though it was hingedbetwixt the poles. Most often, however, it would be Count Lukstein'swife. I beheld her now, tall and stately, with her glorious aureole ofhair and her dark, unseeing eyes eating through me like a slow fire asshe advanced across the room; now I followed her as she moved throughthe moonlit garden with the taper burning clear and steady in herhand. But, however the dream began, 'twould always end the same way.The fiery windows of Castle Lukstein would leap upon me out of thedarkness, and I would wake in a cold sweat, my body a-quiver, and herlone cry knelling in my ears.
A strange feature of these nightmare fancies, and a feature thatgreatly perplexed me, was that the Count himself played no part inthem. Were my dreams the test and touchstone of the truth, I couldnever so much as have set eyes upon him. The encounter, theconversation which preceded it, the last cowardly thrust, and the deadform huddled up in my arms among the curtains--of these things I hadnot even a hint. They became erased from my memory the moment that Ifell asleep. Then 'twas always the woman who was pictured to me; in nosingle instance the man. I wondered at this omission the more,inasmuch as I frequently thought of Count Lukstein during theday-time, remembering with an odd sense of envy the softness of hisvoice when he spoke concerning his wife.
Spent with the double fatigue of the day's exertions and the night'sphantasmal horrors, I betook myself at length to my library, seekingrest, if not forgetfulness, among my old companions. But the delightand joy of books had gone out from me, and nowise could I recover it.Once the very covers had seemed to me to answer the pressure of myfingers with a friendly welcome; now I applied myself straightway tothe text as to a laborious and uncongenial task. I had looked sodeeply into a tragic reality that these printed images of lifeappeared false and distorted, like reflections thrown from a convexmirror; and I understood how it is that those who act are but seldomtheir own historians, and when they are, content themselves with asimple register of deeds. However, I persevered in this course for awhile, hoping that some time my former zest and liking would return tome, and I should taste again the fine flavour of a nicely-orderedsentence or of a discriminate sequence of thoughts.
But one May morning, coming into the study shortly after sunrise, Isat me down, with my limbs unrefreshed and aching, before the "ReligioMedici" of the Norwich doctor, and I fell immediately across thispassage:
"I have heard some with deep sighs lament the lost lines of Cicero;others with as many groans deplore the combustion of the library ofAlexandria. For my own part, I think there be too many in the world,and could with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, couldI, with a few others, recover the perished leaves of Solomon."
The words chimed so appositely with my thoughts that I resolved thereand then to put the theory into practice, and closing the book, I madea beginning with Sir Thomas Browne. Outside the window the birds pipedhappily from vernal branches; the shadows played hide-and-seek uponthe grass, and the beck babbled and laughed as it raced down behindthe house. I locked the door of the library, and taking the key in myhand, walked to the side of the beck. At this point the stream spoutedin a fountain from a cleft of rock, and fell some twelve feet into adeep bason. A group of larches overhung the pool, and the sunlight,sprinkling between the leaves, dappled the clear green surface with anever-shifting pattern. Into this bason I dropped the key, and watchedit sink with a sparkling tail of bubbles to the bottom. 'Twas of abright metal, so that I could still see it distinctly as it rested onthe rock-bed. A large stone lay upon the bank beside me, and with asudden, uncontrollable impulse I stripped off my clothes, picked upthe stone, and diving into the cool water, set it carefully atop ofthe key. Many months passed before I came again to the pool, and foundthe key still hidden safe beneath the stone; and during those monthsso much that was strange occurred to me, and I wandered along such newand devious paths, that when I held it again, all rusty and corroded,in my hand, I felt as though it could not have been myself who haddropped it there, but some one whose memories had
been transmitted tome and incorporated in my being by a mysterious alchemy.
It was on that very afternoon that the letter was brought to me. Jackand I were sitting at dinner in the big oak dining-room about four ofthe clock; the great windows were open, and the sunny air streamed inladen with fresh perfumes. I can see Jim Ritson now as he rode up thedrive--'twas part of his duty to meet the mail at the post-town ofCockermouth--I can almost hear his voice as he gave in the letter atthe hall-door. "There's a letter for t' maister," he said.
Jim is grown to middle age by this time, and owns a comfortable fatface and a brood of children. But whenever I pass him in the lanes andfields I ever experience a lively awe and respect for him as for theaccredited messenger of fate.
The letter came from Lord Elmscott and urged me to visit him in town.
"Come!" he wrote. "To the dust of Leyden you are superadding the mouldof Cumberland. Come and brush yourself clean with the contact of wits!There is much afoot that should interest you. What with Romish priestsand English bishops, the town is in ferment. Moreover, a new beautyhath come to Court. There is nothing very strange in that. But she isa foreigner, and her rivals have as yet discovered no scandal tosmirch her with. There is something very strange in that. Such amiracle is well worth a man's beholding. She hails from the Tyrol andis the widow of one Count Lukstein, who was in London last year. Shewears no mourning for her husband, and hath many suitors. I have oflate won much money at cards, and so readily forgive you for that youwere the death of Ph[oe]be."
The letter ran on to some considerable length, but I read no more ofit. Indeed, I understood little of what I had read. The face ofCountess Lukstein seemed stamped upon the page to the obscuring of theinscription. I passed it across to Jack without a word, and he perusedit silently and tossed it back. All that evening I sat smoking my pipeand pondering the proposal. An overmastering desire to see herfeatures alive with the changing lights of expression, began topossess me. The more I thought, the more ardently I longed to beholdher. If only I could see her eyes alert and glancing, if only I couldhear her voice, I might free myself from the picture of the blank,impassive mask which she wore in my dreams. That way, I fancied, andthat way alone, should I find peace.
"I shall go," I said at last, knocking the ashes from my pipe. "Ishall go to-morrow."
"You shan't!" cried Jack vehemently, springing up and facing me. "Sheknows you. She has seen you."
"She has never seen me," I replied steadily, and he gazed into my facewith a look of bewilderment which gradually changed into fear.
"Are you mad, Morrice?" he asked, in a broken whisper, and took a stepor two backwards, keeping his eyes fixed upon mine.
"Nay, Jack," said I; "but unless God helps me, I soon shall be. He maybe helping me now. I trust so, for this visit alone can save me."
"She has never seen you?" he repeated. "Swear it! Morrice! Swear it!"
I did as he bade me.
"What brings her to England?" he mused.
"What kept us wandering about Italy?" I answered. "The fear to returnhome."
"'Twill not serve," said he. "She wears no mourning for her husband."
I wondered at this myself, but could come at no solution, and so gotme to bed. That night, for the first time since I left Austria, Islept dreamlessly. In the morning I was yet more determined to go. Ifelt, indeed, as though I had no power to stay, and, hurrying on myservants, I prepared to set out at two of the afternoon. Udal and twoother of my men I took with me.
"Morrice," said Jack, as he stood upon the steps of the porch, "don'tstay with your cousin! Hire a lodging of your own!"
"Why?" I asked, in surprise.
"You talk overmuch in your sleep. Only two nights ago I heard youmaking such an outcry that I feared you would wake the house. I rushedinto your room. You were crouched up among the bed-curtains at thehead of the bed and gibbering: 'It will touch her. It flows so fast.Oh, my God! My God!'"
I made no answer to his words, and he asked again very earnestly:
"The Countess has never seen you? You are sure?"
"Quite!" said I firmly, and I shook him by the hand, and so startedfor London.