CHAPTER VIII.
When the hours of study were past, the children, with that zest forplay which occupation can alone secure, would go forth together, andwander in the park. Here they had made a little world for themselves,of which no one dreamed; for Venetia had poured forth all her Arcadianlore into the ear of Plantagenet; and they acted together many ofthe adventures of the romance, under the fond names of Musidorus andPhiloclea. Cherbury was Arcadia, and Cadurcis Macedon; while theintervening woods figured as the forests of Thessaly, and the breezydowns were the heights of Pindus. Unwearied was the innocent sportof their virgin imaginations; and it was a great treat if Venetia,attended by Mistress Pauncefort, were permitted to accompanyPlantagenet some way on his return. Then they parted with an embracein the woods of Thessaly, and Musidorus strolled home with a heavyheart to his Macedonian realm.
Parted from Venetia, the magic suddenly seemed to cease, and Musidoruswas instantly transformed into the little Lord Cadurcis, exhausted bythe unconscious efforts of his fancy, depressed by the separation fromhis sweet companion, and shrinking from the unpoetical reception whichat the best awaited him in his ungenial home. Often, when thus alone,would he loiter on his way and seat himself on the ridge, and watchthe setting sun, as its dying glory illumined the turrets of hisancient house, and burnished the waters of the lake, until the tearsstole down his cheek; and yet he knew not why. No thoughts of sorrowhad flitted through his mind, nor indeed had ideas of any descriptionoccurred to him. It was a trance of unmeaning abstraction; all that hefelt was a mystical pleasure in watching the sunset, and a convictionthat, if he were not with Venetia, that which he loved next best, wasto be alone.
The little Cadurcis in general returned home moody and silent, andhis mother too often, irritated by his demeanour, indulged in all theexpressions of a quick and offended temper; but since his intimacywith the Herberts, Plantagenet had learnt to control his emotions,and often successfully laboured to prevent those scenes of domesticrecrimination once so painfully frequent. There often, too, was a notefrom Lady Annabel to Mrs. Cadurcis, or some other slight memorial,borne by her son, which enlisted all the kind feelings of that lady infavour of her Cherbury friends, and then the evening was sure to passover in peace; and, when Plantagenet was not thus armed, he exertedhimself to be cordial; and so, on the whole, with some skill inmanagement, and some trials of temper, the mother and child contrivedto live together with far greater comfort than they had of old.
Bedtime was always a great relief to Plantagenet, for it securedhim solitude. He would lie awake for hours, indulging in sweet andunconscious reveries, and brooding over the future morn, that alwaysbrought happiness. All that he used to sigh for, was to be LadyAnnabel's son; were he Venetia's brother, then he was sure he nevershould be for a moment unhappy; that parting from Cherbury, and thegloomy evenings at Cadurcis, would then be avoided. In such a mood,and lying awake upon his pillow, he sought refuge from the painfulreality that surrounded him in the creative solace of his imagination.Alone, in his little bed, Cadurcis was Venetia's brother, and heconjured up a thousand scenes in which they were never separated, andwherein he always played an amiable and graceful part. Yet he lovedthe abbey; his painful infancy was not associated with that scene; itwas not connected with any of those grovelling common-places of hislife, from which he had shrunk back with instinctive disgust, evenat a very tender age. Cadurcis was the spot to which, in his mostmiserable moments at Morpeth, he had always looked forward, as theonly chance of emancipation from the distressing scene that surroundedhim. He had been brought up with a due sense of his future position,and although he had ever affected a haughty indifference on thesubject, from his disrelish for the coarse acquaintances who wereperpetually reminding him, with chuckling self-complacency, of hisfuture greatness, in secret he had ever brooded over his destiny ashis only consolation. He had imbibed from his own reflections, at avery early period of life, a due sense of the importance of his lot;he was proud of his hereditary honours, blended, as they were, withsome glorious passages in the history of his country, and prouder ofhis still more ancient line. The eccentric exploits and the violentpassions, by which his race had been ever characterised, were to him asource of secret exultation. Even the late lord, who certainly hadno claims to his gratitude, for he had robbed the inheritance to theutmost of his power, commanded, from the wild decision of his life,the savage respect of his successor. In vain Mrs. Cadurcis wouldpour forth upon this, the favourite theme for her wrath and herlamentations, all the bitter expressions of her rage and woe.Plantagenet had never imbibed her prejudices against the departed, andhad often irritated his mother by maintaining that the late lord wasperfectly justified in his conduct.
But in these almost daily separations between Plantagenet and Venetia,how different was her lot to that of her companion! She was theconfidante of all his domestic sorrows, and often he had requestedher to exert her influence to obtain some pacifying missive from LadyAnnabel, which might secure him a quiet evening at Cadurcis; andwhenever this had not been obtained, the last words of Venetia wereever not to loiter, and to remember to speak to his mother as much ashe possibly could. Venetia returned to a happy home, welcomed by thesmile of a soft and beautiful parent, and with words of affectionsweeter than music. She found an engaging companion, who had nothought but for her welfare, her amusement, and her instruction: andoften, when the curtains were drawn, the candles lit, and Venetia,holding her mother's hand, opened her book, she thought of poorPlantagenet, so differently situated, with no one to be kind to him,with no one to sympathise with his thoughts, and perhaps at the verymoment goaded into some unhappy quarrel with his mother.