Walter’s visit to Lewis produced a more favourable effect upon the
patient’s health than did all the pills and potions wherewith his doctor
had sought to exorcise the fever-fiend. He had _not_ then deceived
himself--Annie _had_ loved him; nay, from Walter’s recital, as well as
from her manner on the occasion of his protecting her through the crowd
in the square of St. Mark, was he not justified in believing that she
loved him still? The idea was in itself happiness, for although the fact
of her renewing her engagement with Lord Bellefield so immediately after
Lewis had quitted Broadhurst still remained unaccounted for, the belief
that she loved him seemed to impart a new aspect to the whole affair,
and for the first time he allowed himself to hope that her conduct
might admit of some satisfactory explanation. The emotions of a mind so
impulsive as Lewis’s necessarily produce marked effects upon the body;
agitation of spirits had mainly conduced to bring on the fever which
had thus prostrated, him, and the hope to which Walter’s words had given
rise seemed to infuse new life into him; at all events, it is certain
that from the moment in which he became convinced that Annie had loved
him he began to amend. As soon as Frere considered him strong enough to
bear such an announcement, he informed him of the appalling fate which
had overtaken his enemy. Lewis was at first strongly affected. But for
events over which he had had no control he might now have been in the
position of Miles Hardy, a wanderer on the face of the earth, bearing
with him the harrowing consciousness that the blood of a fellow-creature
was upon his hands. After remaining in silent thought for some minutes
he suddenly raised his eyes to his friend’s countenance.
“Frere,” he said, “how can I ever be sufficiently grateful to God, who
chose you as His instrument to set my sin before me, and bring me to
a better frame of mind! Had this dreadful fate overtaken Bellefield
without my having resolved not to fight him, I should have felt morally
guilty of his death, considering that it was mere accident which had
enabled Hardy to meet him sooner than myself.”
“You acted rightly, under circumstances which I must confess to have
afforded about as severe a trial to a man of your impetuous nature as
could well be conceived,” returned Frere; “so it is but fair that you
should reap some advantage from your self-conquest. I pity poor young
Hardy more than I blame him, for he has probably never been taught the
truths of Christianity, and nothing else could have possessed sufficient
power over him to induce him to forego his revenge. Ah! if such men as
Bellefield could but be made to see the mental agony their vices cause
to others, even their selfish hearts would be touched, and they would
be unable to go on sinning with such callous indifference; but in their
selfishness they look merely to the gratification of their own passions,
and ignore all possible results which might tend to interfere with them.
Such a career as Bellefield’s is a fearful and inexplicable mystery to
reflect upon, and it is only by a high exercise of faith that we can
believe even Omnipotence able to bring good out of such consistent and
unmitigated wickedness.”
“And is such your belief?” inquired Lewis earnestly.
“Most assuredly it is,” was the reply. “I am not one of those who
acknowledge God’s attributes with my tongue but in my heart practically
deny; nor can I believe that a Being, the perfection of wisdom, of
justice, and of mercy, could allow evil to exist, were He not able to
overrule it to good. But if you ask me, ‘How can these things be?’ I
tell you at once I do not know; I form no theory on the subject, for I
have no power to do so; my mind is that of a weak, fallen man, and the
secret things of God are so immeasurably above it that to speculate upon
them is equally presumptuous and absurd. Still I feel as certain of the
main fact as if each special detail of the Divine scheme lay spread out
like a map before me, because, were it not so, God would falsify His
attributes; the great Being we worship would be, not a merciful Father,
but a stern, inexorable judge. Depend upon it, Lewis, the real fallacy
in the religious teaching of the present day is that, practically if
not theoretically, fear rather than love is inculcated as the actuating
principle, and, as a natural consequence, men ignore and put aside
thoughts of futurity as they put aside any other painful and alarming
reflection.”
As Frere concluded Lewis paused in thought, then observed--
“All you have said sounds wise and true, and yet there appears a
contradiction somewhere. Evil must always be hateful to God, and as such
must deserve everlasting punishment. I cannot understand it.”
“Nor do I wish or expect you to do so,” replied Frere; “but cannot you
wait patiently through a little space--the life of one man--trusting
that when this mortal shall have put on immortality our enlarged
faculties may enable us to see clearly that which we now believe as
a matter of faith? The only difficulty arises from your attempting to
measure things infinite with your finite intelligence; for instance, you
talk of everlasting punishment--what do you mean by the term?”
“Mean, why, of course, punishment that shall endure throughout
eternity,” replied Lewis.
“And eternity, which to be eternal can no more have had a beginning
than it shall have an end, is an idea our minds cannot grasp; and
in attempting to define and realise these things we only confuse and
mislead ourselves. Take my word for it, Lewis, true religion, the
religion Christ came down from heaven to teach men, consists in a
sincere, earnest, and consistent belief in the goodness and benevolence
of the Creator, carried out practically by an unceasing endeavour to
reform our fallen natures after His image.”
“And how are we to gain the knowledge and the strength requisite to
enable us to do this?” asked Lewis.
“By studying God’s written word with an honest intention of doing as
we are there told to do, at the same time imploring His assistance to
enable us to carry out our good intentions,” was the earnest reply.
So the conversation ended; but Lewis thought over the ideas thus
presented to him, which, though not entirely new to him, or indeed to
any other reflecting mind, had perhaps never before occurred in a light
so clear and practical as that in which Frere had placed them; and as
by slow degrees his strength began to return, and with Antonelli’s
assistance he contrived to creep for an hour at a time to his
painting-room, he arose from that couch of sickness a wiser and a better
man.
As soon as Charles Leicester had recovered from the first shock of his
brother’s death he determined to entrust his wife and child to the care
of General Grant, while he started for England to break the distressing
intelligence to his father. Lord Ashford was now becoming an old man,
and although the profligate career of his eldest son had caused him the
deepest anxiety and regret, he still regarded him with much affection;
and Leicester had only too good reason to dread the effect which might
be produced upon him if, by any accident, he were to become aware of the
fatal event without sufficient preparation. Accordingly, on the second
day after the discovery of the catastrophe, he quitted Venice, and
travelled day and night till he reached England; but fast as he
journeyed, the evil tidings journeyed still more swiftly: a rumour of
the truth had somehow found its way to the London clubs; at one to
which he belonged Lord Ashford had accidentally overheard the affair
discussed, and while uttering a half-frantic inquiry in regard to the
speaker’s authority, was seized with a fit, from which he recovered only
to remain a heart-broken man, paralysed and childish. Charles finding
him in this deplorable state, was of course unable to leave him, and
wrote to Laura to beg that no unnecessary delay might occur to prevent
her joining him as soon as possible. Under these circumstances, General
Grant resolved to proceed to England at once, with the party under his
charge.
When Frere’s anxiety for Lewis’s life had ended, and he felt satisfied
that he was on the road towards recovery, and might safely be entrusted
to the care of Antonelli, he had made his way to the Palazzo Grassini,
and seeking an interview with General Grant, had explained to him the
object which had brought him to Venice, together with the train of
events which had hitherto prevented his announcing his arrival. He also
gave an account of the _fracas_ between Lord Belle-field and Lewis at
the Casino, and his friend’s subsequent self-conquest, in resolving for
conscience’ sake to forego his revenge; but he said nothing of Lewis’s
attachment to Annie, feeling that he had no right to betray his
confidence to the General without obtaining his consent to the measure.
General Grant was much interested by this recital, and highly extolled
Lewis’s conduct throughout the whole affair, the shock of Lord
Bellefield’s death having taken away any little prejudices in favour
of duelling which might have lingered in the chivalrous mind of the old
soldier. He thought, however, that considering the relative positions of
the different parties, it would be better for him not to visit Lewis so
soon after the awful catastrophe which had taken place, but he sent him
a kind message by Frere, saying he should hope to see him on his return
to England, and thanking him for his interference in Walter’s behalf.
On the morning previous to that fixed for the departure of Laura and her
friends, Lewis, having over-exerted himself the day before by painting
for several hours, and having paid the penalty by lying awake during
great part of the night, had fallen into a deep sleep, which lasted so
long, that Frere, having breakfasted and given orders that Lewis was on
no account to be disturbed, went out. He had undertaken, with his usual
good nature, innumerable commissions for the General; these he set to
work diligently to execute, and after wandering up and down the lanes
and squares of Venice, now trudging like an excited postman, now sitting
bolt upright in the stern of a gondola, with _the_ cotton umbrella
spread like a gigantic mushroom over his head to keep off the sun, he
arrived, hot and tired, at the Palazzo Grassini. General Grant was from
home, so Frere left a card, saying he would call later in the afternoon;
then, considering on second thoughts that it would not be kind, as he
had been out so long, to leave Lewis again on the same day, he altered
his determination, and desiring to be shown into the library, sent a
message to ask to be allowed to speak to Mrs. Leicester, or to Miss
Grant. Now the servant to whom this message was entrusted, being,
like many of his betters, averse to needless trouble, and chancing
to encounter Annie as he was proceeding from the library to the
drawing-room, saw fit slightly to alter the tenor of his message, and
leaving out all mention of Laura, informed Miss Grant that a gentleman
of the name of Frere, having called to visit the General, had, on
learning that he was from home, asked to be allowed to see her. This
intelligence rather flurried Annie, Frere being always connected in
her mind with the idea of Lewis, and it was not without a degree of
trepidation, which mantled her cheek with a most becoming blush, that
she hastened to comply with his summons.
When Frere perceived who it was that his message had produced, a scheme,
which had suggested itself to him as a vague possibility, as he had sat
by Lewis’s bedside listening to the ravings of his delirium, recurred
to his mind, as a right and advisable step which it behoved him to
take, now that chance had thrown the opportunity in his way; his first
business, however, was to deliver himself of the commissions entrusted
to him by the General. Having relieved his mind of the weight of this
responsibility, he began--
“Well, Miss Grant, I’m glad to see you looking better than you were. I
suppose it’s the”--(having got rid of your detestable engagement was his
original sentence, but he checked himself, and substituted)--“idea of
getting away from this horrid place, all puddles and palaces; the men
every one of them either a tyrant or a slave, and such lazy rascals into
the bargain; the women, not at all the style of female to talk to you
about; and without any particular beauty to account for it either, as
far as I’m a judge, though perhaps in my present position I’m a little
bit over fastidious; but then Rose Arundel is as near perfection as
anything on this earth can be--however, I’m forgetting you don’t know
anything of the matter, and all that I’m saying must be high Dutch, or
thereabouts, to you.”
And having by this time talked himself into a regular entanglement, the
worthy bear came to a sudden and unexpected standstill. Annie hastened
to relieve him.
“You have, indeed, let me into a secret, Mr. Frere,” she said, smiling;
“but it is quite safe in my hands, and it is a secret, moreover, which
I am delighted to hear: there is no one in whose happiness I take deeper
interest than in that of dear Rose Arundel, and I quite approve of the
step you hint at as being likely to secure it. You must allow me to
offer you my warmest congratulations.”
“Thank ye, thank ye,” returned Frere, looking most comically bashful,
and routing his hair about insanely in his embarrassment, “I certainly
do hope to make her happy, God bless her; though I don’t think you can
judge much about it one way or other, seeing that I may be a Bear in
reality (she calls me one in fun, you know), meaning to eat her up
bodily for aught you can tell. As to its being much of a secret, too
many people know it, too many women in particular, to render that
possible; so, though I don’t want it announced in the _Times_ till the
event actually comes off, you need not put any violent constraint
upon your natural communicativeness, for I am not so ignorant of
the idiosyncrasies of the fair sex as to forget the pain and grief
constrained silence occasions them.”
Annie made a playful rejoinder, and then, after a minute’s pause,
ventured timidly to ask, “I hope Mr. Arundel continues to gain strength.
I--that is my father--and indeed all of us were so grieved to hear of
his illness!”
Frere fixed his large eyes upon her as he replied gruffly, “Yes, he’s
getting on well enough for anything I know to the contrary; but he’s as
weak as a child. It will be months before he becomes anything like the
man he was; he’s been unpleasantly near supplying a vacancy in some
moist graveyard of this amphibious city; small thanks to those who
helped to bring him to such a condition.”
Annie turned very pale at this somewhat unfeeling speech, but she
managed to stammer out, “I thought, that is, we were told that it was
a fever, produced by exposure to malaria, from which Mr. Arundel had
suffered.”
“A fever it was, and no mistake,” was the reply; “such a fever as I
should be very sorry to fall in the way of catching, I can tell you.”
“And yet you have nursed him through it with the most unceasing
self-devotion. You see I know you better than you are aware of, Mr.
Frere,” interrupted Annie with a beaming smile.
“Nurse him! why, of course I did; if I hadn’t, I should have deserved
to be well kicked,” returned Frere in a tone of intense disgust. “I’ve
known Lewis ever since he was a pretty black-eyed boy of ten years old,
and though he is a little hot-headed and impetuous sometimes, that’s no
reason why I should leave him to die of a fever in a foreign land, far
away from those that care about him. A nice sort of friend I should
be if I did, and a pretty figure I should cut the next time I came in
Rose’s way! She is not one of those who love people by halves, I can
tell you; why, she actually dotes on her brother.”
“Oh, I am sure she does; it was that which first made me love her,”
exclaimed Annie with enthusiasm; then seeing all that her speech
involved, she blushed “celestial rosy red” and cast down her eyes in
confusion.
“Humph!” grunted Frere, “that sounds all very nice and amiable, but
I prefer deeds to words! I’ll tell you what it is, Miss Grant,” he
continued, turning suddenly upon Annie, “you talked about malaria being
the exciting cause of Lewis’s illness, it was no such thing--the cause
of his fever was anguish of mind--the poor boy’s been miserable for the
last two years, almost crazy with grief, as I take it, for he has been
doing all sorts of wild, unreasonable things; and if the truth must be
told, it strikes me it’s more your fault than any one else’s.”
“My fault!” exclaimed Annie, her face and neck flushing crimson at this
unexpected charge. “Oh, Mr. Frere, how can you speak such cruel words?”
“Because they happen to be true ones, young lady,” returned Frere
sternly. “You are the daughter of a rich man, and a man in a high
station, and for that reason it’s very seldom you have the plain, honest
truth spoken to you; but you shall learn it to-day from my lips, if
you never heard it before in your life, and if it is not palatable, the
fault does not rest with me. I knew something of this same affair when
Lewis quitted Broadhurst all in a hurry, two years ago, and I set it
down as a foolish bit of boyish romance, which a few months’ absence
would cure; but it was not till I watched by his bedside, and listened
through the solemn hours of the night to his frenzied ravings, that I
became aware the passion he felt for you was rooted in his very heart’s
core, and saw that by his deep, his overpowering love for one who I fear
was not worthy of him, he had shipwrecked the happiness of a lifetime.
Silence!” he continued angrily, as Annie, half rising from her seat,
seemed about to interrupt him, “silence! you have voluntarily, or
involuntarily, been the cause of deep misery to the two persons (for
Rose has suffered greatly on her brother’s account) for whom I care most
in the world, and you shall learn before we part the evil consequences
of your acts, and tell me whether you possess either the will or the
power to repair them.”
Annie again attempted to speak, but finding her accuser would not listen
to her, sunk back with a gesture of despair, while Frere continued--
“Very early in his residence at Broadhurst, Lewis, as I imagine, became
attached to you, though for a long time he would not acknowledge
the fact even to himself: at length, however, self-deception became
impossible; then began the struggle between his pride and his affection;
and from that period to the hour in which he quitted Broadhurst he lived
in a state of mental torture. Well, you could not help his falling
in love with you, you will say; and because a poor tutor was bold and
foolish enough to forget the difference of position between you (which,
by the way, he never did for one moment, though the recollection was
agony to his proud spirit), and to raise his eyes to his employer’s
daughter, you were not bound to forget it also--I grant you that--but
shall I tell you what you could have helped? (which I should never have
known anything about but for poor Lewis’s delirious ravings)--you could
have helped saying and doing a hundred little nameless things, trifles
in themselves perhaps (so are straws, but they show which way the wind
blows!), things which gave the poor fellow the idea that you returned
his affection, and that had he dared to declare his feelings, he might
have obtained such a confession from you; an attempt which he was far
too honourable to make, but rather, with an aching heart, tore himself
away from Broadhurst, throwing up every prospect he then had in life:
you might have helped this, Miss Annie Grant, and if you had been worthy
of the love of such a noble nature you would have done so.”
As Frere, completely carried away by the excited feelings which his
recapitulation of Lewis’s wrongs and sufferings had aroused, paused for
breath, poor Annie, who during the latter portion of his harangue had
been utterly unable to restrain her tears, replied in a voice scarcely
audible through emotion--
“You cruelly misjudge me, Mr. Frere--most cruelly--and are making
an unkind and ungenerous use of knowledge which, if your friend had
retained his reason, would never have been in your possession.”
Frere felt the justice of this reproach, and moreover the sight of poor
Annie’s tears appealed to his kindness of heart, and served to disarm
his wrath.
“Well, that is certainly true,” he said, “and if I have indeed misjudged
you, why I can only say I am very sorry for it; at all events I need
not have spoken so harshly and rudely to you; but you see, Miss Grant,
I feel very deeply about this matter, and the idea that all which Lewis
has suffered had been the consequence of your love of admiration and
idle coquetry made me angry with you.”
“Indeed, indeed, I am no coquette,” murmured poor Annie.
“Well, you seem to have behaved like one, at all events,” returned
Frere; “unless, indeed,” he continued, as a new light suddenly broke in
upon him--“unless, indeed, you really do by any chance care about Lewis
as much as he cares about you--of course in that event you would be more
to be pitied than blamed.” He paused, then after a moment’s reflection,
continued, “But no, that cannot be either; if you had really loved
Lewis, you would scarcely have engaged yourself to another man before
he had been out of the house four-and-twenty hours. What do you say to
that? eh, young lady!”
Poor Annie! heavily indeed did her fault press upon her; most bitterly
did she repent the weakness of character which had prevented her from
refusing to engage her hand when her heart went not with it. What could
she say? Why, she could only sob like an unhappy child, and whisper in a
broken voice--
“I will send Laura to you--ask her, she knows all--she can tell you.”
And so running out of the room, she threw herself upon her friend’s
neck, and begged her, incoherently and vaguely, to “go immediately to
_him_ and explain _everything_;” with which request Laura, when she
had provided the solitary pronoun with a chaperon in the shape of a
concordant noun, and restricted the transcendental “everything” to mean
the one thing needful in that particular case, hastened to comply.
The commission was rather a delicate one, and the excellent Bear did not
render the execution thereof the less difficult by choosing to take
a hard-headed, moral, and common-sense view of Annie’s conduct, which
confused Laura to such a degree, that in her desire to be particularly
lucid, she contrived to entangle the matter so thoroughly that a person
with greater tact and more delicate perceptions than the rough and
straightforward Frere might have found the affair puzzling.
“Well, I tell you what it is, Mrs. Leicester,” he at last exclaimed
abruptly, “if you were to talk to me till midnight, which, seeing you’ve
a long journey before you to-morrow, would be equally fatiguing and
injudicious, you would never be able to convince me that your young
friend acted wisely. The idea of accepting that unhappy man (whose
death, between ourselves, was a gain to everybody but himself, though,
of course, I shall not say so to poor Charles, who in his amiability
contrived to keep up a sort of affection for his brother); but the
notion of accepting him to prevent anybody guessing she was in love
with Lewis seems to me about the most feeble-minded expedient that ever
occurred to the imagination, even of a woman; it’s like cutting one’s
throat to cure a sore finger. I don’t admire the principle of judging
actions by their results, or I should say the result of this has been
just what I should have expected--viz., to make everybody miserable.
However, though she has done a foolish thing, that is very different
from doing a deliberately wicked one. Well, I suppose we must not be too
hard upon her, poor little thing; I dare say Lewis, at all events, will
be magnanimous enough to overlook it, in consideration of her correct
taste in properly appreciating his good qualities; however, I’ll do my
best to explain the matter to him, and put it in as favourable a light
as my conscience will allow me. And so wishing you a good journey, I’ll
be off. I have a notion it won’t be very long before Lewis and I shall
follow you; we shall not be many hours in England before we beat up your
quarters, depend upon it. Lewis will have some strange revelations to
make to Governor Grant that will cause his venerable locks to stand
on end in amazement. Ah! it’s a queer world. Well, good-bye, Mrs.
Leicester: I expect you and I should become good friends in time, though
you’re quite mistaken if you fancy that young woman acted sensibly in
accepting her scampish cousin, when all the time she was in love with
another man.”
And thus Richard Frere fairly talked himself out of the house, leaving
Laura especially astonished at his _brusquerie_, and decidedly of
opinion that she had mismanaged the affair and done her friend’s cause
irreparable injury.