"Ulyss. Time hath a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
* * Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright."--_Troilus and Cressida_.
I have, not sought--as would have been easy, by a little ingenuity in the
earlier portion of this narrative--whatever source of vulgar interest
might be derived from the mystery of names and persons. As in Charles
Spencer the reader is allowed at a glance to detect Sidney Morton, so in
Philip de Vaudemont (the stranger who rescued Fanny) the reader at once
recognises the hero of my tale; but since neither of these young men has
a better right to the name resigned than to the name adopted, it will be
simpler and more convenient to designate them by those appellations by
which they are now known to the world. In truth, Philip de Vaudemont was
scarcely the same being as Philip Morton. In the short visit he had paid
to the elder Gawtrey, when he consigned Fanny to his charge, he had given
no name; and the one he now took (when, towards the evening of the next
day he returned to Simon's house) the old man heard for the first time.
Once more sunk into his usual apathy, Simon did not express any surprise
that a Frenchman should be so well acquainted with English--he scarcely
observed that the name was French. Simon's age seemed daily to bring him
more and more to that state when life is mere mechanism, and the soul,
preparing for its departure, no longer heeds the tenement that crumbles
silently and neglected into its lonely dust. Vaudemont came with but
little luggage (for he had an apartment also in London), and no
attendant,--a single horse was consigned to the stables of an inn at
hand, and he seemed, as soldiers are, more careful for the comforts of
the animal than his own. There was but one woman servant in the humble
household, who did all the ruder work, for Fanny's industry could afford
it. The solitary servant and the homely fare sufficed for the simple and
hardy adventurer.
Fanny, with a countenance radiant with joy, took his hand and led him to
his room. Poor child! with that instinct of woman which never deserted
her, she had busied herself the whole day in striving to deck the chamber
according to her own notions of comfort. She had stolen from her little
hoard wherewithal to make some small purchases, on which the Dowbiggin of
the suburb had been consulted. And what with flowers on the table, and a
fire at the hearth, the room looked cheerful.
She watched him as he glanced around, and felt disappointed that he did
not utter the admiration she expected. Angry at last with the
indifference which, in fact, as to external accommodation, was habitual
to him, she plucked his sleeve, and said,--
"Why don't you speak? Is it not nice?--Fanny did her best."
"And a thousand thanks to Fanny! It is all I could wish."
"There is another room, bigger than this, but the wicked woman who robbed
us slept there; and besides, you said you liked the churchyard. See!"
and she opened the window and pointed to the church-tower rising dark
against the evening sky.
"This is better than all!" said Vaudemont; and he looked out from the
window in a silent reverie, which Fanny did not disturb.
And now he was settled! From a career so wild, agitated, and various,
the adventurer paused in that humble resting-nook. But quiet is not
repose--obscurity is not content. Often as, morn and eve, he looked
forth upon the spot, where his mother's heart, unconscious of love and
woe, mouldered away, the indignant and bitter feelings of the wronged
outcast and the son who could not clear the mother's name swept away the
subdued and gentle melancholy into which time usually softens regret for
the dead, and with which most of us think of the distant past, and the
once joyous childhood!
In this man's breast lay, concealed by his external calm, those memories
and aspirations which are as strong as passions. In his earlier years,
when he had been put to hard shifts for existence, he had found no
leisure for close and brooding reflection upon that spoliation of just
rights--that calumny upon his mother's name, which had first brought the
Night into his Morning. His resentment towards the Beauforts, it is
true, had ever been an intense but a fitful and irregular passion. It
was exactly in proportion as, by those rare and romantic incidents which
Fiction cannot invent, and which Narrative takes with diffidence from the
great Store-house of Real Life, his steps had ascended in the social
ladder--that all which his childhood had lost--all which the robbers of
his heritage had gained, the grandeur and the power of WEALTH--above all,
the hourly and the tranquil happiness of a stainless name, became
palpable and distinct. He had loved Eugenie as a boy loves for the first
time an accomplished woman. He regarded her, so refined--so gentle--so
gifted, with the feelings due to a superior being, with an eternal
recollection of the ministering angel that had shone upon him when he
stood on the dark abyss. She was the first that had redeemed his fate--
the first that had guided aright his path--the first that had tamed the
savage at his breast:--it was the young lion charmed by the eyes of Una.
The outline of his story had been truly given at Lord Lilburne's.
Despite his pride, which revolted from such obligations to another, and a
woman--which disliked and struggled against a disguise which at once and
alone saved him from the detection of the past and the terrors of the
future--he had yielded to her, the wise and the gentle, as one whose
judgment he could not doubt; and, indeed, the slanderous falsehoods
circulated by the lackey, to whose discretion, the night of Gawtrey's
death, Eugenie had preferred to confide her own honour, rather than
another's life, had (as Liancourt rightly stated) left Philip no option
but that which Madame de Merville deemed the best, whether for her
happiness or her good name. Then had followed a brief season--the
holiday of his life--the season of young hope and passion, of brilliancy
and joy, closing by that abrupt death which again left him lonely in the
world.
When, from the grief that succeeded to the death of Eugenie, he woke to
find himself amidst the strange faces and exciting scenes of an Oriental
court, he turned with hard and disgustful contempt from Pleasure, as an
infidelity to the dead. Ambition crept over him--his mind hardened as
his cheek bronzed under those burning suns--his hardy frame, his energies
prematurely awakened, his constitutional disregard to danger,--made him
a brave and skilful soldier. He acquired reputation and rank. But, as
time went on, the ambition took a higher flight--he felt his sphere
circumscribed; the Eastern indolence that filled up the long intervals
between Eastern action chafed a temper never at rest: he returned to
France: his reputation, Liancourt's friendship, and the relations of
Eugenie--grateful, as has before been implied, for the generosity with
which he surrendered the principal part of her donation--opened for him a
new career, but one painful and galling. In the Indian court there was
no question of his birth--one adventurer was equal with the rest. But in
Paris, a man attempting to rise provoked all the sarcasm of wit, all the
cavils of party; and in polished and civil life, what valour has weapons
against a jest? Thus, in civilisation, all the passions that spring from
humiliated self-love and baffled aspiration again preyed upon his breast.
He saw, then, that the more he struggled from obscurity, the more acute
would become research into his true origin; and his writhing pride almost
stung to death his ambition. To succeed in life by regular means was
indeed difficult for this man; always recoiling from the name he bore--
always strong in the hope yet to regain that to which he conceived
himself entitled--cherishing that pride of country which never deserts
the native of a Free State, however harsh a parent she may have proved;
and, above all, whatever his ambition and his passions, taking, from the
very misfortunes he had known, an indomitable belief in the ultimate
justice of Heaven;--he had refused to sever the last ties that connected
him with his lost heritage and his forsaken land--he refused to be
naturalised--to make the name he bore legally undisputed--he was
contented to be an alien. Neither was Vaudemont fitted exactly for that
crisis in the social world when the men of journals and talk bustle aside
the men of action. He had not cultivated literature, he had no book-
knowledge--the world had been his school, and stern life his teacher.
Still, eminently skilled in those physical accomplishments which men
admire and soldiers covet, calm and self-possessed in manner, of great
personal advantages, of much ready talent and of practised observation in
character, he continued to breast the obstacles around him, and to
establish himself in the favour of those in power. It was natural to a
person so reared and circumstanced to have no sympathy with what is
called the popular cause. He was no citizen in the state--he was a
stranger in the land. He had suffered and still suffered too much from
mankind to have that philanthropy, sometimes visionary but always noble,
which, in fact, generally springs from the studies we cultivate, not in
the forum, but the closet. Men, alas! too often lose the Democratic
Enthusiasm in proportion as they find reason to suspect or despise their
kind. And if there were not hopes for the Future, which this hard,
practical daily life does not suffice to teach us, the vision and the
glory that belong to the Great Popular Creed, dimmed beneath the
injustice, the follies, and the vices of the world as it is, would fade
into the lukewarm sectarianism of temporary Party. Moreover, Vaudemont's
habits of thought and reasoning were those of the camp, confirmed by the
systems familiar to him in the East: he regarded the populace as a
soldier enamoured of discipline and order usually does. His theories,
therefore, or rather his ignorance of what is sound in theory, went with
Charles the Tenth in his excesses, but not with the timidity which
terminated those excesses by dethronement and disgrace. Chafed to the
heart, gnawed with proud grief, he obeyed the royal mandates, and
followed the exiled monarch: his hopes overthrown, his career in France
annihilated forever. But on entering England, his temper, confident and
ready of resource, fastened itself on new food. In the land where he had
no name he might yet rebuild his fortunes. It was an arduous effort--an
improbable hope; but the words heard by the bridge of Paris--words that
had often cheered him in his exile through hardships and through dangers
which it is unnecessary to our narrative to detail--yet rung again in his
ear, as he leaped on his native land,--"Time, Faith, Energy."
While such his character in the larger and more distant relations of
life, in the closer circles of companionship many rare and noble
qualities were visible. It is true that he was stern, perhaps imperious
--of a temper that always struggled for command; but he was deeply
susceptible of kindness, and, if feared by those who opposed, loved by
those who served him. About his character was that mixture of tenderness
and fierceness which belonged, of old, to the descriptions of the
warrior. Though so little unlettered, Life had taught him a certain
poetry of sentiment and idea--More poetry, perhaps, in the silent
thoughts that, in his happier moments, filled his solitude, than in half
the pages that his brother had read and written by the dreaming lake. A
certain largeness of idea and nobility of impulse often made him act the
sentiments of which bookmen write. With all his passions, he held
licentiousness in disdain; with all his ambition for the power of wealth,
he despised its luxury. Simple, masculine, severe, abstemious, he was of
that mould in which, in earlier times, the successful men of action have
been cast. But to successful action, circumstance is more necessary than
to triumphant study.
It was to be expected that, in proportion as he had been familiar with
a purer and nobler life, he should look with great and deep self-
humiliation at his early association with Gawtrey. He was in this
respect more severe on himself than any other mind ordinarily just and
candid would have been,--when fairly surveying the circumstances of
penury, hunger, and despair, which had driven him to Gawtrey's roof, the
imperfect nature of his early education, the boyish trust and affection
he had felt for his protector, and his own ignorance of, and exemption
from, all the worst practices of that unhappy criminal. But still, when,
with the knowledge he had now acquired, the man looked calmly back, his
cheek burned with remorseful shame at his unreflecting companionship in a
life of subterfuge and equivocation, the true nature of which, the boy
(so circumstanced as we have shown him) might be forgiven for not at that
time comprehending. Two advantages resulted, however, from the error and
the remorse: first, the humiliation it brought curbed, in some measure,
a pride that might otherwise have been arrogant and unamiable, and,
secondly, as I have before intimated, his profound gratitude to Heaven
for his deliverance from the snares that had beset his youth gave his
future the guide of an earnest and heartfelt faith. He acknowledged in
life no such thing as accident. Whatever his struggles, whatever his
melancholy, whatever his sense of worldly wrong, he never despaired; for
nothing now could shake his belief in one directing Providence.
The ways and habits of Vaudemont were not at discord with those of the
quiet household in which he was now a guest. Like most men of strong
frames, and accustomed to active, not studious pursuits, he rose early;
--and usually rode to London, to come back late at noon to their frugal
meal. And if again, perhaps after the hour when Fanny and Simon retired,
he would often return to London, his own pass-key re-admitted him, at
whatever time he came back, without disturbing the sleep of the
household. Sometimes, when the sun began to decline, if the air was
warm, the old man would crawl out, leaning on that strong arm, through
the neighbouring lanes, ever returning through the lonely burial-ground;
or when the blind host clung to his fireside, and composed himself to
sleep, Philip would saunter forth along with Fanny; and on the days when
she went to sell her work, or select her purchases, he always made a
point of attending her. And her cheek wore a flush of pride when she saw
him carrying her little basket, or waiting without, in musing patience,
while she performed her commissions in the shops. Though in reality
Fanny's intellect was ripening within, yet still the surface often misled
the eye as to the depths. It was rather that something yet held back the
faculties from their growth than that the faculties themselves were
wanting. Her weakness was more of the nature of the infant's than of one
afflicted with incurable imbecility. For instance, she managed the
little household with skill and prudence; she could calculate in her
head, as rapidly as Vaudemont himself, the arithmetic necessary to her
simple duties; she knew the value of money, which is more than some of us
wise folk do. Her skill, even in her infancy so remarkable, in various
branches of female handiwork, was carried, not only by perseverance, but
by invention and peculiar talent, to a marvellous and exquisite
perfection. Her embroidery, especially in what was then more rare than
at present, viz., flowers on silk, was much in request among the great
modistes of London, to whom it found its way through the agency of Miss
Semper. So that all this had enabled her, for years, to provide every
necessary comfort of life for herself and her blind protector. And her
care for the old man was beautiful in its minuteness, its vigilance.
Wherever her heart was interested, there never seemed a deficiency of
mind. Vaudemont was touched to see how much of affectionate and pitying
respect she appeared to enjoy in the neighbourhood, especially among the
humbler classes--even the beggar who swept the crossings did not beg of
her, but bade God bless her as she passed; and the rude, discontented
artisan would draw himself from the wall and answer, with a softened
brow, the smile with which the harmless one charmed his courtesy. In
fact, whatever attraction she took from her youth, her beauty, her
misfortune, and her affecting industry, was heightened, in the eyes of
the poorer neighbours, by many little traits of charity and kindness;
many a sick child had she tended, and many a breadless board had stolen
something from the stock set aside for her father's grave.
"Don't you think," she once whispered to Vaudemont, "that God attends to
us more if we are good to those who are sick and hungry?"
"Certainly we are taught to think so."
"Well, I'll tell you a secret--don't tell again. Grandpapa once said
that my father had done bad things; now, if Fanny is good to those she
can help, I think that God will hear her more kindly when she prays him
to forgive what her father did. Do you think so too? Do say--you are
so wise!"
"Fanny, you are wiser than all of us; and I feel myself better and
happier when I hear you speak."
There were, indeed, many moments when Vaudemont thought that her
deficiencies of intellect might have been repaired, long since, by
skilful culture and habitual companionship with those of her own age;
from which companionship, however, Fanny, even when at school, had shrunk
aloof. At other moments there was something so absent and distracted
about her, or so fantastic and incoherent, that Vaudemont, with the man's
hard, worldly eye, read in it nothing but melancholy confusion.
Nevertheless, if the skein of ideas was entangled, each thread in itself
was a thread of gold.
Fanny's great object--her great ambition--her one hope--was a tomb for
her supposed father. Whether from some of that early religion attached
to the grave, which is most felt in Catholic countries, and which she had
imbibed at the convent; or from her residence so near the burial ground,
and the affection with which she regarded the spot;--whatever the cause,
she had cherished for some years, as young maidens usually cherish the
desire of the Altar--the dream of the Gravestone. But the hoard was
amassed so slowly;--now old Gawtrey was attacked by illness;--now there
was some little difficulty in the rent; now some fluctuation in the price
of work; and now, and more often than all, some demand on her charity,
which interfered with, and drew from, the pious savings. This was a
sentiment in which her new friend sympathised deeply; for he, too,
remembered that his first gold had bought that humble stone which still
preserved upon the earth the memory of his mother.
Meanwhile, days crept on, and no new violence was offered to Fanny.
Vaudemont learned, then, by little and little--and Fanny's account was
very confused--the nature of the danger she had run.
It seemed that one day, tempted by the fineness of the weather up the
road that led from the suburb farther into the country, Fanny was stopped
by a gentleman in a carriage, who accosted her, as she said, very kindly:
and after several questions, which she answered with her usual
unsuspecting innocence, learned her trade, insisted on purchasing some
articles of work which she had at the moment in her basket, and promised
to procure her a constant purchaser, upon much better terms than she had
hitherto obtained, if she would call at the house of a Mrs. West, about a
mile from the suburb towards London. This she promised to do, and this
she did, according to the address he gave her. She was admitted to a
lady more gaily dressed than Fanny had ever seen a lady before,--the
gentleman was also present,--they both loaded her with compliments, and
bought her work at a price which seemed about to realise all the hopes of
the poor girl as to the gravestone for William Gawtrey,--as if his evil
fate pursued that wild man beyond the grave, and his very tomb was to be
purchased by the gold of the polluter! The lady then appointed her to
call again; but, meanwhile, she met Fanny in the streets, and while she
was accosting her, it fortunately chanced that Miss Semper the milliner
passed that way--turned round, looked hard at the lady, used very angry
language to her, seized Fanny's hand, led her away while the lady slunk
off; and told her that the said lady was a very bad woman, and that Fanny
must never speak to her again. Fanny most cheerfully promised this.
And, in fact, the lady, probably afraid, whether of the mob or the
magistrates, never again came near her.
"And," said Fanny, "I gave the money they had both given to me to Miss
Semper, who said she would send it back."
"You did right, Fanny; and as you made one promise to Miss Semper, so you
must make me one--never to stir from home again without me or some other
person. No, no other person--only me. I will give up everything else to
go with you."
"Will you? Oh, yes. I promise! I used to like going alone, but that
was before you came, brother."
And as Fanny kept her promise, it would have been a bold gallant indeed
who would have ventured to molest her by the side of that stately and
strong protector.