“Some clouds sweep on as vultures for their prey.
* * * * *
No azure more shall robe the firmament,
Nor spangled stars be glorious.”
BYRON, _Heaven and Earth_.
IT was a lovely evening in April, the weather was unusually mild and
serene for the time of year, in the northern districts of our isle, and
the bright drops of a recent shower sparkled upon the buds of the lilac
and laburnum that clustered round the cottage of Maltravers. The little
fountain that played in the centre of a circular basin, on whose clear
surface the broad-leaved water-lily cast its fairy shadow, added to the
fresh green of the lawn;
“And softe as velvet the yonge grass,”
on which the rare and early flowers were closing their heavy lids. That
twilight shower had given a racy and vigorous sweetness to the air
which stole over many a bank of violets, and slightly stirred the golden
ringlets of Alice as she sate by the side of her entranced and silent
lover. They were seated on a rustic bench just without the cottage, and
the open window behind them admitted the view of that happy room--with
its litter of books and musical instruments--eloquent of the POETRY of
HOME.
Maltravers was silent, for his flexile and excitable fancy was conjuring
up a thousand shapes along the transparent air, or upon those shadowy
violet banks. He was not thinking, he was imagining. His genius reposed
dreamily upon the calm, but exquisite sense of his happiness. Alice
was not absolutely in his thoughts, but unconsciously she coloured them
all--if she had left his side, the whole charm would have been broken.
But Alice, who was not a poet or a genius, _was_ thinking, and thinking
only of Maltravers.... His image was “the broken mirror” multiplied in a
thousand faithful fragments over everything fair and soft in that lovely
microcosm before her. But they were both alike in one thing--they were
not with the Future, they were sensible of the Present--the sense of the
actual life, the enjoyment of the breathing time was strong within them.
Such is the privilege of the extremes of our existence--Youth and Age.
Middle life is never with to-day, its home is in to-morrow... anxious,
and scheming, and desiring, and wishing this plot ripened, and that hope
fulfilled, while every wave of the forgotten Time brings it nearer and
nearer to the end of all things. Half our life is consumed in longing to
be nearer death.
“Alice,” said Maltravers, waking at last from his reverie, and drawing
that light, childlike form nearer to him, “you enjoy this hour as much
as I do.”
“Oh, much more!”
“More! and why so?”
“Because I am thinking of you, and perhaps you are not thinking of
yourself.”
Maltravers smiled and stroked those beautiful ringlets, and kissed that
smooth, innocent forehead, and Alice nestled herself in his breast.
“How young you look by this light, Alice!” said he, tenderly looking
down.
“Would you love me less if I were old?” asked Alice.
“I suppose I should never have loved you in the same way if you had been
old when I first saw you.”
“Yet I am sure I should have felt the same for you if you had been--oh!
ever so old!”
“What, with wrinkled cheeks, and palsied head, and a brown wig, and no
teeth, like Mr. Simcox?”
“Oh, but you could never be like that! You would always look young--your
heart would be always in your face. That clear smile--ah, you would look
beautiful to the last!”
“But Simcox, though not very lovely now, has been, I dare say, handsomer
than I am, Alice; and I shall be contented to look as well when I am as
old!”
“I should never know you were old, because I can see you just as I
please. Sometimes, when you are thoughtful, your brows meet, and you
look so stern that I tremble; but then I think of you when you last
smiled, and look up again, and though you are frowning still, you seem
to smile. I am sure you are different to other eyes than to mine... and
time must kill _me_ before, in my sight, it could alter _you_.”
“Sweet Alice, you talk eloquently, for you talk love.”
“My heart talks to you. Ah! I wish it could say all I felt. I wish it
could make poetry like you, or that words were music--I would never
speak to you in anything else. I was so delighted to learn music,
because when I played I seemed to be talking to you. I am sure that
whoever invented music did it because he loved dearly and wanted to say
so. I said ‘_he_,’ but I think it was a woman. Was it?”
“The Greeks I told you of, and whose life was music, thought it was a
god.”
“Ah, but you say the Greeks made Love a god. Were they wicked for it?”
“Our own God above is Love,” said Ernest, seriously, “as our own poets
have said and sung. But it is a love of another nature--divine, not
human. Come, we will go within, the air grows cold for you.”
They entered, his arm round her waist. The room smiled upon them its
quiet welcome; and Alice, whose heart had not half vented its fulness,
sat down to the instrument still to “talk love” in her own way.
But it was Saturday evening. Now every Saturday, Maltravers received
from the neighbouring town the provincial newspaper--it was his only
medium of communication with the great world. But it was not for that
communication that he always seized it with avidity, and fed on it with
interest. The county in which his father resided bordered on the shire
in which Ernest sojourned, and the paper included the news of that
familiar district in its comprehensive columns. It therefore satisfied
Ernest’s conscience and soothed his filial anxieties to read from time
to time that “Mr. Maltravers was entertaining a distinguished party of
friends at his noble mansion of Lisle Court;” or that “Mr. Maltravers’s
foxhounds had met on such a day at something copse;” or that, “Mr.
Maltravers, with his usual munificence, had subscribed twenty guineas
to the new county gaol.”... And as now Maltravers saw the expected paper
laid beside the hissing urn, he seized it eagerly, tore the envelope,
and hastened to the well-known corner appropriated to the paternal
district. The very first words that struck his eye were these:
ALARMING ILLNESS OF MR. MALTRAVERS.
“We regret to state that this exemplary and distinguished gentleman was
suddenly seized on Wednesday night with a severe spasmodic affection.
Dr. ------ was immediately sent for, who pronounced it to be gout in the
stomach. The first medical assistance from London has been summoned.
“Postscript.--We have just learned, in answer to our inquiries at Lisle
Court, that the respected owner is considerably worse: but slight hopes
are entertained of his recovery. Captain Maltravers, his eldest son and
heir, is at Lisle Court. An express has been despatched in search of
Mr. Ernest Maltravers, who, involved by his high English spirit in some
dispute with the authorities of a despotic government, had suddenly
disappeared from Gottingen, where his extraordinary talents had highly
distinguished him. He is supposed to be staying at Paris.”
The paper dropped on the floor. Ernest threw himself back on the chair,
and covered his face with his hands.
Alice was beside him in a moment. He looked up, and caught her wistful
and terrified gaze. “Oh, Alice!” he cried, bitterly, and almost pushing
her away, “if you could but guess my remorse!” Then springing on his
feet, he hurried from the room.
Presently the whole house was in commotion. The gardener, who was always
in the house about supper-time, flew to the town for post-horses. The
old woman was in despair about the laundress, for her first and only
thought was for “master’s shirts.” Ernest locked himself in his room.
Alice! poor Alice!
In little more than twenty minutes, the chaise was at the door: and
Ernest, pale as death, came into the room where he had left Alice.
She was seated on the floor, and the fatal paper was on her lap. She
had been endeavouring, in vain, to learn what had so sensibly affected
Maltravers, for, as I said before, she was unacquainted with his real
name, and therefore the ominous paragraph did not even arrest her eye.
He took the paper from her, for he wanted again and again to read it:
some little word of hope or encouragement must have escaped him. And
then Alice flung herself on his breast. “Do not weep,” said he; “Heaven
knows I have sorrow enough of my own! My father is dying! So kind, so
generous, so indulgent! O God, forgive me! Compose yourself, Alice. You
will hear from me in a day or two.”
He kissed her, but the kiss was cold and forced. He hurried away. She
heard the wheels grate on the pebbles. She rushed to the window; but
that beloved face was not visible. Maltravers had drawn the blinds, and
thrown himself back to indulge his grief. A moment more, and even the
vehicle that bore him away was gone. And before her were the flowers,
and the starlit lawn, and the playful fountain, and the bench where they
had sat in such heartfelt and serene delight. He was gone; and often,
oh, how often, did Alice remember that his last words had been uttered
in estranged tones--that his last embrace had been without love!