Whenever Audley joined the other guests of an evening--while Harley was
perhaps closeted with Levy and committeemen, and Randal was going the
round of the public-houses--the one with whom he chiefly conversed was
Violante. He had been struck at first, despite his gloom, less perhaps
by her extraordinary beauty than by something in the expression of her
countenance which, despite differences in feature and complexion,
reminded him of Nora; and when, by his praises of Harley, he drew her
attention, and won into her liking, he discovered, perhaps, that the
likeness which had thus impressed him came from some similarities in
character between the living and the lost one,--the same charming
combination of lofty thought and childlike innocence, the same
enthusiasm, the same rich exuberance of imagination and feeling. Two
souls that resemble each other will give their likeness to the looks from
which they beam. On the other hand, the person with whom Harley most
familiarly associated, in his rare intervals of leisure, was Helen Digby.
One day, Audley Egerton, standing mournfully by the window of the
sitting-room appropriated to his private use, saw the two, whom he
believed still betrothed, take their way across the park, side by side.
"Pray Heaven, that she may atone to him for all!" murmured Audley. "But
ah, that it had been Violante! Then I might have felt assured that the
Future would efface the Past,--and found the courage to tell him all.
And when last night I spoke of what Harley ought to be to England, how
like were Violante's eyes and smile to Nora's, when Nora listened in
delighted sympathy to the hopes of my own young ambition." With a sigh
he turned away, and resolutely sat down to read and reply to the
voluminous correspondence which covered the table of the busy public man.
For Audley's return to parliament being considered by his political party
as secure, to him were transmitted all the hopes and fears of the large
and influential section of it whose members looked up to him as their
future chief, and who in that general election (unprecedented for the
number of eminent men it was fated to expel from parliament, and the
number of new politicians it was fated to send into it) drew their only
hopes of regaining their lost power from Audley's sanguine confidence in
the reaction of that Public Opinion which he had hitherto so profoundly
comprehended; and it was too clearly seen, that the seasonable adoption
of his counsels would have saved the existence and popularity of the late
Administration, whose most distinguished members could now scarcely show
themselves on the hustings.
Meanwhile Lord L'Estrange led his young companion towards a green hill in
the centre of the park, on which stood a circular temple; that commanded
a view of the country round for miles. They had walked in silence till
they gained the summit of the sloped and gradual ascent; and then, as
they stood still, side by side, Harley thus spoke,
"Helen, you know that Leonard is in the town, though I cannot receive him
at the Park, since he is standing in opposition to my guests, Egerton and
Leslie."
HELEN.--"But that seems to me so strange. How--how could Leonard do
anything that seems hostile to you?"
HARLEY.--"Would his hostility to me lower him in your opinion? If he
know that I am his rival, does not rivalry include hate?"
HELEN.--"Oh, Lord L'Estrange, how can you speak thus; how so wrong
yourself? Hate--hate to you! and from Leonard Fairfield!"
HARLEY.--"You evade my question. Would his hate or hostility to me
affect your sentiments towards him?"
HELEN (looking down).--"I could not force myself to believe in it."
HARLEY.--"Why?"
HELEN.--"Because it would be so unworthy of him."
HARLEY.--"Poor child! You have the delusion of your years. You deck a
cloud in the hues of the rainbow, and will not believe that its glory is
borrowed from the sun of your own fancy. But here, at least, you are not
deceived. Leonard obeys but my wishes, and, I believe, against his own
will. He has none of man's noblest attribute, Ambition."
HELEN.--"No ambition!"
HARLEY.--"It is vanity that stirs the poet to toil,--if toil the wayward
chase of his own chimeras can be called. Ambition is a more masculine
passion."
Helen shook her head gently, but made no answer.
HARLEY.--"If I utter a word that profanes one of your delusions, you
shake your head and are incredulous. Pause: listen one moment to my
counsels,--perhaps the last I may ever obtrude upon you. Lift your eyes;
look around. Far as your eye can reach, nay, far beyond the line which
the horizon forms in the landscape, stretch the lands of my inheritance.
Yonder you see the home in which my forefathers for many generations
lived with honour, and died lamented. All these, in the course of
nature, might one day have been your own, had you not rejected my
proposals. I offered you, it is true, not what is commonly called Love;
I offered you sincere esteem, and affections the more durable for their
calm. You have not been reared by the world in the low idolatry of rank
and wealth; but even romance cannot despise the power of serving others,
which rank and wealth bestow. For myself, hitherto indolence, and lately
disdain, rob fortune of these nobler attributes. But she who will share
my fortune may dispense it so as to atone for my sins of omission. On
the other side, grant that there is no bar to your preference for Leonard
Fairfield, what does your choice present to you? Those of his kindred
with whom you will associate are unrefined and mean. His sole income is
derived from precarious labours; the most vulgar of all anxieties--the
fear of bread itself for the morrow--must mingle with all your romance,
and soon steal from love all its poetry. You think his affection will
console you for every sacrifice. Folly! the love of poets is for a
mist, a moonbeam, a denizen of air, a phantom that they call an Ideal.
They suppose for a moment that they have found that Ideal in Chloe or
Phyllis, Helen or a milkmaid. Bah! the first time you come to the poet
with the baker's bill, where flies the Ideal? I knew one more brilliant
than Leonard, more exquisitely gifted by nature; that one was a woman;
she saw a man hard and cold as that stone at your feet,--a false, hollow,
sordid worldling; she made him her idol, beheld in him all that history
would not recognize in a Caesar, that mythology would scarcely grant to
an Apollo: to him she was the plaything of an hour; she died, and before
the year was out he had married for money! I knew another instance,--I
speak of myself. I loved before I was your age. Had an angel warned me
then, I would have been incredulous as you. How that ended, no matter:
but had it not been for that dream of maudlin delirium, I had lived and
acted as others of my kind and my sphere,--married from reason and
judgment, been now a useful and happy man. Pause, then. Will you still
reject me for Leonard Fairfield? For the last time you have the option,
--me and all the substance of waking life, Leonard Fairfield and the
shadows of a fleeting dream. Speak! You hesitate. Nay, take time to
decide."
HELEN.--"Ah, Lord L'Estrange, you who have felt what it is to love, how
can you doubt my answer; how think that I could be so base, so ungrateful
as take from yourself what you call the substance of waking life, while
my heart was far away, faithful to what you call a dream?"
HARLEY.--"But can you not dispel the dream?"
HELEN (her whole face one flush).--"It was wrong to call it dream! It is
the reality of life to me. All things else are as dreams."
HARLEY (taking her hand and kissing it with respect).--"Helen, you have a
noble heart, and I have tempted you in vain. I regret your choice,
though I will no more oppose it. I regret it, though I shall never
witness your disappointment. As the wife of that man, I shall see and
know you no more."
HELEN.--"Oh, no! do not say that. Why? Wherefore?"
HARLEY (his brows meeting).--"He is the child of fraud and of shame. His
father is my foe, and my hate descends to the son. He, too, the son,
filches from me--But complaints are idle. When the next few days are
over, think of me but as one who abandons all right over your actions,
and is a stranger to your future fate. Pooh! dry your tears: so long as
you love Leonard or esteem me, rejoice that our paths do not cross."
He walked on impatiently; but Helen, alarmed and wondering, followed
close, took his arm timidly, and sought to soothe him. She felt that he
wronged Leonard,--that he knew not how Leonard had yielded all hope when
he learned to whom she was affianced. For Leonard's sake she conquered
her bashfulness, and sought to explain. But at her first hesitating,
faltered words, Harley, who with great effort suppressed the emotions
which swelled within him, abruptly left her side, and plunged into the
recesses of thick, farspreading groves, that soon wrapped him from her
eye.
While this conversation occurred between Lord L'Estrange and his ward,
the soi-disant Riccabocca and Violante were walking slowly through the
gardens. The philosopher, unchanged by his brightening prospects,--so
far as the outer man was concerned,--still characterized by the red
umbrella and the accustomed pipe,--took the way mechanically towards the
sunniest quarter of the grounds, now and then glancing tenderly at
Violante's downcast, melancholy face, but not speaking; only, at each
glance, there came a brisker cloud from the pipe, as if obedient to a
fuller heave of the heart.
At length, in a spot which lay open towards the south, and seemed to
collect all the gentlest beams of the November sun, screened from the
piercing east by dense evergreens, and flanked from the bleak north by
lofty walls, Riccabocca paused and seated himself. Flowers still bloomed
on the sward in front, over which still fluttered the wings of those
later and more brilliant butterflies that, unseen in the genial days of
our English summer, come with autumnal skies, and sport round the
mournful steps of the coming winter,--types of those thoughts which visit
and delight the contemplation of age, while the current yet glides free
from the iron ice, and the leaves yet linger on the boughs; thoughts that
associate the memories of the departed summer with messages from suns
that shall succeed the winter, and expand colours the most steeped in
light and glory, just as the skies through which they gleam are
darkening, and the flowers on which they hover fade from the surface of
the earth, dropping still seeds, that sink deep out of sight below.
"Daughter," said Riccabocca, drawing Violante to his side with caressing
arm,--"Daughter! Mark how they who turn towards the south can still find
the sunny side of the land scape! In all the seasons of life, how much
of chill or of warmth depends on our choice of the aspect! Sit down: let
us reason."
Violante sat down passively, clasping her father's hand in both her own.
Reason! harsh word to the ears of Feeling! "You shrink," resumed
Riccabocca, "from even the courtship, even the presence of the suitor in
whom my honour binds me to recognize your future bridegroom."
Violante drew away her hands, and placed them before her eyes
shudderingly.
"But" continued Riccabocca, rather peevishly, "this is not listening to
reason. I may object to Mr. Leslie, because he has not an adequate rank
or fortune to pretend to a daughter of my house; that would be what every
one would allow to be reasonable in a father; except, indeed," added the
poor sage, trying hard to be sprightly, and catching hold of a proverb to
help him--"except, indeed, those wise enough to recollect that admonitory
saying, 'Casa il figlio quando vuoi, e la figlia quando puoi,'--[Marry
your son when you will, your daughter when you can]. Seriously, if I
overlook those objections to Mr. Leslie, it is not natural for a young
girl to enforce them. What is reason in you is quite another thing from
reason in me. Mr. Leslie is young, not ill-looking, has the air of a
gentleman, is passionately enamoured of you, and has proved his affection
by risking his life against that villanous Peschiera,--that is, he would
have risked it had Peschiera not been shipped out of the way. If, then,
you will listen to reason, pray what can reason say against Mr. Leslie?"
"Father, I detest him!"
"/Cospetto!/" persisted Riccabocca, testily, "you have no reason to
detest him. If you had any reason, child, I am sure that I should be the
last person to dispute it. How can you know your own mind in such a
matter? It is not as if you had seen anyone else you could prefer. Not
another man of your own years do you even know,--except, indeed, Leonard
Fairfield, whom, though I grant he is handsomer, and with more
imagination and genius than Mr. Leslie, you still must remember as the
boy who worked in my garden. Ah, to be sure, there is Frank Hazeldean;
fine lad, but his affections are pre-engaged. In short," continued the
sage, dogmatically, "there is no one else you can, by any possible
caprice, prefer to Mr. Leslie; and for a girl who has no one else in her
head to talk of detesting a well-looking, well-dressed, clever young man,
is--a nonsense--'Chi lascia il poco per haver l'assai ne l'uno, ne
l'altro avera mai'--which may be thus paraphrased,--The young lady who
refuses a mortal in the hope of obtaining an angel, loses the one, and
will never fall in with the other. So now, having thus shown that the
darker side of the question is contrary to reason, let us look to the
brighter. In the first place--"
"Oh, Father, Father!" cried Violante, passionately, "you to whom I once
came for comfort in every childish sorrow do not talk to me with this
cutting levity. See, I lay my head upon your breast, I put my arms
around you; and now, can you reason me into misery?"
"Child, child, do not be so wayward. Strive, at least, against a
prejudice that you cannot defend. My Violante, my darling, this is no
trifle. Here I must cease to be the fond, foolish father, whom you can
do what you will with. Here I am Alphonso, Duke di Serrano; for here my
honour as noble and my word as man are involved. I, then, but a helpless
exile, no hope of fairer prospects before me, trembling like a coward at
the wiles of my unscrupulous kinsman, grasping at all chances to save you
from his snares,--self offered your hand to Randal Leslie,--offered,
promised, pledged it; and now that my fortunes seem assured, my rank in
all likelihood restored, my foe crushed, my fears at rest, now, does it
become me to retract what I myself have urged? It is not the noble, it
is the /parvenu/, who has only to grow rich, in order to forget those
whom in poverty he hailed as his friends. Is it for me to make the poor
excuse, never heard on the lips of an Italian prince, 'that I cannot
command the obedience of my child;' subject myself to the galling answer,
'Duke of Serrano, you could once command that obedience, when, in exile,
penury, and terror you offered me a bride without a dower'? Child,
Violante, daughter of ancestors on whose honour never slander set a
stain, I call on you to redeem your father's plighted word."
"Father, must it be so? Is not even the convent open to me? Nay, look
not so coldly on me. If you could but read my heart! And oh! I feel so
assured of your own repentance hereafter,--so assured that this man is
not what you believe him. I so suspect that he has been playing
throughout some secret and perfidious part."
"Ha!" interrupted Riccabocca, "Harley has perhaps infected you with that
notion."
"No, no! But is not Harley, is not Lord L'Estrange one whose opinion you
have cause to esteem? And if he distrusts Mr. Leslie--"
"Let him make good his distrust by such proof as will absolve my word,
and I shall share your own joy. I have told him this. I have invited
him to make good his suspicions, he puts me off. He cannot do so," added
Riccabocca, in a dejected tone; "Randal has already so well explained all
that Harley deemed equivocal. Violante, my name and my honour rest in
your hands. Cast them away if you will; I cannot constrain you, and I
cannot stoop to implore. Noblesse oblige! With your birth you took its
duties. Let them decide between your vain caprice and your father's
solemn remonstrance."
Assuming a sternness that he was far from feeling, and putting aside his
daughter's arms, the exile walked away. Violante paused a moment,
shivered, looked round as if taking a last farewell of joy and peace and
hope on earth, and then approaching her father with a firm step, she
said, "I never rebelled, Father; I did but entreat. What you say is my
law now, as it has ever been; and come what may, never shall you hear
complaint or murmur from me. Poor Father, you will suffer more than I
shall. Kiss me!"
About an hour afterwards, as the short day closed in, Harley, returning
from his solitary wanderings, after he had parted from Helen, encountered
on the terrace, before the house, Lady Lansmere and Audley Egerton arm in
arm.
Harley had drawn his hat over his brows, and his eyes were fixed on the
ground, so that he did not see the group upon which he came unawares,
until Audley's voice startled him from his revery.
"My dear Harley," said the ex-minister, with a faint smile, "you must not
pass us by, now that you have a moment of leisure from the cares of the
election. And, Harley, though we are under the same roof, I see you so
little." Lord L'Estrange darted a quick glance towards his mother,--a
glance that seemed to say, "You leaning on Audley's arm! Have you kept
your promise?" And the eye that met his own reassured him.
"It is true," said Harley; "but you, who know that, once engaged in
public affairs, one has no heart left for the ties of private life, will
excuse me. And this election is so important!"
"And you, Mr. Egerton," said Lady Lansmere, "whom the election most
concerns, seem privileged to be the only one who appears indifferent to
success."
"Ay; but you are not indifferent?" said Lord L'Estrange, abruptly.
"No. How can I be so, when my whole future career may depend on it?"
Harley drew Egerton aside. "There is one voter you ought at least to
call upon and thank. He cannot be made to comprehend that, for the sake
of any relation, even for the sake of his own son, he is to vote against
the Blues,--against you; I mean, of course, Nora's father, John Avenel.
His vote and his son-in-law's gained your majority at your first
election."
EGERTON.--"Call on John Avenel! Have you called?"
HARLEY (calmly).--"Yes. Poor old man, his mind has been affected ever
since Nora's death. But your name as the candidate for the borough at
that time,--the successful candidate for whose triumph the joy-bells
chimed with her funeral knell,--your name brings up her memory; and he
talks in a breath of her and of you. Come, let us walk together to his
house; it is close by the Park Lodge."
The drops stood on Audley's brow! He fixed his dark handsome eyes, in
mournful amaze, upon Harley's tranquil face.
"Harley, at last, then, you have forgotten the Past."
"No; but the Present is more imperious. All my efforts are needed to
requite your friendship. You stand against her brother,--yet her father
votes for you. And her mother says to her son, 'Let the old man alone.
Conscience is all that is well alive in him; and he thinks if he were to
vote against the Blues, he would sin against bonour.' 'An electioneering
prejudice,' some sceptics would say. But you must be touched by this
trait of human nature,--in her father, too,--you, Audley Egerton, who are
the soul of honour. What ails you?"
EGERTON.--"Nothing; a spasm at the heart; my old complaint. Well, I will
call on the poor man later, but not now,--not with you. Nay, nay, I will
not,--I cannot. Harley, just as you joined us, I was talking to your
mother."
HARLEY.--"Ay, and what of?"
EGERTON.--"Yourself. I saw you from my windows walking with your
betrothed. Afterwards I observed her coming home alone; and by the
glimpse I caught of her gentle countenance, it seemed sad. Harley, do
you deceive us?"
HARLEY.--"Deceive! I! How?"
EGERTON.--"DO you really feel that your intended marriage will bestow on
you the happiness, which is my prayer, as it must be your mother's?"
HARLEY.--"Happiness, I hoped so. But perhaps--"
EGERTON.--"Perhaps what?"
HARLEY.---"Perhaps the marriage may not take place. Perhaps I have a
rival; not an open one,--a secret, stealthy wooer, in one, too, whom I
have loved, served, trusted. Question me not now. Such instances of
treachery make one learn more how to prize a friendship honest, devoted,
faithful as your own, Audley Egerton. But here comes your protege,
released awhile from his canvass, and your confidential adviser, Baron
Levy. He accompanied Randal through the town to-day. So anxious is he
to see that that young man does not play false, and regard his own
interest before yours! Would that surprise you?"
EGERTON.--"You are too severe upon Randal Leslie. He is ambitious,
worldly, has no surplus of affection at the command of his heart--"
HARLEY.--"Is it Randal Leslie you describe?"
EGERTON (with a languid smile).--"Yes, you see I do not flatter. But he
is born and reared a gentleman; as such he would scarcely do anything
mean. And, after all, it is with me that he must rise or fall. His very
intellect must tell him that. But again I ask, do not strive to
prepossess me against him. I am a man who could have loved a son. I
have none. Randal, such as he is, is a sort of son. He carries on my
projects and my interest in the world of men beyond the goal of the
tomb."
Audley turned kindly to Randal.
"Well, Leslie, what report of the canvass?"
"Levy has the book, sir. I think we have gained ten fresh votes for you,
and perhaps seven for me."
"Let me rid you of your book, Baron Levy," said Harley. Just at this
time Riccabocca and Violante approached the house, both silent. The
Italian caught sight of Randal, and made him a sign to join them. The
young lover glanced fearfully towards Harley, and then with alacrity
bounded forward, and was soon at Violante's side. But scarce had Harley,
surprised by Leslie's sudden disappearance, remarked the cause, than with
equal abruptness he abandoned the whispered conference he had commenced
with Levy, and hastening to Randal, laid hand on the young man's
shoulder, exclaiming, "Ten thousand pardons to all three! But I cannot
allow this waste of time, Mr. Leslie. You have yet an hour before it
grows dark. There are three out-voters six miles off, influential
farmers, whom you must canvass in person with my father's steward.
Hasten to the stables; choose your own horse. To saddle, to saddle!
Baron Levy, go and order my Lord's steward, Mr. Smart, to join Mr. Leslie
at the stables; then come back to me,--quick. What! loitering still,
Mr. Leslie! You will make me throw up your whole cause in disgust at
your indolence and apathy."
Alarmed at this threat, Randal lifted his accusing eyes to heaven and
withdrew.
Meanwhile Audley had drawn close to Lady Lansmere, who was leaning, in
thought, over the balustrade of the terrace. "Do you note," said Audley,
whispering, "how Harley sprang forward when the fair Italian came in
sight? Trust me, I was right. I know little of the young lady, but I
have conversed with her. I have gazed on the changes in her face. If
Harley ever love again, and if ever love influence and exalt his mind,
wish with me that his choice may yet fall where I believe that his heart
inclines it."
LADY LANSMERE.--"Ah, that it were so! Helen, I own, is charming; but--
but--Violante is equal in birth! Are you not aware that she is engaged
to your young friend Mr. Leslie?"
AUDLEY.--"Randal told me so; but I cannot believe it. In fact, I have
taken occasion to sound that fair creature's inclinations, and if I know
aught of women, her heart is not with Randal. I cannot believe her to be
one whose affections are so weak as to be easily constrained; nor can I
suppose that her father could desire to enforce a marriage that is almost
a misalliance. Randal must deceive himself; and from something Harley
just let fall, in our painful but brief conversation, I suspect that his
engagement with Miss Digby is broken off. He promises to tell me more
later. Yes," continued Audley, mournfully, "observe Violante's
countenance, with its ever-varying play; listen to her voice, to which
feeling seems to give the expressive music, and tell me whether you are
not sometimes reminded of--of---In one word, there is one who, even
without rank or fortune, would be worthy to replace the image of Leonora,
and be to Harley--what Leonora could not; for sure I am that Violante
loves him."
Harley, meanwhile, had lingered with Riccabocca and Violante, speaking
but on indifferent subjects, obtaining short answers from the first, and
none from the last, when the sage drew him a little aside, and whispered,
"She has consented to sacrifice herself to my sense of honour. But, O
Harley! if she be unhappy, it will break my heart. Either you must give
me sufficient proof of Randal's unworthiness, to absolve me from my
promise, or I must again entreat, you to try and conciliate the poor
child in his favour. All you say has weight with her; she respects you
as--a second father."
Harley did not seem peculiarly flattered by that last assurance; but he
was relieved from an immediate answer by the appearance of a man who came
from the direction of the stables, and whose dress, covered with dust,
and travel-stained, seemed like that of a foreign courier. No sooner did
Harley catch sight of this person, than he sprang forward, and accosted
him briefly and rapidly.
"You have been quick; I did not expect you so soon. You discovered the
trace? You gave my letter--"
"And have brought back the answer, my Lord," replied the man, taking the
letter from a leathern pouch at his side. Harley hastily broke open the
seal, and glanced over the contents, which were comprised in a few lines.
"Good. Say not whence you came. Do not wait here; return at once to
London."
Harley's face seemed so unusually cheerful as he rejoined the Italians,
that the duke exclaimed,--
"A despatch from Vienna? My recall!"
"From Vienna, my dear friend! Not possible yet. I cannot calculate on
hearing from the prince till a day or two before the close of this
election. But you wish me to speak to Violante. Join my mother yonder.
What can she be saying to Mr. Egerton? I will address a few words apart
to your fair daughter, that may at least prove the interest in her fate
taken by--her second father."
"Kindest of friends!" said the unsuspecting pupil of Machiavelli, and he
walked towards the terrace. Violante was about to follow. Harley
detained her.
"Do not go till you have thanked me; for you are not the noble Violante
for whom I take you, unless you acknowledge gratitude to any one who
delivers you from the presence of an admirer in Mr. Randal Leslie."
VIOLANTE.--"Ought I to hear this of one whom--whom--"
HARLEY.---"One whom your father obstinately persists in obtruding on your
repugnance? Yet, O dear child, you who, when almost an infant, ere yet
you knew what snares and pitfalls, for all who trust to another, lie
under the sward at our feet, even when decked the fairest with the
flowers of spring; you who put your small hands around my neck, and
murmured in your musical voice, 'Save us,--save my father,'--you at least
I will not forsake, in a peril worse than that which menaced you then,--
a peril which affrights you more than that which threatened you in the
snares of Peschiera. Randal Leslie may thrive in his meaner objects of
ambition; those I fling to him in scorn: but you! the presuming varlet!"
Harley paused a moment, half stifled with indignation. He then resumed,
calmly, "Trust to me, and fear not. I will rescue this hand from the
profanation of Randal Leslie's touch; and then farewell, for life, to
every soft emotion. Before me expands the welcome solitude. The
innocent saved, the honest righted, the perfidious stricken by a just
retribution,--and then--what then? Why, at least I shall have studied
Machiavelli with more effect than your wise father; and I shall lay him
aside, needing no philosophy to teach me never again to be deceived."
His brow darkened; he turned abruptly away, leaving Violante lost in
amaze, fear, and a delight, vague, yet more vividly felt than all.