“How sweete and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beautie of thy budding name.”
Some years passed over, and the name of Roland Cashel ceased to be
uttered, or his memory even evoked, in that capital where once his
wealth, his eccentricities, and his notoriety had been the theme of
every tongue. A large neglected-looking house, with closed shutters and
grass-grown steps, would attract the attention of some passing stranger
to ask whom it belonged to, but the name of Mr. Cashel was almost all
that many knew of him, and a vague impression that he was travelling in
some remote and faraway land.
Tubbermore, too, fell back into its former condition of ruin and decay.
No one seemed to know into whose hands the estate had fallen, but
the talismanic word “Chancery” appeared to satisfy every inquiry, and
account for a desolation that brooded over the property and all who
dwelt on it. The very “Cottage” had yielded to the course of time, and
little remained of it save a few damp discolored walls and blackened
chimneys; while here and there a rare shrub, or a tree of foreign
growth, rose among the rank weeds and thistles, to speak of the culture
which once had been the pride of this lovely spot.
Had there been a “curse upon the place” it could not have been more
dreary and sad-looking!
Of the gate-lodge, where Keane lived, a few straggling ruins alone
remained, in a corner of which a miserable family was herded together,
their wan looks and tattered clothing showing that they were dependent
for existence on the charity of the very poor. These were Keane's wife
and children, to whom he never again returned. There was a blight over
everything. The tenantry themselves, no longer subject to the visits of
the agent, the stimulus to all industry withdrawn, would scarcely labor
for their own support, but passed their lives in brawls and quarrels,
which more than once had led to a felon's sentence. The land lay
untilled; the cattle, untended, strayed at will through the unfenced
fields. The villages on the property were crammed by a host of runaway
wretches whose crimes had driven them from their homes, till at length
the district became the plague-spot of the country, where, even
at noonday, few strangers were bold enough to enter, and the word
“Tub-bermore” had a terrible significance in the neighborhood round
about.
Let us now turn for the last time to him whose fortune had so powerfully
influenced his property, and whose dark destiny seemed to throw its
shadow over all that once was his. For years Roland Cashel had been a
wanderer. He travelled every country of the Old World and the New; his
appearance and familiarity with the language enabling him to assume
the nationality of a Spaniard, and thus screen him from that painful
notoriety to which his story was certain to expose him. Journeying
alone, and in the least expensive manner,--for he no longer considered
himself entitled to any of the property he once enjoyed,--he made few
acquaintances and contracted no friendships. One object alone gave a
zest to existence,--to discover Mr. Cor-rigan, and place within his
hands the title-deeds of Tubber-more. With this intention he had
searched through more than half of Europe, visiting the least frequented
towns, and pursuing inquiries in every possible direction; at one moment
cheered by some glimmering prospect of success, at another dashed by
disappointment and failure. If a thought of Linton did occasionally
cross him, he struggled manfully to overcome the temptings of a passion
which should thwart the dearest object of his life, and make vengeance
predominate over truth and honesty. As time rolled on, the spirit of his
hatred became gradually weaker; and if he did not forgive all the ills
his treachery had worked, his memory of them was less frequent and less
painful.
His was a cheerless, for it was a friendless, existence. Avoiding his
own countrymen from the repugnance he felt to sustain his disguise by
falsehood, he wandered from land to land and city to city like some
penitent in the accomplishment of a vow. The unbroken monotony of this
life, the continued pressure of disappointment, at last began to
tell upon him, and in his moody abstractions--his fits of absence and
melancholy--might be seen the change which had come over him. He might
have been a long time ignorant of an alteration which not only impressed
his mind, but even his “outward man,” when his attention was drawn to
the fact by overhearing the observations of some young Englishmen upon
his appearance, as he sat one evening in a _café_ at Naples. Conversing
in all that careless freedom of our young countrymen, which never
supposes that their language can be understood by others, they
criticised his dress, his sombre look, and his manner; and, after an
animated discussion as to whether he were a refugee political offender,
a courier, or a spy, they wound up by a wager that he was at least forty
years of age; one of the party dissenting on the ground that, although
he looked it, it was rather from something on the fellow's mind than
years.
“How shall we find out?” cried the proposer of the bet. “I, for one,
should n't like to ask him his age.”
“If I knew Spanish enough, I'd do it at once,” said another.
“It might cost you dearly, Harry, for all that; he looks marvellously
like a fellow that wouldn't brook trifling.”
“He would n't call it trifling to lose me ten 'carlines,' and I 'm sure
I should win my wager; so here goes at him in French.” Rising at the
same moment, the young man crossed the room and stood before the table
where Cashel sat, with folded arms and bent-down head, listening in
utter indifference to all that passed. “Monsieur,” said the youth,
bowing.
Cashel looked up, and his dark, heavily browed eyes seemed to abash the
other, who stood, blushing, and uncertain what to do.
With faltering accents and downcast look he began to mutter excuses for
his intrusion; when Cashel, in a mild and gentle voice, interrupted him,
saying in English, “I am your countryman, young gentleman, and my age
not six-and-twenty.”
The quiet courtesy of his manner as he spoke, as well as the surprise of
his being English, seemed to increase the youth's shame for the liberty
he had taken, and he was profuse in his apologies; but Cashel soon
allayed this anxiety by adroitly turning to another part of the subject,
and saying, “If I look much older than I am, it is that I have travelled
and lived a good deal in southern climates, not to speak of other
causes, which give premature age.”
A slight, a very slight touch of melancholy in the latter words gave
them a deep interest to the youth, who, with a boyish frankness, far
more fascinating than more finished courtesy, asked Roland if he would
join their party. Had such a request been made half an hour before,
or had it come in more formal fashion, Cashel would inevitably have
declined it; but what between the generous candor of the youth's
address, and a desire to show that he did not resent his intrusion,
Cashel acceded good-naturedly, and took his seat amongst them.
As Roland listened to the joyous freshness of their boyish talk,--the
high-hearted hope, the sanguine trustfulness with which they regarded
life,--he remembered what but a few years back he had himself been. He
saw in them the selfsame elements which had led him on to every calamity
that he suffered,--the passionate pursuit of pleasure, the inexhaustible
craving for excitement that makes life the feverish paroxysm of a
malady.
They sat to a late hour together; and when they separated, the chance
acquaintance had ripened into intimacy. Night after night they met in
the same place; and while they were charmed with the gentle seriousness
of one in whom they could recognize the most manly daring, he, on his
side, was fascinated by the confiding warmth and the generous frankness
of their youth.
One evening, as they assembled as usual, Roland remarked a something
like unusual excitement amongst them; and learned that from a letter
they had received that morning, they were about to leave Naples the next
day. There seemed some mystery in the reason, and a kind of reserve in
even alluding to it, which made Cashel half suspect that they had been
told who he was, and that a dislike to further intercourse had suggested
the departure. It was the feeling that never left him by day or night,
that dogged his waking and haunted his dreams,--that he was one to be
shunned and avoided by his fellow-men. His pride, long dormant, arose
under the supposed slight, and he was about to say a cold farewell, when
the elder of the party, whose name was Sidney, said,--
“How I wish you were going with us!”
“Whither to?” said Cashel, hurriedly.
“To Venice--say, is this possible?”
“I am free to turn my steps in any direction,--too free, for I have
neither course to sail nor harbor to reach.”
“Come with us, then, Roland,” cried they all, “and our journey will be
delightful.”
“But why do you start so hurriedly? What is there to draw you from this
at the very brightest season of the year?”
“There is rather that which draws us to Venice,” said Sidney, coloring
slightly? “but this is our secret, and you shall not hear it till we are
on our way.”
Roland's curiosity was not exacting; he asked no more: nor was it till
they had proceeded some days on their journey that Sidney confided to
him the sudden cause of their journey, which he did in the few words.--
“La Ninetta is at Venice,--she is at the 'Fenice.'”
“But who is La Ninetta? You forgot that you are speaking to one who
lives out of the world.”
“Not know La Ninetta!” exclaimed he; “never have seen her?”
“Never even heard of her.”
To the pause which the shock of the first astonishment imposed there now
succeeded a burst of enthusiastic description, in which the three youths
vied with each other who should be most eloquent in praise. Her beauty,
her gracefulness, the witching fascination of her movements, the
enchanting captivation of her smile, were themes they never wearied of.
Nor was it till he had suffered the enthusiasm to take its course that
they would listen to his calm question,--
“Is she an actress?”
“She is the first _Ballarina_ of the world,” cried one. “None ever did,
nor ever will, dance like her.”
“They say she is a _Prima Donna_ too; but how could such excellence be
united in one creature?”
To their wild transports of praise Roland listened patiently, in the
hope that he might glean something of her story; but they knew nothing,
except that she was reputed to be a Sicilian, of a noble family, whose
passion for the stage had excited the darkest enmity of her relatives;
insomuch that it was said she was tracked from city to city by hired
assassins. She remained two days at Naples; she appeared but once at
Rome; in Genoa, though announced, she never came to the theatre. Such
were the extravagant tales, heightened by all the color of romantic
adventure,--how, at one time, she had escaped from a royal palace
by leaping into the sea,--how, at another, she had ridden through a
squadron of the Swiss Guard, sabre in hand, and got clean away from
Bologna, where a cardinal's letter had arrested her. Incidents the
strangest, the least probable, were recounted of her,--the high proffers
of marriage she had rejected; the alliances, even with royal blood,
she had refused. There was nothing, where her name figured, that seemed
impossible; hers was a destiny above all the rules that guide humbler
mortals.
Excellence, of whatever kind it be, has always this attraction,--that it
forms a standard by which men measure with each other their capacities
of enjoyment and their powers of appreciation. Roland's curiosity was
stimulated, therefore, to behold with his own eyes the wonder which had
excited these youthful heroics. He had long since ceased to be sanguine
on any subject; and he felt that he could sustain disappointment on
graver matters than this.
When they reached Venice, they found that city in a state of
enthusiastic excitement fully equal to their own. All the excesses into
which admiration for art can carry a people insensible to other emotions
than those which minister to the senses, had been committed to welcome
“La Regina de la Balla.” Her _entrée_ had been like a triumph; garlands
of flowers, bouquets, rich tapestries floating from balconies, gondolas
with bands of music; the civic authorities even, in robes of state, met
her as she entered; strangers flocked in crowds from the other cities of
the north, and even from parts beyond the Alps. The hotels were crammed
with visitors all eager to see one of whom every tongue was telling. A
guard of honor stood before the palace in which she resided,--as much
a measure of necessity to repel the pressure of the anxious crowd as it
was a mark of distinction.
The epidemic character of enthusiasm is well known. It is a fervor to
which none can remain insensible. Cashel was soon to experience this.
How could he preserve a cold indifference to the emotions which swayed
thousands around him? How maintain his calm amid that host, which
surged and fretted like the sea in a storm? La Ninetta was the one word
repeated on every side; even to have seen her once was a distinction,
and they who had already felt her fascinations were listened to as
oracles.
She was to give but three representations at Venice, and ere Cashel's
party had arrived all the tickets were already disposed of. By unceasing
efforts, and considerable bribery, they contrived at last to obtain
places for the first night, and early in the forenoon were admitted
among a privileged number to take their seats. They who were thus, at a
heavy cost, permitted to anticipate the general public, seemed--at least
to Cashel's eyes--to fill the house; and so, in the dim indistinctness,
they appeared. Wherever the eye turned, from the dark parterre below, to
the highest boxes above, seemed filled with people. There was something
almost solemn in that vast concourse, who sat subdued and silent in the
misty half light of the theatre. The intense anxiety of expectation,
the dreary gloom of the scene, contributed to spread a kind of awestruck
influence around, and brought up to Roland's memory a very different
place and occasion--when, himself the observed of all observers, he
stood in the felons' dock. Lost in the gloomy revery these sad thoughts
suggested, he took no note of time, nor marked the lagging hours which
stole heavily past.
Suddenly the full glare of light burst forth, and displayed the great
theatre crowded in every part. That glittering spectacle, into which
beauty, splendor of dress, jewels, and rich uniforms enter, broke
upon the sight, while a kind of magnetic sense of expectancy seemed
to pervade all, and make conversation a mere murmur. The
opera--a well-known one of a favorite composer, aud admirably
sustained--attracted little attention. The thrilling cadences, the
brilliant passages, all fell upon senses that had no relish for their
excellence; and even the conventional good-breeding of the spectators
was not proof against the signs of impatience that every now and then
were manifested.
The third act at last began, and the scene represented a Spanish village
of the New World, which, had it been even less correct and true to
nature, had yet possessed no common attraction for Roland,--recalling by
a hundred little traits a long unvisited but well-remembered land. The
usual troops of villagers paraded about in all that mock grace which
characterizes the peasant of the ballet. There were the same active
mountaineers, the same venerable fathers, the comely matrons with little
baskets of nothing carefully covered by snowy napkins, and the young
maidens, who want only beauty to make them what they affect to be.
Roland gazed at all this with the indifference a stupid prelude ever
excites, and would rapidly have been wearied, when a sudden pause in the
music ensued, and then a deathlike stillness reigned through the house.
The orchestra again opened, and with a melody which thrilled through
every fibre of Roland's heart. It was a favorite Mexican air; one
to which, in happier times, he had often danced. What myriads of old
memories came flocking to his mind as he listened! What fancies came
thronging around him! Every bar of the measure beat responsively
with some association of the past. He leaned his head downwards, and,
covering his face with his hands, all thought of the present was lost,
and in imagination he was back again on the greensward before the “Villa
de las Noches;” the mocking-bird and the nightingale were filling
the air with their warblings; the sounds of gay voices, the plash of
fountains, the meteor-like flashes of the fireflies, were all before
him. He knew not that a thousand voices were shouting around him
in wildest enthusiasm,--that bouquets of rarest flowers strewed the
stage,--that every form adulation can take was assumed towards one on
whom every eye save his own was bent; and that before her rank, beauty,
riches--all that the world makes its idols--were now bending in deepest
homage. He knew nothing of all this, as he sat with bent-down head, lost
in his own bright dreamings. At length he looked up, but, instead of his
fancy being dissipated by reality, it now assumed form and substance.
There was the very scenery of that far-off land; the music was the
national air of Mexico; the dance was the haughty manolo; and, oh! was
it that his brain was wandering,--had reason, shaken by many a rude
shock, given way at last? The dancer--she on whose witching graces every
glance was bent--was Maritaña! There she stood, more beautiful than he
had ever seen her before; her dark hair encircled with brilliants, her
black eyes flashing in all the animation of triumph, and her fairly
rounded limbs the perfection of symmetry.
Oh, no! this was some mind-drawn picture; this was the shadowy image
that failing intellect creates ere all is lost in chaos and confusion!
Such was the conflict in his brain as, with staring eyeballs, he tracked
her as she moved, and followed each graceful bend, each proud commanding
attitude. Nor was it till the loud thunder-roll of applause had drawn
her to the front of the stage, to acknowledge the favor by a deep
reverence, that he became assured beyond all question. Then, when he
saw the long dark lashes fall upon the rounded cheek, when he beheld the
crossed arm upon her bosom, and marked the taper fingers he had so often
held within his own, in a transport of feeling where pride and joy and
shame and sorrow had each their share. He cried aloud,--
“Oh, Maritaña! Maritaña! Shame! shame!” Scarcely had the wild cry
re-echoed through the house than, with a scream, whose terror pierced
every heart, the girl started from her studied attitude, and rushed
forward towards the footlights, her frighted looks and pale cheeks
seeming ghastly with emotion.
“Where?--where?” cried she. “Speak again--I know the voice!” But already
a scene of uproar and confusion had arisen in the parterre around
Cashel, whose interruption of the piece called down universal
reprobation; and cries of “Out with him!” “Away with him!” rose on every
side.
Struggling madly and fiercely against his assailants, Cashel for a
brief space seemed likely to find his way to the stage; but overcome
by numbers, he was subdued at last, and consigned to the hands of the
guard. His last look, still turned to the “scene,” showed him Maritaña,
as she was carried away senseless and fainting.