That season of the year was approaching when it is necessary for
foreigners to quit Rome, if they hold their life very dearly; and
Morley Ernstein, though certainly with no thought of malaria, had more
than once proposed to Lieberg to pursue their way to Naples, but for
some reason, best known to himself, the latter had always made some
excuse to delay. In the meantime, he surrounded Morley Ernstein with
temptations of all sorts, upon which we will not dwell, having already
displayed the course which he followed, and the means which he took,
and it being unnecessary to repeat nearly the same story. He did not
succeed, it is true, to any great extent. Some few pieces of
extravagance, Morley certainly was led to commit--some few acts which
he regretted,--not many, but enough to give Lieberg encouragement to
pursue his plan with good hope of success at last; for the water does
not more certainly wear the stone over which it passes, than a
constant familiarity with vicious scenes destroys the moral principle
in the heart of man.
Morley Ernstein would not approach the gaming-table, however, neither
would he drink to anything like excess, though that also was tried by
his dear friend, who well knew, that, as in the case of the Santon,
one folly of such a kind opens the door to vices of all sorts. It may
be asked, what was the object of all this?--it may be said that there
must be a motive for all human actions. Reader, I cannot clearly tell
you what the object was; and Lieberg's conduct certainly seemed more
fiend-like than human. He afterwards indeed uttered some dark words
which were never explained and might be untrue; but if there was not
some deep seated cause of enmity towards Morley Ernstein in his bosom,
arising in circumstances that we know not, we can only guess at his
purposes and motives. To degrade Morley in the eyes of Helen Barham
was certainly one end in view; but besides this, we have seen that his
young companion had on more than one occasion thwarted him in an
object of passion, had mortified his vanity and wounded his pride; and
if we take these causes of offence, acting upon a malignant mind,
together with the natural antipathy that the evil feel towards the
good, and the jealous hatred of a man who sees another preferred by
the being that he loves, the motives may perhaps be considered
sufficient for his conduct. There may indeed have been something
more--I am inclined to believe it was so--but what, I know not.
The struggle was still going on with Morley Ernstein between
temptation and resistance, when, one day, as he was passing along the
Piazza del Popolo, he saw a magnificent carriage, undoubtedly of
English construction, standing before the great hotel, the name of
which I forget, with two or three servants round the door, and the
usual quantity of lackeys, couriers, and ciceroni at the entrance of
the inn. When his eyes first lighted upon it he was at a considerable
distance, and while he was still some thirty yards, a lady came out of
the hotel with a quick step, and entered the vehicle. The door was
closed, the order given where to drive, and the carriage, taking a
turn, dashed past Morley the moment after. There was an earl's coronet
and emblazoned arms upon the panel, and Morley, raising his eyes to
the window, beheld the countenance of Juliet Carr. How often had he
seen that face with joy--ay, even after hope had passed away; and the
first sensation had always been pleasure; but now, there was something
in Juliet's dress and appearance--something in the magnificence of the
equipage--something, perhaps, in his own pre-conceived suspicions
which made the sight of her he loved feel like a heavy blow upon his
heart. She evidently did not see him, and was speaking with a smile to
some one else who was in the vehicle with her. Morley paused for an
instant to recover breath, and then advancing to the inn, determined
to have his doubts satisfied, he asked an English servant, who was
still gazing after the carriage, whose it was.
The man was one of those saucy English footmen who are the disgrace of
many of our noble houses; and to any one but a man of Morley's
distinguished appearance he might have made an insolent reply. To him,
however, he answered, in a civil tone--"The Countess of Clavering,
sir."
"Lord Clavering has not long been married, I think," said Morley, in
as firm a voice as he could command.
"About a month, sir," replied the man, with a grin, "and he has
already gone back to England to attend the house of peers. That was my
lady who just drove away."
Morley turned with his heart burning and his brain whirling round;
but, pausing after he had taken a step or two, with a bitter smile
curling his lip, he took out his card-case, and, walking back, gave
the man a card, saying--"That for Lady Clavering, with my
congratulations."
The attempt to describe the feelings of Morley Ernstein, when the full
agony burst upon him, would indeed be vain. His passionate indignation
approached nearly to madness; his bitter, bitter anguish of spirit
might have tempted him, at that moment, to commit any act which his
worst enemy could wish. He felt it--he knew it to be so--his command
over himself was gone, and he feared to return to the inn where he had
left Lieberg, lest he might be led into some irretrievable step of
folly or of vice. He wandered, then, through the streets of Rome for
several hours, with the hurried pace and unequal step of a man torn by
terrible emotions. He saw nothing that passed him; his eye marked none
of the objects it rested upon; his spirit, busy within itself, seemed
to have lost communication with the bodily senses; and it was nearly
night when he was recalled to himself by some one suddenly seizing his
arm, and exclaiming--"What is the matter, Morley? I have been
following you this half hour, and you do not seem to know where you
are going, or what you are doing."
"Nor do I, Lieberg," replied Morley. "All I have undergone is not
equal to this."
"Nay, nay," said Lieberg; "come back to the hotel, and tell me what is
the matter. By keeping your griefs and anxieties to yourself you more
than double them; and not only that, but you are unjust to me. In
striving to suggest those things which might divert your mind without
knowing what it is that weighs upon it, I very often may propose the
worst things when I wish to offer the best. I beseech you, Morley,
tell me all."
"I will, Lieberg--I will," replied Morley. "I will; but let us go home
first;" and walking quickly on by the side of his companion he took
his way to the hotel, where, casting himself into a chair, he covered
his eyes with his hands for two or three minutes to collect his
thoughts, and then gave Lieberg a hurried and confused account of his
attachment to Juliet Carr, and all that had occurred in the course of
that true love, which had run even more roughly than is usually the
case with the troubled course of human affection.
After he had brought his narrative up to the events of Venice, he
paused, and Lieberg replied--"I had known something of all this,
Morley, but not accurately, and I see I have made several mistakes in
dealing with you. I did not know that you loved her so intensely. You
may think me light, but my passions and attachments are as strong, or
stronger than your own. I believed that you would have acted, if you
truly loved her, as I would have acted under similar circumstances,
that you would have pursued her, struggled against her resolutions,
combated her arguments, set at nought idle vows, and ultimately won
her for your happiness and for her own. But I forgot, Morley, that you
are less experienced in all things than I am, and though passion may
give the impetus to action, it is experience that must guide it to
success. I forgot this, I say, and fancying that you loved her with
one of those half loves, which may be diverted by pleasures and
occupations, or swallowed up in another attachment, I endeavoured to
lead your mind upon a course it could not follow. Now, however, I am
convinced that you do love--at least I believe so, but I shall soon
see, by the steps which you once take when your eyes are open. You
seem to think that she has true affection for you; and, though from
your agitation now, I suppose you have seen her again, and that she
has once more treated you with the same cruel coldness, if you do love
her, you will pursue her with that vigour of determination which will
sweep away all obstacles. There is a might in real passion to which
all inferior things soon bow, and which woman's heart can never
resist, even for an hour, when once convinced that it is truly
present. But that conviction cannot be produced by any sign of
weakness,--you must show her that you love her, as none but strong and
powerful hearts can love. That you are resolved to possess her, or to
die----"
"Vain, vain, vain!" cried Morley, in bitterness of spirit. "It is all
now in vain; she did love me; but driven by some promise extorted by
her father, I suppose, she is now the wife of another!"
Lieberg started, and gazed upon him in surprise, then grasped his arm,
and with his dark star-like eyes fixed on his face, exclaimed--"Take
her from him! What right has he to possess her? Is she not yours?
Yours by the bond of the heart's affection--yours by the tie that is
beyond the earth--yours by the union of spirit with spirit! Talk not
to me of human laws and ordinances, where the soul itself recognises a
rule that is defined. You are her husband, if with the true intensity
of heaven's own fire you love her and she loves you. You are her
husband, I say, and every hour of her union with another is adultery.
Take her from him, Morley--take her from him, be he who he may.
Scruple at no means, stop at no pitiful considerations; it is due to
her as well as to yourself--it is due to her in every sense. Think,
think of the long and lasting misery that she must endure. Do you not
know--are you not sure that every hour she must recollect you? What
human ordinance will blot you out from her memory? What empty words,
spoken at an altar, will erase from her heart the husband of her early
dreams. Morley, if you are a lover--if you are a man--you will spare
that sweet, mistaken girl the hell-fire tenderness of him whom she
cannot love!"
"Hush, hush, hush!" cried Morley. "You will drive me mad!"
"You are mad already, Morley", replied Lieberg, "or you would fly to
her at once. You would show her the brow which she loves, scathed with
the lightning of passion, the form of him to whom she promised heaven,
blighted by the consuming hell of disappointed affection. You would
call upon her to remedy the wrong that she has committed--you would
urge her with those words of power, the omnipotent magic of love, to
save you from despair, destruction, and death, and to give you back
the joy of which she has robbed you."
Thus did he proceed, reader, adding to the words he spoke, that
overpowering eloquence of look, gesture, and tone, which has far more
effect than language, but can never be described. Let it be
remembered, too, that this was addressed to Morley Ernstein at a
moment when the whole powers of his mind were shaken by the agony he
endured, when reason herself tottered on her throne, and despair had
broken down the great prop of all good principle--hope. He sat and
listened, not without a knowledge that there was wrong and evil in the
words he heard; but it was as a man for whom all life's joys and
expectations are extinct, and who, in a moment of frenzied
desperation, takes quietly the cup he knows to be poisoned, and drains
it with a bitter smile.
At length, however, he rose, and said, "Lieberg, I will leave you for
to-night. I cannot converse with any one--my story is scarcely told,
but a few words more will do it. She is married to a man as old as her
father--to a Lord Clavering--"
"Why, he is just gone to England!" exclaimed Lieberg.
"I know it," answered Morley, "and has left her here."
"Fly to her, Morley--fly to her!" cried Lieberg, grasping his
hand--"fly to her this very night!"
"No," answered Morley, "no! Whatever I do, I must have time for
thought."
Thus saying, he left him, and in the silence and solitude of his own
chamber, paced up and down for more than an hour, with the better
spirit within him struggling vehemently against the spell, but too
weak to cast it off by its own efforts.
"I must fly," he said to himself, at length--"I must fly from this
man, or he will destroy me. I will fly speedily, both from him and
from the presence of her who has cast away my happiness and her own.
To-morrow I will seek for the means, and to-night I will see him no
more. I will throw off his dangerous companionship. To avoid evil is
the next thing to conquering it."
He opened the door to call his servant Adam Gray; the old man was
sitting at the other side of the antechamber, and looking eagerly
towards the entrance of his master's room.
"I have knocked twice, sir," he said, "but you did not hear me."
"I was busy with very sad meditations, Adam," replied his master.
"I thought so, sir," answered the old man, simply, "for I saw to-day
the person who always causes them--I wish I might say all--"
"Say nothing, my good Adam--say nothing upon that subject," replied
Morley.
"No; I must not tell anything now, sir," rejoined Adam Gray, "but the
time will come for me to speak."
"You said you knocked," continued Morley, gravely; "what do you want?"
"Why, sir," replied Adam, "there's another person in Rome besides her;
a person whom you will be glad to see, I think; and who will be glad
enough to see you, poor thing!"
"Who is that?" demanded his master; the expression, "poor thing,"
showing him that his old servant spoke of some person he believed to
be attached to him, and making his mind immediately turn to Veronica.
Alas, he never thought of Helen Barham!
"Why, sir, it is the young lady who was for some time with Lady
Malcolm," replied Adam Gray. "Miss Barham, or Miss Helen, as people
always call her. I saw her maid looking about the town with the
courier, about an hour or two ago, and told them where you were, so
just now the courier brought this note for you."
Morley ordered lights into his room, and taking the note, read as
follows:--
"MY DEAR SIR;
"Although, under ordinary circumstances, it might seem strange for me
to ask you to come to see me, yet I feel that it would show a want of
gratitude were I to be in the same city with yourself and not tell you
that I am here. But I have another excuse for that which I acknowledge
I am very willing to do. You are, I dare say, aware, by this time, of
my poor brother's death, and that the property which to my great
regret, he claimed and obtained from you, has descended to me. There
is still, however, some business to settle in regard to it, which I am
sure he would have wished to arrange himself as I propose, if his life
had been spared to do so. In regard to these arrangements, I could
much wish to speak with you, as well as to assure you that I am, ever
most truly,
"Your grateful,
"HELEN BARHAM."
"P.S. I will wait at home to-morrow till you call, unless you let me
know that it is inconvenient to do so on that day."
Morley answered the note at once, and named the hour, and this return
to the ordinary things of life had some effect in calming his mind
again. Twice he asked himself why Adam Gray had called Helen "poor
thing," but he turned his thoughts away from the images to which the
reply gave rise.