'Scrope,' said Lord Cadurcis, quietly, and still standing, 'are you

very drunk?'

'My dear fellow, I am as fresh as possible; you will see what justice

I shall do to the Burgundy.'

'"Burgundy to-morrow," as the Greek proverb saith,' observed Lord

Cadurcis. 'Read that.'

His companion had the pleasure of perusing a challenge from Lord

Monteagle, couched in no gentle terms, and requesting an immediate

meeting.

'Well, I never heard anything more ridiculous in my life,' said Lord

Scrope. 'Does he want satisfaction because you have planted her?'

'D--n her!' said Lord Cadurcis. 'She has occasioned me a thousand

annoyances, and now she has spoilt our supper. I don't know, though;

he wants to fight quickly, let us fight at once. I will send him a

cartel now, and then we can have our Burgundy. You will go out with

me, of course? Hyde Park, six o'clock, and short swords.'

Lord Cadurcis accordingly sat down, wrote his letter, and dispatched

it by Mr. Spalding to Monteagle House, with peremptory instructions to

bring back an answer. The companions then turned to their devil.

'This is a bore, Cadurcis,' said Lord Scrope.

'It is. I cannot say I am very valorous in a bad cause. I do not like

to fight "upon compulsion," I confess. If I had time to screw my

courage up, I dare say I should do it very well. I dare say, for

instance, if ever I am publicly executed, I shall die game.'

'God forbid!' said Lord Scrope. 'I say, Cadurcis, I would not drink

any Burgundy if I were you. I shall take a glass of cold water.'

'Ah! you are only a second, and so you want to cool your valour,' said

Cadurcis. 'You have all the fun.'

'But how came this blow-up?' inquired Lord Scrope. 'Letters

discovered, eh? Because I thought you never saw her now?'

'By Jove! my dear fellow, she has been the whole evening here

masquerading it like a very vixen, as she is; and now she has

committed us both. I have burnt her letters, without reading them,

for the last month. Now I call that honourable; because, as I had no

longer any claim on her heart, I would not think of trenching on her

correspondence. But honour, what is honour in these dishonourable

days? This is my reward. She contrived to enter my house this evening,

dressed like a farmer's boy, and you may imagine what ensued; rage,

hysterics, and repentance. I am sure if Monteagle had seen me, he

would not have been jealous. I never opened my mouth, but, like a

fool, sent her home in my carriage; and now I am going to be run

through the body for my politeness.'

In this light strain, blended, however, with more decorous feeling on

the part of Lord Scrope, the young men conversed until the messenger's

return with Lord Monteagle's answer. In Hyde Park, in the course of an

hour, himself and Lord Cadurcis, attended by their friends, were to

meet.

'Well, there is nothing like having these affairs over,' said

Cadurcis; 'and to confess the truth, my dear Scrope, I should not much

care if Monteagle were to despatch me to my fathers; for, in the whole

course of my miserable life, and miserable, whatever the world may

think, it has been, I never felt much more wretched than I have during

the last four-and-twenty hours. By Jove! do you know I was going to

leave England this morning, and I have ordered my horses, too.'

'Leave England!'

'Yes, leave England; and where I never intended to return.'

'Well, you are the oddest person I ever knew, Cadurcis. I should have

thought you the happiest person that ever existed. Everybody admires,

everybody envies you. You seem to have everything that man can desire.

Your life is a perpetual triumph.'

'Ah! my dear Scrope, there is a skeleton in every house. If you knew

all, you would not envy me.'

'Well, we have not much time,' said Lord Scrope; 'have you any

arrangements to make?'

'None. My property goes to George, who is my only relative, without

the necessity of a will, otherwise I should leave everything to him,

for he is a good fellow, and my blood is in his veins. Just you

remember, Scrope, that I will be buried with my mother. That is all;

and now let us get ready.'

The sun had just risen when the young men went forth, and the day

promised to be as brilliant as the preceding one. Not a soul was

stirring in the courtly quarter in which Cadurcis resided; even the

last watchman had stolen to repose. They called a hackney coach at the

first stand they reached, and were soon at the destined spot. They

were indeed before their time, and strolling by the side of the

Serpentine, Cadurcis said, 'Yesterday morning was one of the happiest

of my life, Scrope, and I was in hopes that an event would have

occurred in the course of the day that might have been my salvation.

If it had, by-the-bye, I should not have returned to town, and got

into this cursed scrape. However, the gods were against me, and now I

am reckless.'

Now Lord Monteagle and his friend, who was Mr. Horace Pole, appeared.

Cadurcis advanced, and bowed; Lord Monteagle returned his bow,

stiffly, but did not speak. The seconds chose their ground, the

champions disembarrassed themselves of their coats, and their swords

crossed. It was a brief affair. After a few passes, Cadurcis received

a slight wound in his arm, while his weapon pierced his antagonist in

the breast. Lord Monteagle dropped his sword and fell.

'You had better fly, Lord Cadurcis,' said Mr. Horace Pole. 'This is a

bad business, I fear; we have a surgeon at hand, and he can help us to

the coach that is waiting close by.'

'I thank you, sir, I never fly,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'and I shall wait

here until I see your principal safely deposited in his carriage; he

will have no objection to my friend, Lord Scrope, assisting him, who,

by his presence to-day, has only fulfilled one of the painful duties

that society imposes upon us.'

The surgeon gave an unfavourable report of the wound, which he dressed

on the field. Lord Monteagle was then borne to his carriage, which was

at hand, and Lord Scrope, the moment he had seen the equipage move

slowly off, returned to his friend.

'Well Cadurcis,' he exclaimed in an anxious voice, 'I hope you have

not killed him. What will you do now?'

'I shall go home, and await the result, my dear Scrope. I am sorry for

you, for this may get you into trouble. For myself, I care nothing.'

'You bleed!' said Lord Scrope.

'A scratch. I almost wish our lots had been the reverse. Come, Scrope,

help me on with my coat. Yesterday I lost my heart, last night I lost

my money, and perhaps to-morrow I shall lose my arm. It seems we are

not in luck.

CHAPTER XVIII.

It has been well observed, that no spectacle is so ridiculous as the

British public in one of its periodical fits of morality. In general,

elopements, divorces, and family quarrels pass with little notice. We

read the scandal, talk about it for a day, and forget it. But, once in

six or seven years, our virtue becomes outrageous. We cannot suffer

the laws of religion and decency to be violated. We must make a

stand against vice. We must teach libertines that the English people

appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly, some

unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose

offences have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory

sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he

has a profession, he is to be driven from it. He is cut by the higher

orders, and hissed by the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping

boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the

same class are, it is supposed, sufficiently chastised. We reflect

very complacently on our own severity, and compare, with great pride,

the high standard of morals established in England, with the Parisian

laxity. At length, our anger is satiated, our victim is ruined and

heart-broken, and our virtue goes quietly to sleep for seven years

more.

These observations of a celebrated writer apply to the instance of

Lord Cadurcis; he was the periodical victim, the scapegoat of English

morality, sent into the wilderness with all the crimes and curses of

the multitude on his head. Lord Cadurcis had certainly committed a

great crime: not his intrigue with Lady Monteagle, for that surely was

not an unprecedented offence; not his duel with her husband, for after

all it was a duel in self-defence; and, at all events, divorces

and duels, under any circumstances, would scarcely have excited or

authorised the storm which was now about to burst over the late

spoiled child of society. But Lord Cadurcis had been guilty of the

offence which, of all offences, is punished most severely: Lord

Cadurcis had been overpraised. He had excited too warm an interest;

and the public, with its usual justice, was resolved to chastise him

for its own folly.

There are no fits of caprice so hasty and so violent as those of

society. Society, indeed, is all passion and no heart. Cadurcis, in

allusion to his sudden and singular success, had been in the habit of

saying to his intimates, that he 'woke one morning and found himself

famous.' He might now observe, 'I woke one morning and found myself

infamous.' Before twenty-four hours had passed over his duel with Lord

Monteagle, he found himself branded by every journal in London, as an

unprincipled and unparalleled reprobate. The public, without waiting

to think or even to inquire after the truth, instantly selected as

genuine the most false and the most flagrant of the fifty libellous

narratives that were circulated of the transaction. Stories,

inconsistent with themselves, were all alike eagerly believed, and

what evidence there might be for any one of them, the virtuous people,

by whom they were repeated, neither cared nor knew. The public, in

short, fell into a passion with their darling, and, ashamed of their

past idolatry, nothing would satisfy them but knocking the divinity on

the head.

Until Lord Monteagle, to the great regret of society, who really

wished him to die in order that his antagonist might commit murder,

was declared out of danger, Lord Cadurcis never quitted his house, and

he was not a little surprised that scarcely a human being called upon

him except his cousin, who immediately flew to his succour. George,

indeed, would gladly have spared Cadurcis any knowledge of the storm

that was raging against him, and which he flattered himself would blow

over before Cadurcis was again abroad; but he was so much with

his cousin, and Cadurcis was so extremely acute and naturally so

suspicious, that this was impossible. Moreover, his absolute desertion

by his friends, and the invectives and the lampoons with which the

newspapers abounded, and of which he was the subject, rendered any

concealment out of the question, and poor George passed his life in

running about contradicting falsehoods, stating truth, fighting his

cousin's battles, and then reporting to him, in the course of the day,

the state of the campaign.

Cadurcis, being a man of infinite sensibility, suffered tortures. He

had been so habituated to panegyric, that the slightest criticism

ruffled him, and now his works had suddenly become the subject of

universal and outrageous attack; having lived only in a cloud of

incense, he suddenly found himself in a pillory of moral indignation;

his writings, his habits, his temper, his person, were all alike

ridiculed and vilified. In a word, Cadurcis, the petted, idolised,

spoiled Cadurcis, was enduring that charming vicissitude in a

prosperous existence, styled a reaction; and a conqueror, who deemed

himself invincible, suddenly vanquished, could scarcely be more

thunderstruck, or feel more impotently desperate.

The tortures of his mind, however, which this sudden change in his

position and in the opinions of society, were of themselves competent

to occasion to one of so impetuous and irritable a temperament, and

who ever magnified both misery and delight with all the creative

power of a brooding imagination, were excited in his case even to the

liveliest agony, when he reminded himself of the situation in which he

was now placed with Venetia. All hope of ever obtaining her hand had

now certainly vanished, and he doubted whether even her love could

survive the quick occurrence, after his ardent vows, of this degrading

and mortifying catastrophe. He execrated Lady Monteagle with the most

heartfelt rage, and when he remembered that all this time the world

believed him the devoted admirer of this vixen, his brain was

stimulated almost to the verge of insanity. His only hope of the

truth reaching Venetia was through the medium of his cousin, and he

impressed daily upon Captain Cadurcis the infinite consolation it

would prove to him, if he could contrive to make her aware of the real

facts of the case. According to the public voice, Lady Monteagle at

his solicitation had fled to his house, and remained there, and her

husband forced his entrance into the mansion in the middle of the

night, while his wife escaped disguised in Lord Cadurcis' clothes.

She did not, however, reach Monteagle House in time enough to

escape detection by her lord, who had instantly sought and obtained

satisfaction from his treacherous friend. All the monstrous inventions

of the first week had now subsided into this circumstantial and

undoubted narrative; at least this was the version believed by those

who had been Cadurcis' friends. They circulated the authentic tale

with the most considerate assiduity, and shook their heads, and said

it was too bad, and that he must not be countenanced.

The moment Lord Monteagle was declared out of danger, Lord Cadurcis

made his appearance in public. He walked into Brookes', and everybody

seemed suddenly so deeply interested in the newspapers, that you might

have supposed they had brought intelligence of a great battle, or a

revolution, or a change of ministry at the least. One or two men spoke

to him, who had never presumed to address him at any other time, and

he received a faint bow from a distinguished nobleman, who had ever

professed for him the greatest consideration and esteem.

Cadurcis mounted his horse and rode down to the House of Lords. There

was a debate of some public interest, and a considerable crowd was

collected round the Peers' entrance. The moment Lord Cadurcis was

recognised, the multitude began hooting. He was agitated, and grinned

a ghastly smile at the rabble. But he dismounted, without further

annoyance, and took his seat. Not a single peer of his own party spoke

to him. The leader of the Opposition, indeed, bowed to him, and, in

the course of the evening, he received, from one or two more of his

party, some formal evidences of frigid courtesy. The tone of his

reception by his friends could not be concealed from the ministerial

party. It was soon detected, and generally whispered, that Lord

Cadurcis was cut. Nevertheless, he sat out the debate and voted. The

house broke up. He felt lonely; his old friend, the Bishop of----, who

had observed all that had occurred, and who might easily have avoided

him, came forward, however, in the most marked manner, and, in a tone

which everybody heard, said, 'How do you do, Lord Cadurcis? I am very

glad to see you,' shaking his hand most cordially. This made a great

impression. Several of the Tory Lords, among them Venetia's uncle, now

advanced and sainted him. He received their advances with a haughty,

but not disdainful, courtesy; but when his Whig friends, confused, now

hurried to encumber him with their assistance, he treated them with

the scorn which they well deserved.

'Will you take a seat in my carriage home, Lord Cadurcis?' said his

leader, for it was notorious that Cadurcis had been mobbed on his

arrival.

'Thank you, my lord,' said Cadurcis, speaking very audibly, 'I

prefer returning as I came. We are really both of us such unpopular

personages, that your kindness would scarcely be prudent.'

The house had been full; there was a great scuffle and confusion as

the peers were departing; the mob, now considerable, were prepared for

the appearance of Lord Cadurcis, and their demeanour was menacing.

Some shouted out his name; then it was repeated with odious and

vindictive epithets, followed by ferocious yells. A great many

peers collected round Cadurcis, and entreated him not to return on

horseback. It must be confessed that genuine and considerable feeling

was now shown by all men of all parties. And indeed to witness this

young, and noble, and gifted creature, but a few days back the idol

of the nation, and from whom a word, a glance even, was deemed the

greatest and most gratifying distinction, whom all orders, classes,

and conditions of men had combined to stimulate with multiplied

adulation, with all the glory and ravishing delights of the world, as

it were, forced upon him, to see him thus assailed with the savage

execrations of all those vile things who exult in the fall of

everything that is great, and the abasement of everything that is

noble, was indeed a spectacle which might have silenced malice and

satisfied envy!

'My carriage is most heartily at your service, Lord Cadurcis,' said

the noble leader of the government in the upper house; 'you can enter

it without the slightest suspicion by these ruffians.' 'Lord Cadurcis;

my dear lord; my good lord, for our sakes, if not for your own;

Cadurcis, dear Cadurcis, my good Cadurcis, it is madness, folly,

insanity; a mob will do anything, and an English mob is viler than

all; for Heaven's sake!' Such were a few of the varied exclamations

which resounded on all sides, but which produced on the person to whom

they were addressed only the result of his desiring the attendant to

call for his horses.

The lobby was yet full; it was a fine thing in the light of the

archway to see Cadurcis spring into his saddle. Instantly there was a

horrible yell. Yet in spite of all their menaces, the mob were for a

time awed by his courage; they made way for him; he might even have

rode quickly on for some few yards, but he would not; he reined his

fiery steed into a slow but stately pace, and, with a countenance

scornful and composed, he continued his progress, apparently

unconscious of impediment. Meanwhile, the hooting continued without

abatement, increasing indeed, after the first comparative pause,

in violence and menace. At length a bolder ruffian, excited by the

uproar, rushed forward and seized Cadurcis' bridle. Cadurcis struck

the man over the eyes with his whip, and at the same time touched his

horse with his spur, and the assailant was dashed to the ground. This

seemed a signal for a general assault. It commenced with hideous

yells. His friends at the house, who had watched everything with the

keenest interest, immediately directed all the constables who were at

hand to rush to his succour; hitherto they had restrained the police,

lest their interference might stimulate rather than repress the mob.

The charge of the constables was well timed; they laid about them with

their staves; you might have heard the echo of many a broken crown.

Nevertheless, though they dispersed the mass, they could not penetrate

the immediate barrier that surrounded Lord Cadurcis, whose only

defence indeed, for they had cut off his groom, was the terrors of his

horse's heels, and whose managed motions he regulated with admirable

skill, now rearing, now prancing, now kicking behind, and now

turning round with a quick yet sweeping motion, before which the mob

retreated. Off his horse, however, they seemed resolved to drag him;

and it was not difficult to conceive, if they succeeded, what must

be his eventual fate. They were infuriate, but his contact with his

assailants fortunately prevented their co-mates from hurling stones at

him from the fear of endangering their own friends.

A messenger to the Horse Guards had been sent from the House of Lords;

but, before the military could arrive, and fortunately (for, with

their utmost expedition, they must have been too late), a rumour of

the attack got current in the House of Commons. Captain Cadurcis,

Lord Scrope, and a few other young men instantly rushed out; and,

ascertaining the truth, armed with good cudgels and such other

effective weapons as they could instantly obtain, they mounted their

horses and charged the nearly-triumphant populace, dealing such

vigorous blows that their efforts soon made a visible diversion in

Lord Cadurcis' favour. It is difficult, indeed, to convey an idea of

the exertions and achievements of Captain Cadurcis; no Paladin of

chivalry ever executed such marvels on a swarm of Paynim slaves; and

many a bloody coxcomb and broken limb bore witness in Petty France

that night to his achievements. Still the mob struggled and were not

daunted by the delay in immolating their victim. As long as they had

only to fight against men in plain clothes, they were valorous and

obstinate enough; but the moment that the crests of a troop of Horse

Guards were seen trotting down Parliament Street, everybody ran away,

and in a few minutes all Palace-yard was as still as if the genius of

the place rendered a riot impossible.

Lord Cadurcis thanked his friends, who were profuse in their

compliments to his pluck. His manner, usually playful with his

intimates of his own standing, was, however, rather grave at present,

though very cordial. He asked them home to dine with him; but they

were obliged to decline his invitation, as a division was expected;

so, saying 'Good-bye, George, perhaps I shall see you to-night,'

Cadurcis rode rapidly off.

With Cadurcis there was but one step from the most exquisite

sensitiveness to the most violent defiance. The experience of this

day had entirely cured him of his previous nervous deference to the

feelings of society. Society had outraged him, and now he resolved to

outrage society. He owed society nothing; his reception at the House

of Lords and the riot in Palace-yard had alike cleared his accounts

with all orders of men, from the highest to the lowest. He had

experienced, indeed, some kindness that he could not forget, but only

from his own kin, and those who with his associations were the same as

kin. His memory dwelt with gratification on his cousin's courageous

zeal, and still more on the demonstration which Masham had made in his

favour, which, if possible, argued still greater boldness and sincere

regard. That was a trial of true affection, and an instance of moral

courage, which Cadurcis honoured, and which he never could forget. He

was anxious about Venetia; he wished to stand as well with her as he

deserved; no better; but he was grieved to think she could believe all

those infamous tales at present current respecting himself. But, for

the rest of the world, he delivered them all to the most absolute

contempt, disgust, and execration; he resolved, from this time,

nothing should ever induce him again to enter society, or admit the

advances of a single civilised ruffian who affected to be social. The

country, the people, their habits, laws, manners, customs, opinions,

and everything connected with them, were viewed with the same

jaundiced eye; and his only object now was to quit England, to which

he resolved never to return.

CHAPTER XIX.

Venetia was, perhaps, not quite so surprised as the rest of her

friends, when, on their return to Richmond, Lord Cadurcis was not

again seen. She was very unhappy: she recalled the scene in the

garden at Cherbury some years back; and, with the knowledge of the

impetuosity of his temper, she believed she should never see him

again. Poor Plantagenet, who loved her so much, and whose love she so

fully returned! why might they not be happy? She neither doubted the

constancy of his affection, nor their permanent felicity if they

were united. She shared none of her mother's apprehensions or her

prejudices, but she was the victim of duty and her vow. In the course

of four-and-twenty hours, strange rumours were afloat respecting Lord

Cadurcis; and the newspapers on the ensuing morning told the truth,

and more than the truth. Venetia could not doubt as to the duel or the

elopement; but, instead of feeling indignation, she attributed what

had occurred to the desperation of his mortified mind; and she visited

on herself all the fatal consequences that had happened. At present,

however, all her emotions were quickly absorbed in the one terrible

fear that Lord Monteagle would die. In that dreadful and urgent

apprehension every other sentiment merged. It was impossible to

conceal her misery, and she entreated her mother to return to town.

Very differently, however, was the catastrophe viewed by Lady Annabel.

She, on the contrary, triumphed in her sagacity and her prudence. She

hourly congratulated herself on being the saviour of her daughter;

and though she refrained from indulging in any open exultation

over Venetia's escape and her own profound discretion, it was,

nevertheless, impossible for her to conceal from her daughter her

infinite satisfaction and self-congratulation. While Venetia was half

broken-hearted, her mother silently returned thanks to Providence for

the merciful dispensation which had exempted her child from so much

misery.

The day after their return to town, Captain Cadurcis called upon them.

Lady Annabel never mentioned the name of his cousin; but George,

finding no opportunity of conversing with Venetia alone, and being,

indeed, too much excited to speak on any other subject, plunged at

once into the full narrative; defended Lord Cadurcis, abused the

Monteagles and the slanderous world, and, in spite of Lady Annabel's

ill-concealed dissatisfaction, favoured her with an exact and

circumstantial account of everything that had happened, how it

happened, when it happened, and where it happened; concluding by a

declaration that Cadurcis was the best fellow that ever lived; the

most unfortunate, and the most ill-used; and that, if he were to be

hunted down for an affair like this, over which he had no control,

there was not a man in London who could be safe for ten minutes. All

that George effected by his zeal, was to convince Lady Annabel that

his cousin had entirely corrupted, him; she looked upon her former

favourite as another victim; but Venetia listened in silence, and not

without solace.

Two or three days after the riot at the House of Lords, Captain

Cadurcis burst into his cousin's room with a triumphant countenance.

'Well, Plantagenet!' he exclaimed, 'I have done it; I have seen

her alone, and I have put you as right as possible. Nothing can be

better.'

'Tell me, my dear fellow,' said Lord Cadurcis, eagerly.

'Well, you know, I have called half-a-dozen times,' said George, 'but

either Lady Annabel was there, or they were not at home, or something

always occurred to prevent any private communication. But I met her

to-day with her aunt; I joined them immediately, and kept with them

the whole morning. I am sorry to say she, I mean Venetia, is devilish

ill; she is, indeed. However, her aunt now is quite on your side, and

very kind, I can tell you that. I put her right at first, and she has

fought our battle bravely. Well, they stopped to call somewhere, and

Venetia was so unwell that she would not get out, and I was left alone

in the carriage with her. Time was precious, and I opened at once. I

told her how wretched you were, and that the only thing that made you

miserable was about her, because you were afraid she would think you

so profligate, and all that. I went through it all; told her the exact

truth, which, indeed, she had before heard; but now I assured her, on

my honour, that it was exactly what happened; and she said she did not

doubt it, and could not, from some conversation which you had together

the day we were all at Hampton Court, and that she felt that nothing

could have been premeditated, and fully believed that everything had

occurred as I said; and, however she deplored it, she felt the same

for you as ever, and prayed for your happiness. Then she told me what

misery the danger of Lord Monteagle had occasioned her; that she

thought his death must have been the forerunner of her own; but the

moment he was declared out of danger seemed the happiest hour of

her life. I told her you were going to leave England, and asked her

whether she had any message for you; and she said, "Tell him he is the

same to me that he has always been." So, when her aunt returned, I

jumped out and ran on to you at once.'

'You are the best fellow that ever lived, George,' said Lord Cadurcis;

'and now the world may go to the devil!'

This message from Venetia acted upon Lord Cadurcis like a charm. It

instantly cleared his mind. He shut himself up in his house for a

week, and wrote a farewell to England, perhaps the most masterly

effusion of his powerful spirit. It abounded in passages of

overwhelming passion, and almost Satanic sarcasm. Its composition

entirely relieved his long-brooding brain. It contained, moreover,

a veiled address to Venetia, delicate, tender, and irresistibly

affecting. He appended also to the publication, the verses he had

previously addressed to her.

This volume, which was purchased with an avidity exceeding even

the eagerness with which his former productions had been received,

exercised extraordinary influence on public opinion. It enlisted the

feelings of the nation on his side in a struggle with a coterie. It

was suddenly discovered that Lord Cadurcis was the most injured of

mortals, and far more interesting than ever. The address to the

unknown object of his adoration, and the verses to Venetia, mystified

everybody. Lady Monteagle was universally abused, and all sympathised

with the long-treasured and baffled affection of the unhappy poet.

Cadurcis, however, was not to be conciliated. He left his native

shores in a blaze of glory, but with the accents of scorn still

quivering on his lip.

END OF BOOK IV.

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

The still waters of the broad and winding lake reflected the lustre

of the cloudless sky. The gentle declinations of the green hills that

immediately bordered the lake, with an undulating margin that now

retired into bays of the most picturesque form, now jutted forth

into woody promontories, and then opened into valleys of sequestered

beauty, which the eye delighted to pursue, were studded with white

villas, and cottages scarcely less graceful, and occasionally with

villages, and even towns; here and there rose a solitary chapel; and,

scarcely less conspicuous, the black spire of some cypress strikingly

contrasting with the fair buildings or the radiant foliage that in

general surrounded them. A rampart of azure mountains raised their

huge forms behind the nearer hills; and occasionally peering over

these, like spectres on some brilliant festival, were the ghastly

visages of the Alpine glaciers.

It was within an hour of sunset, and the long shadows had fallen upon

the waters; a broad boat, with a variegated awning, rowed by two men,

approached the steps of a marble terrace. The moment they had reached

their point of destination, and had fastened the boat to its moorings,

the men landed their oars, and immediately commenced singing a simple

yet touching melody, wherewith it was their custom to apprise their

employers of their arrival.

'Will they come forth this evening, think you, Vittorio?' said one

boatman to the other.

'By our holy mother, I hope so!' replied his comrade, 'for this light

air that is now rising will do the young signora more good than fifty

doctors.'

'They are good people,' said Vittorio. 'It gives me more pleasure to

row them than any persons who ever hired us.'

'Ay, ay!' said his comrade, 'It was a lucky day when we first put an

oar in the lake for them, heretics though they be.'

'But they may he converted yet,' said his companion; 'for, as I was

saying to Father Francisco last night, if the young signora dies, it

is a sad thing to think what will become of her.'

'And what said the good Father?'

'He shook his head,' said Vittorio.

'When Father Francisco shakes his head, he means a great deal,' said

his companion.

At this moment a servant appeared on the terrace, to say the ladies

were at hand; and very shortly afterwards Lady Annabel Herbert, with

her daughter leaning on her arm, descended the steps, and entered the

boat. The countenances of the boatmen brightened when they saw them,

and they both made their inquiries after the health of Venetia with

tenderness and feeling.

'Indeed, my good friends,' said Venetia, 'I think you are right, and

the lake will cure me after all.'

'The blessing of the lake be upon you, signora,' said the boatmen,

crossing themselves.

Just as they were moving off, came running Mistress Pauncefort,

quite breathless. 'Miss Herbert's fur cloak, my lady; you told me to

remember, my lady, and I cannot think how I forgot it. But I really

have been so very hot all day, that such a thing as furs never entered

my head. And for my part, until I travelled, I always thought furs

were only worn in Russia. But live and learn, as I say.'

They were now fairly floating on the calm, clear waters, and the

rising breeze was as grateful to Venetia as the boatmen had imagined.

A return of those symptoms which had before disquieted Lady Annabel

for her daughter, and which were formerly the cause of their residence

at Weymouth, had induced her, in compliance with the advice of her

physicians, to visit Italy; but the fatigue of travel had exhausted

the energies of Venetia (for in those days the Alps were not passed in

luxurious travelling carriages) on the very threshold of the promised

land; and Lady Annabel had been prevailed upon to take a villa on the

Lago Maggiore, where Venetia had passed two months, still suffering

indeed from great debility, but not without advantage.

There are few spots more favoured by nature than the Italian lakes and

their vicinity, combining, as they do, the most sublime features

of mountainous scenery with all the softer beauties and the varied

luxuriance of the plain. As the still, bright lake is to the rushing

and troubled cataract, is Italy to Switzerland and Savoy. Emerging

from the chaotic ravines and the wild gorges of the Alps, the happy

land breaks upon us like a beautiful vision. We revel in the sunny

light, after the unearthly glare of eternal snow. Our sight seems

renovated as we throw our eager glance over those golden plains,

clothed with such picturesque trees, sparkling with such graceful

villages, watered by such noble rivers, and crowned with such

magnificent cities; and all bathed and beaming in an atmosphere so

soft and radiant! Every isolated object charms us with its beautiful

novelty: for the first time we gaze on palaces; the garden, the

terrace, and the statue, recall our dreams beneath a colder sky;

and we turn from these to catch the hallowed form of some cupolaed

convent, crowning the gentle elevation of some green hill, and flanked

by the cypress or the pine.

The influence of all these delightful objects and of this benign

atmosphere on the frame and mind of Venetia had been considerable.

After the excitement of the last year of her life, and the harassing

and agitating scenes with which it closed, she found a fine solace

in this fair land and this soft sky, which the sad perhaps can alone

experience. Its repose alone afforded a consolatory contrast to the

turbulent pleasure of the great world. She looked back upon those

glittering and noisy scenes with an aversion which was only modified

by her self-congratulation at her escape from their exhausting and

contaminating sphere. Here she recurred, but with all the advantages

of a change of scene, and a scene so rich in novel and interesting

associations, to the calm tenor of those days, when not a thought ever

seemed to escape from Cherbury and its spell-bound seclusion. Her

books, her drawings, her easel, and her harp, were now again her chief

pursuits; pursuits, however, influenced by the genius of the land in

which she lived, and therefore invested with a novel interest; for

the literature and the history of the country naturally attracted her

attention; and its fair aspects and sweet sounds, alike inspired her

pencil and her voice. She had, in the society of her mother, indeed,

the advantage of communing with a mind not less refined and cultivated

than her own. Lady Annabel was a companion whose conversation, from

reading and reflection, was eminently suggestive; and their hours,

though they lived in solitude, never hung heavy. They were always

employed, and always cheerful. But Venetia was not more than cheerful.

Still very young, and gifted with an imaginative and therefore

sanguine mind, the course of circumstances, however, had checked her

native spirit, and shaded a brow which, at her time of life and with

her temperament, should have been rather fanciful than pensive. If

Venetia, supported by the disciplined energies of a strong mind, had

schooled herself into not looking back to the past with grief, her

future was certainly not tinged with the Iris pencil of Hope. It

seemed to her that it was her fate that life should bring her no

happier hours than those she now enjoyed. They did not amount to

exquisite bliss. That was a conviction which, by no process of

reflection, however ingenious, could she delude herself to credit.

Venetia struggled to take refuge in content, a mood of mind perhaps

less natural than it should be to one so young, so gifted, and so

fair!

Their villa was surrounded by a garden in the ornate and artificial

style of the country. A marble terrace overlooked the lake, crowned

with many a statue and vase that held the aloe. The laurel and the

cactus, the cypress and the pine, filled the air with their fragrance,

or charmed the eye with their rarity and beauty: the walks were

festooned with the vine, and they could raise their hands and pluck

the glowing fruit which screened them, from the beam by which, it was

ripened. In this enchanted domain Venetia might be often seen, a

form even fairer than the sculptured nymphs among which she glided,

catching the gentle breeze that played upon the surface of the lake,

or watching the white sail that glittered in the sun as it floated

over its purple bosom.

Yet this beautiful retreat Venetia was soon to quit, and she thought

of her departure with a sigh. Her mother had been warned to avoid

the neighbourhood of the mountains in the winter, and the autumn was

approaching its close. If Venetia could endure the passage of the

Apennines, it was the intention of Lady Annabel to pass the winter

on the coast of the Mediterranean; otherwise to settle in one of the

Lombard cities. At all events, in the course of a few weeks they were

to quit their villa on the lake.

CHAPTER II.

A very few days after this excursion on the lake, Lady Annabel and her

daughter were both surprised and pleased with a visit from a friend

whose appearance was certainly very unexpected; this was Captain

Cadurcis. On his way from Switzerland to Sicily, he had heard of their

residence in the neighbourhood, and had crossed over from Arona to

visit them.

The name of Cadurcis was still dear to Venetia, and George had

displayed such gallantry and devotion in all his cousin's troubles,

that she was personally attached to him; he had always been a

favourite of her mother; his arrival, therefore, was welcomed by each

of the ladies with great cordiality. He accepted the hospitality which

Lady Annabel offered him, and remained with them a week, a period

which they spent in visiting the most beautiful and interesting spots

of the lake, with which they were already sufficiently familiar to

allow them to prove guides as able as they were agreeable. These

excursions, indeed, contributed to the pleasure and happiness of the

whole party. There was about Captain Cadurcis a natural cheerfulness

which animated every one in his society; a gay simplicity, difficult

to define, but very charming, and which, without effort, often

produced deeper impressions than more brilliant and subtle qualities.

Left alone in the world, and without a single advantage save those

that nature had conferred upon him, it had often been remarked,

that in whatever circle he moved George Cadurcis always became the

favourite and everywhere made friends. His sweet and engaging temper

had perhaps as much contributed to his professional success as his

distinguished gallantry and skill. Other officers, no doubt, were

as brave and able as Captain Cadurcis, but his commanders always

signalled him out for favourable notice; and, strange to say, his

success, instead of exciting envy and ill-will, pleased even his less

fortunate competitors. However hard another might feel his own lot, it

was soothed by the reflection that George Cadurcis was at least

more fortunate. His popularity, however, was not confined to his

profession. His cousin's noble guardian, whom George had never seen

until he ventured to call upon his lordship on his return to England,

now looked upon him almost as a son, and omitted no opportunity of

advancing his interests in the world. Of all the members of the House

of Commons he was perhaps the only one that everybody praised, and

his success in the world of fashion had been as remarkable as in his

profession. These great revolutions in his life and future prospects

had, however, not produced the slightest change in his mind and

manners; and this was perhaps the secret spell of his prosperity.

Though we are most of us the creatures of affectation, simplicity has

a great charm, especially when attended, as in the present instance,

with many agreeable and some noble qualities. In spite of the rough

fortunes of his youth, the breeding of Captain Cadurcis was high; the

recollection of the race to which he belonged had never been forgotten

by him. He was proud of his family. He had one of those light hearts,

too, which enable their possessors to acquire accomplishments with

facility: he had a sweet voice, a quick ear, a rapid eye. He

acquired a language as some men learn an air. Then his temper was

imperturbable, and although the most obliging and kindest-hearted

creature that ever lived, there was a native dignity about him which

prevented his goodnature from being abused. No sense of interest

either could ever induce him to act contrary to the dictates of his

judgment and his heart. At the risk of offending his patron, George

sided with his cousin, although he had deeply offended his guardian,

and although the whole world was against him. Indeed, the strong

affection that Lord Cadurcis instantly entertained for George is

not the least remarkable instance of the singular, though silent,

influence that Captain Cadurcis everywhere acquired. Lord Cadurcis

had fixed upon him for his friend from the first moment of their

acquaintance; and though apparently there could not be two characters

more dissimilar, there were at bottom some striking points of sympathy

and some strong bonds of union, in the generosity and courage that

distinguished both, and in the mutual blood that filled their veins.

There seemed to be a tacit understanding between the several members

of our party that the name of Lord Cadurcis was not to be mentioned.

Lady Annabel made no inquiry after him; Venetia was unwilling to

hazard a question which would annoy her mother, and of which the

answer could not bring her much satisfaction; and Captain Cadurcis did

not think fit himself to originate any conversation on the subject.

Nevertheless, Venetia could not help sometimes fancying, when her eyes

met his, that their mutual thoughts were the same, and both dwelling

on one who was absent, and of whom her companion would willingly have

conversed. To confess the truth, indeed, George Cadurcis was on his

way to join his cousin, who had crossed over from Spain to Barbary,

and journeyed along the African coast from Tangiers to Tripoli. Their

point of reunion was to be Sicily or Malta. Hearing of the residence

of the Herberts on the lake, he thought it would be but kind to

Plantagenet to visit them, and perhaps to bear to him some message

from Venetia. There was nothing, indeed, on which Captain Cadurcis

was more intent than to effect the union between his cousin and Miss

Herbert. He was deeply impressed with the sincerity of Plantagenet's

passion, and he himself entertained for the lady the greatest

affection and admiration. He thought she was the only person whom he

had ever known, who was really worthy to be his cousin's bride. And,

independent of her personal charms and undoubted talents, she had

displayed during the outcry against Lord Cadurcis so much good sense,

such a fine spirit, and such modest yet sincere affection for the

victim, that George Cadurcis had almost lost his own heart to her,

when he was endeavouring to induce her not utterly to reject that of

another; and it became one of the dreams of his life, that in a little

time, when all, as he fondly anticipated, had ended as it should,

and as he wished it, he should be able to find an occasional home at

Cadurcis Abbey, and enjoy the charming society of one whom he had

already taught himself to consider as a sister.

'And to-night you must indeed go?' said Venetia, as they were walking

together on the terrace. It was the only time that they had been alone

together during his visit.

'I must start from Arona at daybreak,' replied George; 'and I must

travel quickly, for in less than a month I must be in Sicily.'

'Sicily! Why are you going to Sicily?'

Captain Cadurcis smiled. 'I am going to join a friend of ours,' he

answered.

'Plantagenet?' she said.

Captain Cadurcis nodded assent.

'Poor Plantagenet!' said Venetia.

'His name has been on my lips several times,' said George.

'I am sure of that,' said Venetia. 'Is he well?'

'He writes to me in fair spirits,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'He has been

travelling in Spain, and now he is somewhere in Africa; we are to meet

in Sicily or Malta. I think travel has greatly benefited him. He seems

quite delighted with his glimpse of Oriental manners, and I should

scarcely be surprised if he were now to stretch on to Constantinople.'

'I wonder if he will ever return to England,' said Venetia,

thoughtfully.

'There is only one event that would induce him,' said Captain

Cadurcis. And then after a pause he added, 'You will not ask me what

it is?'

'I wish he were in England, and were happy,' said Venetia.

'It is in your power to effect both results,' said her companion.

'It is useless to recur to that subject,' said Venetia. 'Plantagenet

knows my feelings towards him, but fate has forbidden our destinies to

be combined.'

'Then he will never return to England, and never be happy. Ah,

Venetia! what shall I tell him when we meet? What message am I to bear

him from you?'

'Those regards which he ever possessed, and has never forfeited,' said

Venetia.

'Poor Cadurcis!' said his cousin, shaking his head, 'if any man ever

had reason to be miserable, it is he.'

'We are none of us very happy, I think,' said Venetia, mournfully. 'I

am sure when I look back to the last few years of my life it seems

to me that there is some curse hanging over our families. I cannot

penetrate it; it baffles me.'

'I am sure,' said Captain Cadurcis with great animation, 'nay, I would

pledge my existence cheerfully on the venture, that if Lady Annabel

would only relent towards Cadurcis, we should all be the happiest

people in the world.'

'Heigho!' said Venetia. 'There are other cares in our house besides

our unfortunate acquaintance with your cousin. We were the last people

in the world with whom he should ever have become connected.'

'And yet it was an intimacy that commenced auspiciously,' said her

friend. 'I am sure I have sat with Cadurcis, and listened to him by

the hour, while he has told me of all the happy days at Cherbury when

you were both children; the only happy days, according to him, that he

ever knew.'

'Yes! they were happy days,' said Venetia.

'And what connection could have offered a more rational basis for

felicity than your union?' he continued. 'Whatever the world may

think, I, who know Cadurcis to the very bottom of his heart, feel

assured that you never would have repented for an instant becoming the

sharer of his life; your families were of equal rank, your estates

joined, he felt for your mother the affection of a son. There seemed

every element that could have contributed to earthly bliss. As for his

late career, you who know all have already, have always indeed,

viewed it with charity. Placed in his position, who could have acted

otherwise? I know very well that his genius, which might recommend

him to another woman, is viewed by your mother with more than

apprehension. It is true that a man of his exquisite sensibility

requires sympathies as refined to command his nature. It is no common

mind that could maintain its hold over Cadurcis, and his spirit could

not yield but to rare and transcendent qualities. He found them,

Venetia, he found them in her whom he had known longest and most

intimately, and loved from his boyhood. Talk of constancy, indeed! who

has been so constant as my cousin? No, Venetia! you may think fit to

bow to the feelings of your mother, and it would be impertinence in me

to doubt for an instant the propriety of your conduct: I do not doubt

it; I admire it; I admire you, and everything you have done; none can

view your behaviour throughout all these painful transactions with

more admiration, I might even say with more reverence, than myself;

but, Venetia, you never can persuade me, you have never attempted to

persuade me, that you yourself are incredulous of the strength and

permanency of my cousin's love.'

'Ah, George! you are our friend!' said Venetia, a tear stealing down

her cheek. 'But, indeed, we must not talk of these things. As for

myself, I think not of happiness. I am certain I am not born to be

happy. I wish only to live calmly; contentedly, I would say; but that,

perhaps, is too much. My feelings have been so harrowed, my mind so

harassed, during these last few years, and so many causes of pain and

misery seem ever hovering round my existence, that I do assure you,

my dear friend, I have grown old before my time. Ah! you may smile,

George, but my heart is heavy; it is indeed.'

'I wish I could lighten it,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'I fear I am

somewhat selfish in wishing you to marry my cousin, for then you know

I should have a permanent and authentic claim to your regard. But no

one, at least I think so, can feel more deeply interested in your

welfare than I do. I never knew any one like you, and I always tell

Cadurcis so, and that I think makes him worse, but I cannot help it.'

Venetia could not refrain from smiling at the simplicity of this

confession.

'Well,' continued her companion,' everything, after all, is for the

best. You and Plantagenet are both very young; I live in hopes that I

shall yet see you Lady Cadurcis.'

Venetia shook her head, but was not sorry that their somewhat

melancholy conversation should end in a livelier vein. So they entered

the villa.

The hour of parting was painful, and the natural gaiety of Captain

Cadurcis deserted him. He had become greatly attached to the Herberts.

Without any female relatives of his own, their former intimacy and

probable connection with his cousin had taught him to look upon them

in some degree in the light of kindred. He had originally indeed

become acquainted with them in all the blaze of London society, not

very calculated to bring out the softer tints and more subdued tones

of our character, but even then the dignified grace of Lady Annabel

and the radiant beauty of Venetia, had captivated him, and he had

cultivated their society with assiduity and extreme pleasure. The

grand crisis of his cousin's fortunes had enabled him to become

intimate with the more secret and serious qualities of Venetia, and

from that moment he had taken the deepest interest in everything

connected with her. His happy and unexpected meeting in Italy had

completed the spell; and now that he was about to leave them,

uncertain even if they should ever meet again, his soft heart

trembled, and he could scarcely refrain from tears as he pressed their

hands, and bade them his sincere adieus.

The moon had risen, ere he entered his boat, and flung a rippling line

of glittering light on the bosom of the lake. The sky was without a

cloud, save a few thin fleecy vapours that hovered over the azure brow

of a distant mountain. The shores of the lake were suffused with the

serene effulgence, and every object was so distinct, that the eye was

pained by the lights of the villages, that every instant became more

numerous and vivid. The bell of a small chapel on the opposite shore,

and the distant chant of some fishermen still working at their nets,

were the only sounds that broke the silence which they did not

disturb. Reclined in his boat, George Cadurcis watched the vanishing

villa of the Herberts, until the light in the principal chamber was

the only sign that assured him of its site. That chamber held Venetia,

the unhappy Venetia! He covered his face with his hand when even

the light of her chamber vanished, and, full of thoughts tender and

disconsolate, he at length arrived at Arona.

CHAPTER III.

Pursuant to their plans, the Herberts left the Lago Maggiore towards

the end of October, and proceeded by gentle journeys to the Apennines.

Before they crossed this barrier, they were to rest awhile in one of

the Lombard cities; and now they were on the point of reaching Arquâ,

which Venetia had expressed a strong desire to visit.

At the latter part of the last century, the race of tourists, the

offspring of a long peace, and the rapid fortunes made during the war,

did not exist. Travelling was then confined to the aristocracy,

and though the English, when opportunity offered, have ever been a

restless people, the gentle bosom of the Euganean Hills was then

rarely disturbed amid its green and sequestered valleys.

There is not perhaps in all the Italian region, fertile as it is in

interesting associations and picturesque beauty, a spot that tradition

and nature have so completely combined to hallow, as the last

residence of Petrarch. It seems, indeed, to have been formed for the

retirement of a pensive and poetic spirit. It recedes from the world

by a succession of delicate acclivities clothed with vineyards and

orchards, until, winding within these hills, the mountain hamlet is

at length discovered, enclosed by two ridges that slope towards each

other, and seem to shut out all the passions of a troubled race. The

houses are scattered at intervals on the steep sides of these summits,

and on a little knoll is the mansion of the poet, built by himself,

and commanding a rich and extensive view, that ends only with the

shores of the Adriatic sea. His tomb, a sarcophagus of red marble,

supported by pillars, doubtless familiar to the reader, is at hand;

and, placed on an elevated site, gives a solemn impression to a scene,

of which the character would otherwise be serenely cheerful.

Our travellers were surprised to find that the house of the poet was

inhabited by a very different tenant to the rustic occupier they had

anticipated. They heard that a German gentleman had within the last

year fixed upon it as the residence of himself and his wife. The

peasants were profuse in their panegyrics of this visitor, whose

arrival had proved quite an era in the history of their village.

According to them, a kinder and more charitable gentleman never

breathed; his whole life was spent in studying and contributing to the

happiness of those around him. The sick, the sorrowful, and the needy

were ever sure of finding a friend in him, and merit a generous

patron. From him came portions to the portionless; no village maiden

need despair of being united to her betrothed, while he could assist

her; and at his own cost he had sent to the academy of Bologna, a

youth whom his father would have made a cowherd, but whom nature

predisposed to be a painter. The inhabitants believed this benevolent

and generous person was a physician, for he attended the sick,

prescribed for their complaints, and had once even performed an

operation with great success. It seemed that, since Petrarch, no one

had ever been so popular at Arquâ as this kind German. Lady Annabel

and Venetia were interested with the animated narratives of the

ever-active beneficence of this good man, and Lady Annabel especially

regretted that his absence deprived her of the gratification of

becoming acquainted with a character so rare and so invaluable. In the

meantime they availed themselves of the offer of his servants to view

the house of Petrarch, for their master had left orders, that his

absence should never deprive a pilgrim from paying his homage to the

shrine of genius.

The house, consisting of two floors, had recently been repaired by

the present occupier. It was simply furnished. The ground-floor was

allotted to the servants. The upper story contained five rooms, three

of which were of good size, and two closets. In one of these were the

traditionary chair and table of Petrarch, and here, according to their

guides, the master of the house passed a great portion of his time in

study, to which, by their account, he seemed devoted. The adjoining

chamber was his library; its windows opened on a balcony looking on

two lofty and conical hills, one topped with a convent, while the

valley opened on the side and spread into a calm and very pleasant

view. Of the other apartments, one served as a saloon, but there was

nothing in it remarkable, except an admirably painted portrait of a

beautiful woman, which the servant informed them was their mistress.

'But that surely is not a German physiognomy?' said Lady Annabel.

'The mistress is an Italian,' replied the servant.

'She is very handsome, of whatever nation she may be,' replied Lady

Annabel.

'Oh! how I should have liked to have met these happy people, mamma,'

said Venetia, 'for happy they surely must be.'

'They seem to be good people,' said Lady Annabel. 'It really lightened

my heart to hear of all this gentleman's kind deeds.'

'Ah! if the signora only knew the master,' said their guide, 'she

would indeed know a good man.'

They descended to the garden, which certainly was not like the garden

of their villa; it had been but lately a wilderness of laurels, but

there were evidences that the eye and hand of taste were commencing

its restoration with effect.

'The master did this,' said their guide. 'He will allow no one to work

in the garden but himself. It is a week since he went to Bologna, to

see our Paulo. He gained a prize at the academy, and his father begged

the master to be present when it was conferred on him; he said it

would do his son so much good! So the master went, though it is the

only time he has quitted Quâ since he came to reside here.'

'And how long has he resided here?' inquired Venetia.

''Tis the second autumn,' said the guide, 'and he came in the spring.

If the signora would only wait, we expect the master home to-night or

to-morrow, and he would be glad to see her.'

'We cannot wait, my friend,' said Lady Annabel, rewarding the guide;

'but you will thank your master in our names, for the kindness we have

experienced. You are all happy in such a friend.'

'I must write my name in Petrarch's house,' said Venetia. 'Adieu,

happy Arquâ! Adieu, happy dwellers in this happy valley!'

CHAPTER IV.

Just as Lady Annabel and her daughter arrived at Rovigo, one of those

sudden and violent storms that occasionally occur at the termination

of an Italian autumn raged with irresistible fury. The wind roared

with a noise that overpowered the thunder; then came a rattling shower

of hail, with stones as big as pigeons' eggs, succeeded by rain, not

in showers, but literally in cataracts. The only thing to which

a tempest of rain in Italy can be compared is the bursting of a

waterspout. Venetia could scarcely believe that this could be the same

day of which the golden morning had found her among the sunny hills of

Arquâ. This unexpected vicissitude induced Lady Annabel to alter her

plans, and she resolved to rest at Rovigo, where she was glad to find

that they could be sheltered in a commodious inn.

The building had originally been a palace, and in its halls and

galleries, and the vast octagonal vestibule on which the principal

apartments opened, it retained many noble indications of the purposes

to which it was formerly destined.

At present, a lazy innkeeper who did nothing; his bustling wife,

who seemed equally at home in the saloon, the kitchen, and even the

stable; and a solitary waiter, were the only inmates, except the

Herberts, and a travelling party, who had arrived shortly after them,

and who, like them, had been driven by stress of weather to seek

refuge at a place where otherwise they had not intended to remain.

A blazing fire of pine wood soon gave cheerfulness to the vast and

somewhat desolate apartment into which our friends had been ushered;

their sleeping-room was adjoining, but separated. In spite of the

lamentations of Pauncefort, who had been drenched to the skin, and who

required much more waiting upon than her mistress, Lady Annabel and

Venetia at length produced some degree of comfort. They drew the table

near the fire; they ensconced themselves behind an old screen; and,

producing their books and work notwithstanding the tempest, they

contrived to domesticate themselves at Rovigo.

'I cannot help thinking of Arquâ and its happy tenants, mamma,' said

Venetia.

'And yet, perhaps, they may have their secret sorrows,' said

Lady Annabel. 'I know not why, I always associate seclusion with

unhappiness.'

Venetia remembered Cherbury. Their life at Cherbury was like the life

of the German at Arquâ. A chance visitor to Cherbury in their absence,

viewing the beautiful residence and the fair domain, and listening to

the tales which they well might hear of all her mother's grace and

goodness, might perhaps too envy its happy occupiers. But were they

happy? Had they no secret sorrows? Was their seclusion associated with

unhappiness? These were reflections that made Venetia grave; but she

opened her journal, and, describing the adventures and feelings of the

morning, she dissipated some mournful reminiscences.

The storm still raged, Venetia had quitted the saloon in which her

mother and herself had been sitting, and had repaired to the adjoining

chamber to fetch a book. The door of this room opened, as all the

other entrances of the different apartments, on to the octagonal

vestibule. Just as she was quitting the room, and about to return to

her mother, the door of the opposite chamber opened, and there came

forward a gentleman in a Venetian dress of black velvet. His stature

was much above the middle height, though his figure, which was

remarkably slender, was bowed; not by years certainly, for his

countenance, though singularly emaciated, still retained traces

of youth. His hair, which he wore very long, descended over his

shoulders, and must originally have been of a light golden colour, but

now was severely touched with grey. His countenance was very pallid,

so colourless indeed that its aspect was almost unearthly; but his

large blue eyes, that were deeply set in his majestic brow, still

glittered with fire, and their expression alone gave life to a visage,

which, though singularly beautiful in its outline, from its faded and

attenuated character seemed rather the countenance of a corpse than of

a breathing being.

The glance of the stranger caught that of Venetia, and seemed to

fascinate her. She suddenly became motionless; wildly she stared at

the stranger, who, in his turn, seemed arrested in his progress, and

stood still as a statue, with his eyes fixed with absorbing interest

on the beautiful apparition before him. An expression of perplexity

and pain flitted over the amazed features of Venetia; and then it

seemed that, by some almost supernatural effort, confusion amounting

to stupefaction suddenly brightened and expanded into keen and

overwhelming intelligence. Exclaiming in a frenzied tone, 'My father!'

Venetia sprang forward, and fell senseless on the stranger's breast.

Such, after so much mystery, so many aspirations, so much anxiety, and

so much suffering, such was the first meeting of Venetia Herbert with

her father!

Marmion Herbert, himself trembling and speechless, bore the apparently

lifeless Venetia into his apartment. Not permitting her for a moment

to quit his embrace, he seated himself, and gazed silently on the

inanimate and unknown form he held so strangely within his arms. Those

lips, now closed as if in death, had uttered however one word

which thrilled to his heart, and still echoed, like a supernatural

annunciation, within his ear. He examined with an eye of agitated

scrutiny the fair features no longer sensible of his presence. He

gazed upon that transparent brow, as if he would read some secret in

its pellucid veins; and touched those long locks of golden hair with a

trembling finger, that seemed to be wildly seeking for some vague and

miraculous proof of inexpressible identity. The fair creature had

called him 'Father.' His dreaming reveries had never pictured a being

half so beautiful! She called him 'Father!' Tha word had touched

his brain, as lightning cuts a tree. He looked around him with a

distracted air, then gazed on the tranced form he held with a glance

which would have penetrated her soul, and murmured unconsciously the

wild word she had uttered. She called him 'Father!' He dared not think

who she might be. His thoughts were wandering in a distant land;

visions of another life, another country, rose before him, troubled

and obscure. Baffled aspirations, and hopes blighted in the bud, and

the cherished secrets of his lorn existence, clustered like clouds

upon his perplexed, yet creative, brain. She called him, 'Father!' It

was a word to make him mad. 'Father!' This beautiful being had

called him 'Father,' and seemed to have expired, as it were, in the

irresistible expression. His heart yearned to her; he had met her

embrace with an inexplicable sympathy; her devotion had seemed, as it

were, her duty and his right. Yet who was she? He was a father. It

was a fact, a fact alike full of solace and mortification, the

consciousness of which never deserted him. But he was the father of an

unknown child; to him the child of his poetic dreams, rather than his

reality. And now there came this radiant creature, and called him

'Father!' Was he awake, and in the harsh busy world; or was it the

apparition of au over-excited imagination, brooding too constantly on

one fond idea, on which he now gazed so fixedly? Was this some spirit?

Would that she would speak again! Would that those sealed lips would

part and utter but one word, would but again call him 'Father,' and he

asked no more!

'Father!' to be called 'Father' by one whom he could not name, by one

over whom he mused in solitude, by one to whom he had poured forth all

the passion of his desolate soul; to be called 'Father' by this being

was the aspiring secret of his life. He had painted her to himself in

his loneliness, he had conjured up dreams of ineffable loveliness, and

inexpressible love; he had led with her an imaginary life of thrilling

tenderness; he had indulged in a delicious fancy of mutual interchange

of the most exquisite offices of our nature; and then, when he had

sometimes looked around him, and found no daughter there, no beaming

countenance of purity to greet him with its constant smile, and

receive the quick and ceaseless tribute of his vigilant affection, the

tears had stolen down his lately-excited features, all the consoling

beauty of his visions had vanished into air, he had felt the deep

curse of his desolation, and had anathematised the cunning brain

that made his misery a thousand-fold keener by the mockery of its

transporting illusions.

And now there came this transcendent creature, with a form more

glowing than all his dreams; a voice more musical than a seraphic

chorus, though it had uttered but one thrilling word: there came this

transcendent creature, beaming with grace, beauty, and love, and had

fallen upon his heart, and called him 'Father!'

Herbert looked up to heaven as if waiting for some fresh miracle to

terminate the harrowing suspense of his tortured mind; Herbert looked

down upon his mysterious companion; the rose was gradually returning

to her cheek, her lips seemed to tremble with reviving breath. There

was only one word more strange to his ear than that which she had

uttered, but an irresistible impulse sent forth the sound.

'Venetia!' he exclaimed.

The eyes of the maiden slowly opened; she stared around her with a

vague glance of perplexity, not unmingled with pain; she looked up;

she caught the rapt gaze of her father, bending over her with

fondness yet with fear; his lips moved, for a moment they refused to

articulate, yet at length they again uttered, 'Venetia!' And the only

response she made was to cling to him with nervous energy, and hide

her face in his bosom.

Herbert pressed her to his heart. Yet even now he hesitated to credit

the incredible union. Again he called her by her name, but added with

rising confidence, 'My Venetia!'

'Your child, your child,' she murmured. 'Your own Venetia.'

He pressed his lips to hers; he breathed over her a thousand

blessings; she felt his tears trickling on her neck.

At length Venetia looked up and sighed; she was exhausted by the

violence of her emotions: her father relaxed his grasp with infinite

tenderness, watching her with delicate solicitude; she leaned her arm

upon his shoulder with downcast eyes.

Herbert gently took her disengaged hand, and pressed it to his lips.

'I am as in a dream,' murmured Venetia.

'The daughter of my heart has found her sire,' said Herbert in an

impassioned voice. 'The father who has long lived upon her fancied

image; the father, I fear, she has been bred up to hate.'

'Oh! no, no!' said Venetia, speaking rapidly and with a slight shiver;

'not hate! it was a secret, his being was a secret, his name was never

mentioned; it was unknown.'

'A secret! My existence a secret from my child, my beautiful fond

child!' exclaimed Herbert in a tone even more desolate than bitter.

'Why did they not let you at least hate me!'

'My father!' said Venetia, in a firmer voice, and with returning

animation, yet gazing around her with a still distracted air, 'Am I

with my father? The clouds clear from my brain. I remember that we

met. Where was it? Was it at Arquâ? In the garden? I am with my

father!' she continued in a rapid tone and with a wild smile. 'Oh! let

me look on him;' and she turned round, and gazed upon Herbert with

a serious scrutiny. 'Are you my father?' she continued, in a still,

small voice. 'Your hair has grown grey since last I saw you; it was

golden then, like mine. I know you are my father,' she added, after a

pause, and in a tone almost of gaiety. 'You cannot deceive me. I know

your name. They did not tell it me; I found it out myself, but it made

me very ill, very; and I do not think I have ever been quite well

since. You are Marmion Herbert. My mother had a dog called Marmion,

when I was a little girl, but I did not know I had a father then.'

'Venetia!' exclaimed Herbert, with streaming eyes, as he listened with

anguish to these incoherent sentences. 'My Venetia loves me!'

'Oh! she always loved you,' replied Venetia; always, always. Before

she knew her father she loved him. I dare say you think I do not love

you, because I am not used to speak to a father. Everything must be

learnt, you know,' she said, with a faint, sad smile; 'and then it

was so sudden! I do not think my mother knows it yet. And after all,

though I found you out in a moment, still, I know not why, I thought

it was a picture. But I read your verses, and I knew them by heart at

once; but now my memory has worn out, for I am ill, and everything has

gone cross with me. And all because my father wrote me verses. 'Tis

very strange, is not it?'

'Sweet lamb of my affections,' exclaimed Herbert to himself, 'I fear

me much this sudden meeting with one from whose bosom you ought never

to have been estranged, has been for the moment too great a trial for

this delicate brain.'

'I will not tell my mother,' said Venetia; 'she will be angry.'

'Your mother, darling; where is your mother?' said Herbert, looking,

if possible, paler than he was wont.

She was at Arquâ with me, and on the lake for months, but where we are

now, I cannot say. If I could only remember where we are now,' she

added with earnestness, and with a struggle to collect herself, 'I

should know everything.'

'This is Rovigo, my child, the inn of Rovigo. You are travelling with

your mother. Is it not so?'

'Yes! and we came this morning, and it rained. Now I know everything,'

said Venetia, with an animated and even cheerful air.

'And we met in the vestibule, my sweet,' continued Herbert, in a

soothing voice; 'we came out of opposite chambers, and you knew me; my

Venetia knew me. Try to tell me, my darling,' he added, in a tone of

coaxing fondness, 'try to remember how Venetia knew her father.'

'He was so like his picture at Cherbury,' replied Venetia.

'Cherbury!' exclaimed Herbert, with a deep-drawn sigh.

'Only your hair has grown grey, dear father; but it is long, quite as

long as in your picture.'

'Her dog called Marmion!' murmured Herbert to himself, 'and my

portrait, too! You saw your father's portrait, then, every day, love?'

'Oh, no! said Venetia, shaking her head, 'only once, only once. And I

never told mamma. It was where no one could go, but I went there one

day. It was in a room that no one ever entered except mamma, but

I entered it. I stole the key, and had a fever, and in my fever I

confessed all. But I never knew it. Mamma never told me I confessed

it, until many, many years afterwards. It was the first, the only time

she ever mentioned to me your name, my father.'

'And she told you to shun me, to hate me? She told you I was a

villain, a profligate, a demon? eh? eh? Was it not so, Venetia?'

'She told me that you had broken her heart,' said Venetia; 'and she

prayed to God that her child might not be so miserable.'

'Oh, my Venetia!' exclaimed Herbert, pressing her to his breast,

and in a voice stifled with emotion, 'I feel now we might have been

happy!'

In the meantime the prolonged absence of her daughter surprised

Lady Annabel. At length she rose, and walked into their adjoining

apartment, but to her surprise Venetia was not there. Returning to her

saloon, she found Pauncefort and the waiter arranging the table for

dinner.

'Where is Miss Herbert, Pauncefort?' inquired Lady Annabel.

'I am sure, my lady, I cannot say. I have no doubt she is in the other

room.'

'She is not there, for I have just quitted it,' replied Lady Annabel.

'How very strange! You have not seen the signora?' inquired Lady

Annabel of the waiter.

'The signora is in the room with the gentleman.'

'The gentleman!' exclaimed Lady Annabel. 'Tell me, good man, what do

you mean? I am inquiring for my daughter.'

'I know well the signora is talking of her daughter,' replied the

waiter.

'But do you know my daughter by sight? Surely you you must mean some

one else.'

'Do I know the signora's daughter?' said the waiter. 'The beautiful

young lady, with hair like Santa Marguerita, in the church of the Holy

Trinity! I tell the signora, I saw her carried into numero 4, in the

arms of the Signor Forestiere, who arrived this morning.'

'Venetia is ill,' said Lady Annabel. 'Show me to the room, my friend.'

Lady Annabel accordingly, with a hurried step, following her guide,

quitted the chamber. Pauncefort remained fixed to the earth, the very

picture of perplexity.

'Well, to be sure!' she exclaimed, 'was anything ever so strange! In

the arms of Signor Forestiere! Forestiere. An English name. There is

no person of the name of Forest that I know. And in his arms, too! I

should not wonder if it was my lord after all. Well, I should be glad

if he were to come to light again, for, after all, my lady may say

what she likes, but if Miss Venetia don't marry Lord Cadurcis, I must

say marriages were never made in heaven!'

CHAPTER V.

The waiter threw open the door of Mr. Herbert's chamber, and Lady

Annabel swept in with a majesty she generally assumed when about to

meet strangers. The first thing she beheld was her daughter in

the arms of a man whose head was bent, and who was embracing her.

Notwithstanding this astounding spectacle, Lady Annabel neither

started nor screamed; she only said in an audible tone, and one rather

expressing astonishment than agitation, 'Venetia!'

Immediately the stranger looked up, and Lady Annabel beheld her

husband!

She was rooted to the earth. She turned deadly pale; for a moment her

countenance expressed only terror, but the terror quickly changed into

aversion. Suddenly she rushed forward, and exclaimed in a tone in

which decision conquered dismay, 'Restore me my child!'

The moment Herbert had recognised his wife he had dexterously

disengaged himself from the grasp of Venetia, whom he left on the

chair, and meeting Lady Annabel with extended arms, that seemed to

deprecate her wrath, he said, 'I seek not to deprive you of her; she

is yours, and she is worthy of you; but respect, for a few moments,

the feelings of a father who has met his only child in a manner so

unforeseen.'

The presence of her mother instantaneously restored Venetia to

herself. Her mind was in a moment cleared and settled. Her past and

peculiar life, and all its incidents, recurred to her with their

accustomed order, vividness, and truth. She thoroughly comprehended

her present situation. Actuated by long-cherished feelings and the

necessity of the occasion, she rose and threw herself at her mother's

feet and exclaimed, 'O mother! he is my father, love him!'

Lady Annabel stood with an averted countenance, Venetia clinging to

her hand, which she had caught when she rushed forward, and which now

fell passive by Lady Annabel's side, giving no sign, by any pressure

or motion, of the slightest sympathy with her daughter, or feeling for

the strange and agonising situation in which they were both placed.

'Annabel,' said Herbert, in a voice that trembled, though the speaker

struggled to appear calm, 'be charitable! I have never intruded upon

your privacy; I will not now outrage it. Accident, or some diviner

motive, has brought us together this day. If you will not treat me

with kindness, look not upon me with aversion before our child.'

Still she was silent and motionless, her countenance hidden from her

husband and her daughter, but her erect and haughty form betokening

her inexorable mind. 'Annabel,' said Herbert, who had now withdrawn

to some distance, and leant against a pillar, 'will not then nearly

twenty years of desolation purchase one moment of intercourse? I have

injured you. Be it so. This is not the moment I will defend myself.

But have I not suffered? Is not this meeting a punishment deeper

even than your vengeance could devise? Is it nothing to behold this

beautiful child, and feel that she is only yours? Annabel, look on me,

look on me only one moment! My frame is bowed, my hair is grey, my

heart is withered; the principle of existence waxes faint and slack in

this attenuated frame. I am no longer that Herbert on whom you once

smiled, but a man stricken with many sorrows. The odious conviction of

my life cannot long haunt you; yet a little while, and my memory will

alone remain. Think of this, Annabel; I beseech you, think of it. Oh!

believe me, when the speedy hour arrives that will consign me to the

grave, where I shall at least find peace, it will not be utterly

without satisfaction that you will remember that we met if even by

accident, and parted at least not with harshness!'

'Mother, dearest mother!' murmured Venetia, 'speak to him, look on

him!'

'Venetia,' said her mother, without turning her head, but in a calm,

firm tone, 'your father has seen you, has conversed with you. Between

your father and myself there can be nothing to communicate, either of

fact or feeling. Now let us depart.'

'No, no, not depart!' said Venetia franticly. 'You did not say depart,

dear mother! I cannot go,' she added in a low and half-hysterical

voice.

'Desert me, then,' said the mother. 'A fitting consequence of your

private communications with your father,' she added in a tone of

bitter scorn; and Lady Annabel moved to depart, but Venetia, still

kneeling, clung to her convulsively.

'Mother, mother, you shall not go; you shall not leave me; we will

never part, mother,' continued Venetia, in a tone almost of violence,

as she perceived her mother give no indication of yielding to her

wish. 'Are my feelings then nothing?' she then exclaimed. 'Is this

your sense of my fidelity? Am I for ever to be a victim?' She loosened

her hold of her mother's hand, her mother moved on, Venetia fell upon

her forehead and uttered a faint scream. The heart of Lady Annabel

relented when she fancied her daughter suffered physical pain, however

slight; she hesitated, she turned, she hastened to her child; her

husband had simultaneously advanced; in the rapid movement and

confusion her hand touched that of Herbert.

'I yield her to you, Annabel,' said Herbert, placing Venetia in her

mother's arms. 'You mistake me, as you have often mistaken me, if you

think I seek to practise on the feelings of this angelic child. She is

yours; may she compensate you for the misery I have caused you, but

never sought to occasion!'

'I am not hurt, dear mother,' said Venetia, as her mother tenderly

examined her forehead. 'Dear, dear mother, why did you reproach me?'

'Forget it,' said Lady Annabel, in a softened tone; 'for indeed you

are irreproachable.'

'O Annabel!' said Herbert, 'may not this child be some atonement, this

child, of whom I solemnly declare I would not deprive you, though I

would willingly forfeit my life for a year of her affection; and your,

your sufferance,' he added.

'Mother! speak to him,' said Venetia, with her head on her mother's

bosom, who still, however, remained rigidly standing. But Lady Annabel

was silent.

'Your mother was ever stern and cold, Venetia,' said Herbert, the

bitterness of his heart at length expressing itself.

'Never,' said Venetia, with great energy; 'never; you know not my

mother. Was she stern and cold when she visited each night in secret

your portrait?' said Venetia, looking round upon her astonished

father, with her bright grey eye. 'Was she stern and cold when she

wept over your poems, those poems whose characters your own hand had

traced? Was she stern and cold when she hung a withered wreath on your

bridal bed, the bed to which I owe my miserable being? Oh, no, my

father! sad was the hour of separation for my mother and yourself.

It may have dimmed the lustre of her eye, and shaded your locks with

premature grey; but whatever may have been its inscrutable cause,

there was one victim of that dark hour, less thought of than

yourselves, and yet a greater sufferer than both, the being in whose

heart you implanted affections, whose unfulfilled tenderness has made

that wretched thing they call your daughter.'

'Annabel!' exclaimed Herbert, rapidly advancing, with an imploring

gesture, and speaking in a tone of infinite anguish, 'Annabel,

Annabel, even now we can be happy!'

The countenance of his wife was troubled, but its stern expression had

disappeared. The long-concealed, yet at length irrepressible, emotion

of Venetia had touched her heart. In the conflict of affection between

the claims of her two parents, Lady Annabel had observed with a

sentiment of sweet emotion, in spite of all the fearfulness of the

meeting, that Venetia had not faltered in her devotion to her mother.

The mental torture of her child touched her to the quick. In the

excitement of her anguish, Venetia had expressed a profound sentiment,

the irresistible truth of which Lady Annabel could no longer

withstand. She had too long and too fondly schooled herself to look

upon the outraged wife as the only victim. There was then, at length

it appeared to this stern-minded woman, another. She had laboured in

the flattering delusion that the devotion of a mother's love might

compensate to Venetia for the loss of that other parent, which in some

degree Lady Annabel had occasioned her; for the worthless husband, had

she chosen to tolerate the degrading connection, might nevertheless

have proved a tender father. But Nature, it seemed, had shrunk from

the vain effort of the isolated mother. The seeds of affection for

the father of her being were mystically implanted in the bosom of his

child. Lady Annabel recalled the harrowing hours that this attempt by

her to curb and control the natural course and rising sympathies

of filial love had cost her child, on whom she had so vigilantly

practised it. She recalled her strange aspirations, her inspired

curiosity, her brooding reveries, her fitful melancholy, her terrible

illness, her resignation, her fidelity, her sacrifices: there came

across the mind of Lady Annabel a mortifying conviction that the

devotion to her child, on which she had so rated herself, might

after all only prove a subtle form of profound selfishness; and that

Venetia, instead of being the idol of her love, might eventually be

the martyr of her pride. And, thinking of these things, she wept.

This evidence of emotion, which in such a spirit Herbert knew how to

estimate, emboldened him to advance; he fell on one knee before her

and her daughter; gently he stole her hand, and pressed it to his

lips. It was not withdrawn, and Venetia laid her hand upon theirs,

and would have bound them together had her mother been relentless.

It seemed to Venetia that she was at length happy, but she would

not speak, she would not disturb the still and silent bliss of the

impending reconciliation. Was it then indeed at hand? In truth, the

deportment of Herbert throughout the whole interview, so delicate, so

subdued, so studiously avoiding the slightest rivaly with his wife

in the affections of their child, and so carefully abstaining from

attempting in the slightest degree to control the feelings of Venetia,

had not been lost upon Lady Annabel. And when she thought of him, so

changed from what he had been, grey, bent, and careworn, with all the

lustre that had once so fascinated her, faded, and talking of that

impending fate which his wan though spiritual countenance too clearly

intimated, her heart melted.

Suddenly the door burst open, and there stalked into the room a woman

of eminent but most graceful stature, and of a most sovereign and

voluptuous beauty. She was habited in the Venetian dress; her dark

eyes glittered with fire, her cheek was inflamed with no amiable

emotion, and her long black hair was disordered by the violence of her

gesture.

'And who are these?' she exclaimed in a shrill voice.

All started; Herbert sprang up from his position with a glance of

withering rage. Venetia was perplexed, Lady Annabel looked round, and

recognised the identical face, however distorted by passion, that she

had admired in the portrait at Arquâ.

'And who are these?' exclaimed the intruder, advancing. 'Perfidious

Marmion! to whom do you dare to kneel?'

Lady Annabel drew herself up to a height that seemed to look down even

upon this tall stranger. The expression of majestic scorn that she

cast upon the intruder made her, in spite of all her violence and

excitement, tremble and be silent: she felt cowed she knew not why.

'Come, Venetia,' said Lady Annabel with all her usual composure, 'let

me save my daughter at least from this profanation,'

'Annabel!' said Herbert, rushing after them, 'be charitable, be just!'

He followed them to the threshold of the door; Venetia was silent, for

she was alarmed.

'Adieu, Marmion!' said Lady Annabel, looking over her shoulder with a

bitter smile, but placing her daughter before her, as if to guard her.

'Adieu, Marmion! adieu for ever!'

CHAPTER VI.

The moon shone brightly on the house of Petrarch, and the hamlet

slept in peace. Not a sound was heard, save the shrill voice of the

grasshoppers, so incessant that its monotony blended, as it were, with

the stillness. Over the green hills and the far expanse of the sheeny

plain, the beautiful light of heaven fell with all the magical repose

of the serene hour, an hour that brought to one troubled breast, and

one distracted spirit, in that still and simple village, no quietude.

Herbert came forth into the balcony of his residence, and leaning over

the balustrade, revolved in his agitated mind the strange and stirring

incidents of the day. His wife and his child had quitted the inn of

Rovigo instantly after that mortifying rencounter that had dashed so

cruelly to the ground all his sweet and quickly-rising hopes. As for

his companion, she had by his peremptory desire returned to Arquâ

alone; he was not in a mood to endure her society; but he had

conducted himself to her mildly, though with firmness; he had promised

to follow her, and, in pursuance of his pledge, he rode home alone.

He was greeted on his return by his servant, full of the the visit

of the morning. With an irresistible curiosity, Herbert had made him

describe every incident that had occurred, and repeat a hundred times

every word that the visitors had uttered. He listened with some

consolation, however mournful, to his wife's praises of the unknown

stranger's life; he gazed with witching interest upon the autograph of

his daughter on the wall of his library. He had not confessed to his

mistress the relation which the two strangers bore to him; yet he was

influenced in concealing the real circumstances, only by an indefinite

sentiment, that made him reluctant to acknowledge to her ties so

pure. The feelings of the parent overpowered the principles of the

philosopher. This lady indeed, although at the moment she had indulged

in so violent an ebullition of temper, possessed little influence over

the mind of her companion. Herbert, however fond of solitude,

required in his restricted world the graceful results of feminine

superintendence. Time had stilled his passions, and cooled the fervour

of his soul. The age of his illusions had long passed. This was a

connection that had commenced in no extravagant or romantic mood, and

perhaps for that reason had endured. He had become acquainted with her

on his first unknown arrival in Italy, from America, now nearly two

years back. It had been maintained on his side by a temper naturally

sweet, and which, exhausted by years of violent emotion, now required

only repose; seeking, in a female friend, a form that should not

outrage an eye ever musing on the beautiful, and a disposition that

should contribute to his comfort, and never ruffle his feelings.

Separated from his wife by her own act, whatever might have been its

impulse, and for so long an interval, it was a connection which the

world in general might have looked upon with charity, which in her

calmer hours one would imagine even Lady Annabel might have glanced

over without much bitterness. Certainly it was one which, under all

the circumstances of the case, could scarcely be esteemed by her as an

outrage or an insult; but even Herbert felt, with all his philosophy

and proud freedom from prejudice, that the rencounter of the morning

was one which no woman could at the moment tolerate, few eventually

excuse, and which of all incidents was that which would most tend to

confirm his wife in her stoical obduracy. Of his offences towards

her, whatever were their number or their quality, this surely was the

least, and yet its results upon his life and fortunes would in all

probability only be equalled by the mysterious cause of their original

separation. But how much more bitter than that original separation

was their present parting! Mortifying and annoying as had been the

original occurrence, it was one that many causes and considerations

combined to enable Herbert to support. He was then in the very prime

of youth, inexperienced, sanguine, restless, and adventurous, with the

whole world and its unknown results before him, and freedom for which

he ever sighed to compensate for the loss of that domestic joy that

he was then unable to appreciate. But now twenty years, which, in the

career of such a spirit, were equal to a century of the existence of

coarser clay, had elapsed; he was bowed with thought and suffering, if

not by time; his conscience was light, but it was sad; his illusions

had all vanished; he knew the world, and all that the world could

bring, and he disregarded them; and the result of all his profound

study, lofty aspirations, and great conduct was, that he sighed for

rest. The original catastrophe had been merely a separation between

a husband and a wife; the one that had just happened, involved other

feelings; the father was also separated from his child, and a child of

such surpassing qualities, that his brief acquaintance with her had

alone sufficed to convert his dream of domestic repose into a vision

of domestic bliss.

Beautiful Venetia! so fair, and yet so dutiful; with a bosom teeming

with such exquisite sensibilities, and a mind bright with such acute

and elevated intelligence! An abstract conception of the sentiments

that might subsist between a father and a daughter, heightened by all

the devices of a glowing imagination, had haunted indeed occasionally

the solitary musing of Marmion Herbert; but what was this creation of

his poetic brain compared with the reality that now had touched his

human heart? Vainly had he believed that repose was the only solace

that remained for his exhausted spirit. He found that a new passion

now swayed his soul; a passion, too, that he had never proved; of

a nature most peculiar; pure, gentle, refined, yet ravishing and

irresistible, compared with which all former transports, no matter how

violent, tumultuous, and exciting, seemed evanescent and superficial:

they were indeed the wind, the fire, and the tempest that had gone

before, but this was the still small voice that followed, excelled,

and survived their might and majesty, unearthly and eternal!

His heart melted to his daughter, nor did he care to live without her

love and presence. His philosophical theories all vanished. He felt

how dependent we are in this world on our natural ties, and how

limited, with all his arrogance, is the sphere of man. Dreaming of

philanthropy, he had broken his wife's heart, and bruised, perhaps

irreparably, the spirit of his child; he had rendered those miserable

who depended on his love, and for whose affection his heart now

yearned to that degree, that he could not contemplate existence

without their active sympathy.

Was it then too late! Was it then impossible to regain that Paradise

he had forfeited so weakly, and of whose amaranthine bowers, but a few

hours since, he had caught such an entrancing glimpse, of which the

gate for a moment seemed about to re-open! In spite of all, then,

Annabel still loved him, loved him passionately, visited his picture,

mused over the glowing expression of their loves, wept over the bridal

bed so soon deserted! She had a dog, too, when Venetia was a child,

and called it Marmion.

The recollection of this little trait, so trifling, yet so touching,

made him weep even with wildness. The tears poured down his cheeks in

torrents, he sobbed convulsively, his very heart seemed to burst. For

some minutes he leant over the balustrade in a paroxysm of grief.

He looked up. The convent hill rose before him, bright in the moon;

beneath was his garden; around him the humble roofs that he made

happy. It was not without an effort that he recalled the locality,

that he remembered he was at Arquâ. And who was sleeping within the

house? Not his wife, Annabel was far away with their daughter. The

vision of his whole life passed before him. Study and strife, and fame

and love; the pride of the philosopher, the rapture of the poet,

the blaze of eloquence, the clash of arms, the vows of passion, the

execration and the applause of millions; both once alike welcome to

his indomitable soul! And what had they borne to him? Misery. He

called up the image of his wife, young, beautiful, and noble, with a

mind capable of comprehending his loftiest and his finest moods, with

a soul of matchless purity, and a temper whose winning tenderness had

only been equalled by her elevated sense of self-respect; a woman that

might have figured in the days of chivalry, soft enough to be his

slave, but too proud to be his victim. He called up her image in

the castle of his fathers, exercising in a domain worthy of such a

mistress, all those sweet offices of life which here, in this hired

roof in a strange land, and with his crippled means, he had yet found

solacing. He conjured before him a bud by the side of that beauteous

flower, sharing all her lustre and all her fragrance, his own Venetia!

What happiness might not have been his? And for what had he forfeited

it? A dream, with no dream-like beauty; a perturbed, and restless, and

agitated dream, from which he had now woke shattered and exhausted.

He had sacrificed his fortune, he had forfeited his country, he had

alienated his wife, and he had lost his child; the home of his heroic

ancestry, the ancient land whose fame and power they had created, the

beauteous and gifted woman who would have clung for ever to his bosom,

and her transcendant offspring worthy of all their loves! Profound

philosopher!

The clock of the convent struck the second hour after midnight.

Herbert started. And all this time where were Annabel and Venetia?

They still lived, they were in the same country, an hour ago they were

under the same roof, in the same chamber; their hands had joined,

their hearts had opened, for a moment he had dared to believe that all

that he cared for might be regained. And why was it not? The cause,

the cause? It recurred to him with associations of dislike, of

disgust, of wrath, of hatred, of which one whose heart was so tender,

and whose reason was so clear, could under the influence of no other

feelings have been capable. The surrounding scene, that had so often

soothed his mournful soul, and connected it with the last hours of

a spirit to whom he bore much resemblance, was now looked upon with

aversion. To rid himself of ties, now so dreadful, was all his

ambition. He entered the house quickly, and, seating himself in his

closet, he wrote these words:

'You beheld this morning my wife and child; we can meet no more. All

that I can effect to console you under this sudden separation shall be

done. My banker from Bologna will be here in two days; express to him

all your wishes.'

It was written, sealed, directed, and left upon the table at which

they had so often been seated. Herbert descended into the garden,

saddled his horse, and in a few minutes, in the heart of night, had

quitted Arquâ.

CHAPTER VII.

The moment that the wife of Marmion Herbert re-entered her saloon, she

sent for her courier and ordered horses to her carriage instantly.

Until they were announced as ready, Lady Annabel walked up and down

the room with an impatient step, but was as completely silent as the

miserable Venetia, who remained weeping on the sofa. The confusion and

curiosity of Mistress Pauncefort were extraordinary. She still had a

lurking suspicion that the gentleman was Lord Cadurcis and she seized

the first opportunity of leaving the room, and flouncing into that of

the stranger, as if by mistake, determined to catch a glimpse of him;

but all her notable skill was baffled, for she had scarcely opened the

door before she was met by the Italian lady, who received Mistress

Pauncefort's ready-made apology, and bowed her away. The faithful

attendant then hurried downstairs to crossexamine the waiter, but,

though she gained considerable information from that functionary, it

was of a perplexing nature; for from him she only learnt that the

stranger lived at Arquâ. 'The German gentleman!' soliloquised Mistress

Pauncefort; 'and what could he have to say to Miss Venetia! and a

married man, too! Well, to be sure, there is nothing like travelling

for adventures! And I must say, considering all that I know, and how

I have held my tongue for nearly twenty years, I think it is very

strange indeed of my lady to have any secrets from me. Secrets,

indeed! Poh!' and Mistress Pauncefort flounced again into Lady

Annabel's room, with a face of offended pride, knocking the books

about, dashing down writing cases, tossing about work, and making as

much noise and disturbance as if she had a separate quarrel with every

single article under her superintendence.

In the meantime the carriage was prepared, to which they were obliged

almost to carry Venetia, feeble and stupefied with grief. Uncertain

of her course, but anxious, in the present state of her daughter, for

rest and quiet, Lady Annabel ordered the courier to proceed to Padua,

at which city they arrived late at night, scarcely a word having been

interchanged during the whole journey between Lady Annabel and her

child, though infinite were the soft and soothing attentions which the

mother lavished upon her. Night, however, brought no rest to Venetia;

and the next day, her state appeared so alarming to Lady Annabel, that

she would have instantly summoned medical assistance, had it not been

for Venetia's strong objections. 'Indeed, dear mother,' she said,

'it is not physicians that I require. They cannot cure me. Let me be

quiet.'

The same cause, indeed, which during the last five years had at

intervals so seriously menaced the existence of this unhappy girl, was

now at work with renovated and even irresistible influence. Her frame

could no longer endure the fatal action of her over-excited nerves.

Her first illness, however alarming, had been baffled by time, skill,

and principally by the vigour of an extremely youthful frame, then a

stranger to any serious indisposition. At a later period, the change

of life induced by their residence at Weymouth had permitted her again

to rally. She had quitted England with renewed symptoms of her former

attack, but a still more powerful change, not only of scene, but of

climate and country, and the regular and peaceful life she had led on

the Lago Maggiore, had again reassured the mind of her anxious mother.

This last adventure at Rovigo, however, prostrated her. The strange

surprise, the violent development of feeling, the agonising doubts and

hopes, the terrible suspense the profound and bitter and overwhelming

disappointment, all combined to shake her mind to its very

foundations. She felt for the first time, that she could no longer

bear up against the torture of her singular position. Her energy was

entirely exhausted; she was no longer capable of making the slightest

exertion; she took refuge in that torpid resignation that results from

utter hopelessness.

Lying on her sofa with her eyes fixed in listless abstraction, the

scene at Rovigo flitted unceasingly before her languid vision. At

length she had seen that father, that unknown and mysterious father,

whose idea had haunted her infancy as if by inspiration; to gain

the slightest knowledge of whom had cost her many long and acute

suffering; and round whose image for so many years every thought of

her intelligence, and every feeling of her heart, had clustered like

spirits round some dim and mystical altar, At length she had beheld

him; she had gazed on that spiritual countenance; she had listened to

the tender accents of that musical voice; within his arms she had been

folded with rapture, and pressed to a heart that seemed to beat

only for her felicity. The blessing of her father, uttered by his

long-loved lips, had descended on her brow, and been sealed with his

passionate embrace.

The entrance of her mother, that terrible contest of her lacerated

heart, when her two parents, as it were, appealed to her love, which

they would not share; the inspiration of her despair, that so suddenly

had removed the barriers of long years, before whose irresistible

pathos her father had bent a penitent, and her mother's inexorable

pride had melted; the ravishing bliss that for a moment had thrilled

through her, being experienced too for the first time, when she felt

that her parents were again united and bound by the sweet tie of her

now happy existence; this was the drama acted before her with an

almost ceaseless repetition of its transporting incidents; and when

she looked round, and beheld her mother sitting alone, and watching

her with a countenance almost of anguish, it was indeed with extreme

difficulty that Venetia could persuade herself that all had not been a

reverie; and she was only convinced of the contrary by that heaviness

of the heart which too quickly assures us of the reality of those

sorrows of which fancy for a moment may cheat us into scepticism.

And indeed her mother was scarcely less miserable. The sight of

Herbert, so changed from the form that she remembered; those tones of

heart-rending sincerity, in which he had mournfully appealed to the

influence of time and sorrow on his life, still greatly affected her.

She had indulged for a moment in a dream of domestic love, she had

cast to the winds the inexorable determination of a life, and had

mingled her tears with those of her husband and her child. And how

had she been repaid? By a degrading catastrophe, from whose revolting

associations her mind recoiled with indignation and disgust. But her

lingering feeling for her husband, her own mortification, were as

nothing compared with the harrowing anxiety she now entertained for

her daughter. To converse with Venetia on the recent occurrence was

impossible. It was a subject which admitted of no discussion. They

had passed a week at Padua, and the slightest allusion to what had

happened had never been made by either Lady Annabel or her child. It

was only by her lavish testimonies of affection that Lady Annabel

conveyed to Venetia how deeply she sympathised with her, and how

unhappy she was herself. She had, indeed, never quitted for a moment

the side of her daughter, and witnessed each day, with renewed

anguish, her deplorable condition; for Venetia continued in a state

which, to those unacquainted with her, might have been mistaken for

insensibility, but her mother knew too well that it was despair.

She never moved, she never sighed, nor wept; she took no notice of

anything that occurred; she sought relief in no resources. Books, and

drawings, and music, were quite forgotten by her; nothing amused, and

nothing annoyed her; she was not even fretful; she had, apparently,

no physical ailment; she remained pale and silent, plunged in an

absorbing paroxysm of overwhelming woe.

The unhappy Lady Annabel, at a loss how to act, at length thought it

might be advisable to cross over to Venice. She felt assured now, that

it would be a long time, if ever, before her child could again endure

the fatigue of travel; and she thought that for every reason, whether

for domestic comfort or medical advice, or those multifarious

considerations which interest the invalid, a capital was by far the

most desirable residence for them. There was a time when a visit to

the city that had given her a name had been a favourite dream of

Venetia; she had often sighed to be within

The sea-born city's walls; the graceful towers

Loved by the bard.

Those lines of her father had long echoed in her ear; but now the

proposition called no light to her glazed eye, nor summoned for an

instant the colour back to her cheek. She listened to her mother's

suggestion, and expressed her willingness to do whatever she desired.

Venice to her was now only a name; for, without the presence and the

united love of both her parents, no spot on earth could interest, and

no combination of circumstances affect her. To Venice, however, they

departed, having previously taken care that every arrangement should

be made for their reception. The English ambassador at the Ducal court

was a relative of Lady Annabel, and therefore no means or exertions

were spared to study and secure the convenience and accommodation of

the invalid. The barge of the ambassador met them at Fusina; and when

Venetia beheld the towers and cupolas of Venice, suffused with a

golden light and rising out of the bright blue waters, for a moment

her spirit seemed to lighten. It is indeed a spectacle as beautiful as

rare, and one to which the world offers few, if any, rivals. Gliding

over the great Lagune, the buildings, with which the pictures at

Cherbury had already made her familiar, gradually rose up before her:

the mosque-like Church of St. Marc, the tall Campanile red in the sun,

the Moresco Palace of the Doges, the deadly Bridge of Sighs, and the

dark structure to which it leads.

Venice had not then fallen. The gorgeous standards of the sovereign

republic, and its tributary kingdoms, still waved in the Place of St.

Marc; the Bucentaur was not rotting in the Arsenal, and the warlike

galleys of the state cruised without the Lagune; a busy and

picturesque population swarmed in all directions; and the Venetian

noble, the haughtiest of men, might still be seen proudly moving from

the council of state, or stepping into a gondola amid a bowing crowd.

All was stirring life, yet all was silent; the fantastic architecture,

the glowing sky, the flitting gondolas, and the brilliant crowd

gliding about with noiseless step, this city without sound, it seemed

a dream!

CHAPTER VIII

The ambassador had engaged for Lady Annabel a palace on the Grand

Canal, belonging to Count Manfrini. It was a structure of great size

and magnificence, and rose out of the water with a flight of marble

steps. Within was a vast gallery, lined with statues and busts on tall

pedestals; suites of spacious apartments, with marble floors and

hung with satin; ceilings painted by Tintoretto and full of Turkish

trophies; furniture alike sumptuous and massy; the gilding, although

of two hundred years' duration, as bright and burnished as if it

had but yesterday been touched with the brush; sequin gold, as

the Venetians tell you to this day with pride. But even their old

furniture will soon not be left to them, as palaces are now daily

broken up like old ships, and their colossal spoils consigned to

Hanway Yard and Bond Street, whence, re-burnished and vamped up, their

Titantic proportions in time appropriately figure in the boudoirs of

May Fair and the miniature saloons of St. James'. Many a fine lady now

sits in a doge's chair, and many a dandy listens to his doom from a

couch that has already witnessed the less inexorable decrees of the

Council of Ten.