Why, alas! and are you he?
Be not yet those fancies changed?
SIDNEY.
To Katharine there had been no mystery: she could not doubt that the
invisible minstrel was her cousin Francis, and that he was again too
near for her peace or his own.
Yet such is the sweet treachery of a loving heart, that she could not
be sad to know, that one so dearly, though so hopelessly, attached to
her, was perhaps within sight of the very window of her apartment, and
standing upon some spot where they had formerly walked together in
joy. Though resolved not to grant him more than one interview, and to
dissuade him from seeking any future opportunities of intercourse, she
could not but admit a natural feeling of delight, that she should
once more, though but for a few brief moments, look upon him, and
listen to his well remembered voice. In the solitude of her chamber
she found that relief and freedom of thought which her spirit needed:
her wakeful night was passed in reviewing former, and in shaping out
future scenes; but of this last exercise of the mind she soon grew
weary, for doubt hung over all her future prospects. It was about two
hours after midnight, and the house was quite still, when Katharine,
in a frame of mind that ill agreed with sleep and peace, arose, and
wrapped in her night robe leaned from the casement of her chamber, and
gazed out upon the fields and woods, and caught the sheen of the river
as it glided beneath the holy moon. The scene was calm, the air
serene, and her anxious spirit was soothed by contemplation. She
remained long at the window; and as she was retiring turned her eyes
to the left, where, beyond the Lime Walk, she could see the black
shade of her favourite cedar near the fish-pond. In the moonlight near
it she discerned the figure of a man walking slowly upon the grass.
Her heart beat quick in her bosom; she leaned her brow against the
wall: that surely was Francis. A projection of the building threw such
a shadow over her window, that her figure could not be seen, and
therefore she again looked forth and cast her eyes towards the cedar.
The figure near paced slowly backwards and forwards, occasionally
pausing for a minute or more, as if gazing at the house. Certainly it
was Francis. Forbidden all access to the mansion by the angry
prejudices of Sir Oliver, he had recourse to music to tell her of his
return. They had often watched the moonbeams together from the terrace
below; they had often been sheltered together beneath the broad arms
of that very cedar in the heats of noon, till, suddenly, as by
surprise, they loved and after shunned each other, from the sad
knowledge that the barriers to their union were many, were cold, and
were impassable. As all these after-thoughts crossed her noble mind,
she suffered herself to look upon her cousin where he kept his lonely
vigil, with that deep interest which must ever be inseparable from
that being in whose heart we know that our image is enshrined and
cherished.
When the morning star shone brightly out the figure of Francis
suddenly disappeared. Katharine now withdrew from the casement; and,
exhausted by the various emotions, which had filled and troubled her
anxious bosom with apprehension and with delight, she threw herself on
her bed without taking off her robe, and slept so very long and
profoundly, that when she awoke she found Mistress Alice seated by her
side, with a look of affectionate alarm upon her kind face, and her
maid frightened and in tears. It was already high noon. Katharine,
however, knew nothing of the lapse of time; and imagining she might be
an hour later than usual, was raising herself up with some expression
about her strange fit of sleepiness, when her aunt put her hand gently
upon her, and bade her lie down again. “When Master Randal has seen
you, my dear,” she said, “you shall be undressed, and have your bed
made, and be put to rest properly and with comfort. He is below, and
has been here this half hour, but he wished that your slumber should
not be broken.”
But the effort to rise had already shown Katharine the unwelcome
truth--she was in a high fever:--her head ached, her lips were
parched, her mouth was dry, her skin was burning.
The good doctor was instantly summoned; and having examined her case
with very careful attention, directed that she should be confined to
her bed, and that her chamber should be kept dark and still.
“It was a violent fever,” he said, “which would probably, in another
stage, take an intermittent form;” but evidently, from the doctor’s
manner, it was a case of danger, demanding great watchfulness and
skilful treatment.
Promising Mistress Alice that his visits should be as frequent as
possible, he returned to Warwick at speed, accompanied by a servant,
who was to bring back the medicines prescribed.
The trouble of Sir Oliver almost amounted to terror. His mind was by
no means superior to those fears which vulgar errors impose; and as,
in addition to the strange music of the evening before, he had that
very morning seen a hare cross the high road just before his horse’s
feet, he augured no less a calamity than a fatal end to the sudden
illness of his beloved daughter.
Cuthbert Noble, however, rose to the occasion; and though it is
certain that no individual in the family felt a more tender affection
and concern for Katharine Heywood than he did, yet he was enabled, by
a wise sympathy, to compose the fears and animate the hopes of Sir
Oliver, and indeed of an entire household; for a despondency fell upon
all, which the most comfortable arguments of plain reason and sound
religion did but imperfectly remove.
For three days the life of Katharine Heywood was, in truth, in very
imminent danger, and the fever was of that malignant nature which
defied all ordinary treatment: but as the doctor was a man of great
decision and boldness in his practice, and, at the same time, one who
committed all events with humility and simplicity to the will of God,
he fought bravely with the disease; and after the third night of
patient watching and vigorous experiments, he subdued it so far that
he could announce to Sir Oliver the safety of his daughter. The crisis
was passed; but her weakness was great, and her recovery very gradual.
For the first three days of her attack she was almost without
consciousness; but though her head became light, and her mind was
confused, she uttered nothing in her wanderings which attracted the
particular notice of Mistress Alice, or any of her attendants, or in
the least betrayed the secret of her heart.
Meanwhile Francis Heywood, in ignorance of the sad condition of his
cousin Katharine, endured all the agony of a suspicion that he was at
once neglected and scorned by her who had been the vision of his
lonely hours of labour in a remote plantation, and who, as the very
star of his destiny, had led him back again to the land in which she
dwelt, as a land of promise. Liberty was his watchword; and it is true
that when letters spoke so confidently of a civil war as inevitable,
he obtained his father’s permission to return to England, that he
might join his patriotic countrymen in their contention for the rights
of civil and religious liberty. Nor was this a mere pretext for escape
from the tame drudgery of colonial life,--the cause of freedom was
sacred in his sight, and was precious to his heart. He came to draw
the sword, and bare his bosom in the battle. He had a life to offer on
the altar of duty, and he joyously brought the willing sacrifice; but
yet there lay at the bottom of his heart one bright, one good hope. He
might be lifted, by the fortunes of this war, to renown, to rank, to
fortune; he might survive all its chances; he might see peace and
happiness restored:--the present relations between himself and his
wealthy uncle might be greatly altered; the old prejudices against him
might at last give way, and the crowning reward of all his honours and
his fortunes might be the hand of Katharine. This was his dream by
day--this was his dream by night:--like some chaste and solemn star,
seen brightly shining in solitary and calm glory at the extremity of a
narrow and gloomy valley, darkened by the shadows of lofty mountains,
so the majestic loveliness of his cousin Katharine, irradiated by all
her virtues, shone out beyond the cloudy path of blood and peril, as
the blissful end and rest of all his labours.
He had not passed a night of such rapture since he last parted from
his cousin as that on which he reached Milverton, and the whole of
which he mused away within sight of the mansion that contained the
noble object of his attachment.
Although he was fully persuaded that he should be recognised by
Katharine as the wandering musician, yet he was in doubt whether she
would afford him an immediate opportunity of meeting her alone;
therefore he prepared an earnest appeal to her, in characters which,
though enigmatical to others, would, he well knew, be readily
understood by herself. The moon shone that night with so clear a
brightness, that he had no sort of difficulty in executing his design.
He made a slight fancy sketch, on a small piece of paper, of a setting
sun; he introduced the cedar in the fore-ground, and in one corner he
wrote, in a small hand, the Italian word “implora:” on the back of
this paper he faintly sketched a dial-plate, the shadow touching the
figure of seven in the evening. He placed this between the leaves of a
copy of Spenser’s “Fairy Queen,” which he found upon the seat, and
which he remembered to have been the garden companion of his fair
cousin in former days. When, on the following evening, the sun had
set, and the silver light of the moon touched all objects with the
hues of peace, Francis repaired to the appointed spot with eager
steps, and in confident hope that he should once more behold her for
whom he had all that tender reverence which angelic purity could alone
inspire. He seated himself beneath the well-known tree, and saw with
pleasure that the book had been taken away. Katharine, then, had
received his “implora,” and she would not--she could not--disappoint
him, and deny his prayer. The long delay of her coming perplexed him;
and, after an hour of anxious waiting, every succeeding minute was
insupportably slow, and weighty with sadness. He left and resumed his
seat with restless discomposure; he paced the neighbouring bank; he
went into the Lime Walk, to watch for the first glimpse of her distant
form; at last, as he was approaching the cedar tree, with his eyes
bent on the ground, he for the first time observed a fragment of paper
lying near the trunk:--he took it up--it was a part of his note; it
had been torn in halves, and trodden in the dust; it was divided at
the very word “implora.” The change of his feeling was, for the
moment, terrible. All that he had read or heard of the pride, the
caprice, and inconstancy of woman, rushed upon his memory to
strengthen his black suspicions, and inflame his sudden indignation.
But this rage was very soon exhausted, and was succeeded by a sorrow
weak as that of infants. He did not weep,--but a few hot tears slowly
gathered at long intervals, and fell heavily on the earth. And then he
railed upon himself, and defended her neglect of him.
“It was that accursed music: she ever scorned such fanciful and
romantic folly:--how dared I to expect that she, whose words and ways
are open as the clear sunshine of noon, should come in the shadows of
evening, with silent footsteps, to a secret meeting with such an
outcast as me--one who may not ring the bell of his kinsman’s gate
with better hope than that of rude dismissal? It is all well,
Katharine, and yet I loved you loyally, and still will love you: of
that privilege none can rob me. Like yon planet above me, you are a
common blessing, for which the comforted pilgrim in this thorny
wilderness glances his eye upward to the bounteous heavens, and thanks
his God.”
Another, but a gloomier, vigil in the grounds of Milverton was thus
passed by Francis; and again, when the dawn approached, he withdrew,
and retired to a small hostelry in the suburbs of Warwick, where for
his better concealment he had taken up his lodging. Here, however,
some relief, if such it could be called, was awaiting him; for as he
lay reposing on his bed, tired, yet unable to sleep, he overheard the
following dialogue between his hostess and a passer by:--
“Hast thou heard the bad news from Milverton, dame?” said the latter.
“No; I have not seen my girl a week come to-morrow.”
“Eh, dear, don’t you be frighted for your Ruth, but they’ve got the
fever there quite bad. Master Randal, the ’pothecary, was over there
three times yesterday, and all last night.”
“Lord, goody, what shall I do? I must go: my poor dear child is so
delicate for taking of fever, she will be sure to catch it. Who is it
that ha got it? is it the old gentleman, or Mistress Alice?”
“No, God be merciful to her, ’t is that dear, kind, blessed young
lady, Mistress Katharine; and they are all in a great take on about
her; for they say that the very night before she was took bad, her
poor dear mother’s ghost was seen on the terrace by moonlight, and
sung beautiful, and for all every body was so frighted, yet they say
it was like as if an angel had come down out of heaven; and they say,
it is a sure sign that Mistress Katharine will die, and go happy.”
There is nothing more strange than the peculiar character of the
selfishness of love--but it is ever the same. Francis felt a deep, a
true, an anxious concern for the illness of Katharine: he was keenly
afflicted with self-reproach at the thought that she might perhaps
have been so disturbed by his sudden and strange announcement of his
return as to have been made nervous and unwell. But this sorrow, ay,
and the very apprehension of her death, (which feeling, however, he
did not share,) would have been more endurable than the thought that
he was forgotten, neglected, and scorned by one whom his soul held
dear. However, he was, in his own judgment, persuaded that her
illness, and all the circumstances attending it, were much exaggerated
by those superstitious fears of the household, for which he could
himself so very easily account. Descending, therefore, from his
chamber, while the old gossips were continuing their talk, he took
occasion, as soon as her neighbour had passed on, to urge his hostess
to lose no time in going to inquire after her daughter; observing that
he had often heard of the family at Milverton, and could not but feel
a hope that the lady of whom they spoke would soon recover.
“Precious angel,” said the old woman: “I don’t know why we should wish
it, I am sure, except it be for the sake of others; for there was
never a body fitter for heaven than that dear young lady.”
It was with keen anguish that, upon the return of his poor hostess in
the afternoon, he learned that the life of Katharine was really in
danger. At sunset he took his cloak, and passed the night in a
position near the wood, from whence he could command the curtained
window of the sufferer, and watch the dim light within, and those
gloomy shadows which, as nurse or attendant slowly crossed the
chamber, occasionally obscured it.
His was a mind in which hope was ever anticipating enjoyment, or fear
meeting and realising the dreaded misfortune. Now, therefore, with the
lamp of a sick room burning faint before him, and with scenery around
all silvery and spiritual, lying hushed and calm in a silence solemn
as the grave, and yet sweet and peaceful as that of heaven, he
resigned himself to the belief that Katharine was dying, or, rather,
was departing to the abode of blessed spirits. He grew reconciled to
the thought. No clouds of terror darkened it; and, as her pale image
arose distinctly before his mind’s eye, he became elevated with the
sentiment of her sure and celestial happiness; and there was a feeling
of ecstasy in the idea that he might cherish his love for her, as a
sacred thing, for ever.
Again, on the following night, he lay enfolded in his cloak, or leaned
against a distant tree, or paced like a sentinel his lonely round,
with his eyes fixed on the light in Katharine’s chamber, and his
meditations were sweet. But how tenderly he had been rocked in the
cradle of sorrow, and how willingly he had allowed the true state of
his own heart to be hidden from himself by fancied consolations, was
evident, when, on returning from his watch upon the third morning, he
learned from his hostess that the doctor had come home very early,
and said, that the dear lady was out of danger. He had just command
enough over his feelings not to betray to her that he took a private
and deep interest in her intelligence; but, rushing up to his room,
his hopes, his fears, his grief, his joy, his gratitude, gushed forth
from his pent-up bosom in a flood of silent tears. He wept upon his
knees.