Eager as Isola was to see her true father at last, she pressed me
strongly to call at her brother's lodgings on our way to Paddington, and
take him with us if possible; or at any rate learn where he was, and how
long he would be absent. But I refused to do anything of the kind.
Though not half so proud as of old, I could not quite stoop to that.
"You know, dear," she continued, "Conny will think it unfair of me to
get such a start of him with the real good Papa; and it would be so much
nicer to have him there to help. And I am terribly frightened, though
of course you can't understand it."
"Isola, no more nonsense. For your sake, and my poor Uncle's, I would
do anything honest and proper: but neither can I travel with your
brother Conrad, nor can I go near his lodgings. I am not quite reduced
to that, however I am trampled on."
"But, darling, they need not see you. And you know he has made some
wonderful mistake."
Of course I knew it, and told myself so fifty times in a minute; but it
was a likely thing that I would tell his sister so.
"He has, indeed, a very grave mistake, if he ever thinks I will forgive
him. No mistake ever made by man can be pleaded for what he has done.
Even if he believed, by some excess of absurdity, that my father had
murdered his, instead of his murdering mine (which was much nearer the
mark), would even that justify his rudeness, low rudeness, and personal
violence to a lady? What he did I never told you; and he, I should hope,
was too much ashamed to speak of it: why he actually pushed me; thrust
me, Clara Vaughan, away from him, till I almost fell on the floor!"
"Oh, Donna, how your eyes flash! And you call me excitable! Let me put
your hair back. There now, give me a kiss. I am so sorry for Conny.
He loves you with all his heart, and you look as if you could kill him.
But no doubt the new good papa will put every thing to rights."
"Will he indeed? Let us go and see."
We got to Paddington just in time to catch the two o'clock train, having
telegraphed first to my Uncle that I was coming to take his advice,
before doing anything more. This was true, so far as it went, and as
much of the truth as I then dared to administer. This message was sent,
not for the sake of finding the carriage at Gloucester, but in order to
break the suddenness of our arrival. Through all my joy I dreaded what
was to come, and knew not how to manage it. Idols talked fast enough
all the way down the line. As yet she had seen scarcely anything of our
quiet, rich English scenery; and although the Great Western exhibits it
rather flatly, some parts there are, below Swindon, which fill the mind
with content. But our minds could not be so filled, being full of
excitement already. Near Stroud poor Idols was in the greatest ecstasy,
and expected me to know the owner of every pretty meadow.
But after we entered my Uncle's carriage--or mine, I suppose, it should
now be called--dear Isola fell away into the deepest silence. She
stored her wonder inwardly, nor showed the sweet depths of her eyes,
until she sprang out at the foot of the old stone steps, trodden by so
many hundreds of her ancestors. Then she looked up at the long gray
house, with the dusk of July around it, and bats of three varieties
flitting about the gables; and I saw beneath her dark eye-lashes the
tremulous light of a tear.
After leading my sweet new cousin--whom everybody stared at, and who
feared to look at the pavement--to my own snug quarters, I left her
there under kind Mrs. Fletcher's charge, and ran to my Uncle's favourite
room. Already my breath was short, and my heart up and down with
excitement, and I had but the presence of mind to know that I was sure
to make a mistake of it. I saw a great change in him, even since the
Monday; but he was the first to speak.
"My dear child, kiss me again. You are nearly as tall as I am, since my
upright ways have departed. From the moment you went away, I have done
nothing but miss you, every hour and every minute; and last night I
slept never a single wink. Let us give it up, my darling. God has sent
you to me to make up for both daughter and son."
"Well, Uncle, that's all very fine, but I doubt it strongly." I was
forced to be flippant a little, for fear of breaking down. "It is my
firm belief that proud Clara will still have to wash at the pump."
He knew what I meant; it was an old tale, in our neighbourhood, of a
nobleman's second wife who would not allow her step-children even the
use of a yellow basin.
"What! do you mean to say"--and he began to tremble exceedingly--"that
you have found any trace, any clue even, to my poor darlings?"
"Yes, thank God, I have. Oh, Uncle, I am so glad!" And I threw myself
into his arms: his head fell heavily on my shoulder, and I felt that I
had been too sudden. He could not speak, but fetched one long sob. I
parted his white hair, and looked at him as if in surprise at his
hastiness.
"Dear Uncle, we must not be certain yet. I mean that I have found
something, or fancy I have found something, which--which--I mean if
properly followed up--may lead in time--but you know how sanguine I am."
"Clara, you are playing with me. It is a mistake to do so. I cannot
bear it, child. But the sudden shock I can bear. Let me know all at
once. Are they alive or dead?"
"Alive, I think, dear Uncle; and I hope to find them soon, if you will
calmly advise me."
"You have found them. No more fencing. I know it by your eyes. All
the truth this moment, unless you wish to kill me."
He stood up as if to seize me, for I had withdrawn from his grasp, but
his poor legs would not carry him; so I was obliged to seize him
instead. He fell sideways on a chair, and vainly tried to speak; but
his eyes never faltered from mine.
"Dearest Uncle, I tell you the truth. Of course I cannot be certain
yet, and it won't do to make a mistake; and so I want more evidence."
"I want no more. Only let me see them." He spoke very slowly, and the
muscles of his face twitched at every word.
"Now, keep your mind calm and clear, to help me, my dear Uncle; for I
know not what to do. Have you anything, any tokens at all, of their
beloved mother?"
My object was to divert his mind, for I saw the approach of coma, and
now trembled more than he did.
With a feeble smile at the folly of my question, after such a love as
his, he answered in great exhaustion,
"Take the key from my neck. You know the large black box in--in--"
Here his chin fell on his breast, and he could not lift the key, but his
eyes still shone with intelligence, and followed me everywhere. Ribbon
and all I took the key, and rang the bell for Jane, the most careful and
kind of nurses. I ordered her, in a whisper, to give my Uncle a glass
of very strong brandy and water, if she could get him to swallow it; and
away I ran upstairs, hoping to relieve him. Then suddenly it struck me
that I had no right to open that box, without the presence of a
competent witness. I knew at once what box it was, from the constant
anxiety my poor Uncle had shown about it. Who had such right to be my
witness as his darling daughter? So back I flew to my own rooms, and
dragged the bewildered Isola down the broad corridor. The poor little
thing was frightened so that she could hardly breathe. I had no
especial object in opening that old box, at that particular moment, much
as I had often longed to know what its contents were. My presence of
mind was lost, and all I could think of was, that I might find something
there to break that awful suspension of life, so likely to end in death.
The box was in a panelled closet by the head of my Uncle's bed. When I
handed Idols the light to hold, she took it as if in a dream; her cheeks
were as white and transparent as the wax, and she held the candle so
that a hot flake splashed on my neck. The lock of the long box turned
most easily, and the hinges moved without creaking: most likely it had
been pored over every day, for many years. The lid was arched and
hollow, with straps of faded web inside it.
In beautiful order, so fair that I hardly dared to touch them, lay the
clothes and trinkets, the letters and little relics, the gloves and
pocket-handkerchiefs, the fairy slippers, the wedding-dress, the
coquettish veil, and saucy hat of the dead. I am not over sensitive,
thank God, or I should not be living now; but the sight of those things
upset me more than any distress of my own. The small parcels of silver
paper, screwed at the end and pinned in the middle, the pins put
stupidly as men always put them, the light gay dresses made for some
sweet figure, folded with such care, and yet quite out of the plaits,
and labelled with the dates when last the dear one wore them, even a
withered fern-wreath and a sprig of shrivelled myrtle--I could not
thrust my commonplace hands into these holy treasures; if I could I
should never deserve to be myself so remembered. But one thing struck
me, as thoughts profane always strike us crookedly; if the poor lady
could have been wept to life again, how much better would she have found
all her things arranged, than she had ever kept them! That is to say if
she resembled her wondering and crying daughter, who knelt down and
wanted to kiss every article in the box. Her little white hands were as
busy as mice among them; and long-drawn sobs were tumbled with
interjections.
"Now, my dearest Idols, you must not disturb these things. Your father
will be so vexed."
Would he though?--said I to myself--not if he knew whose hand it was
that did it. She paid no attention to me.
"Now just put back that silver knife, with the bit of peach-skin upon
it: and leave the stone as it was."
To my surprise she began to suck the stone, which her mother perhaps had
sucked, eighteen years ago. Inside the paper was written, "Knife and
peach-stone found in my Lily's pocket. The stone was meant for me to
set. I will plant it, when I have found her children. E.V., January,
1834."
"Now, you foolish child, you are really too bad." And with that I gave
her a little push. In her heedless way, she fell almost into the box,
and her light form lay amongst her mother's dresses. A sudden thought
flashed across me.
"Isola, off with that nasty dark frock!"
"Nasty, indeed, Clara! Why you said this morning how very pretty it
was."
"What has that to do with it? Pull it off, or I'll tear it. Now, out
with the other arm."
In a moment or two, I had all her beauty gleaming in white before me;
and carefully taking from the box a frock of pale blue silk, I lifted it
over her head, and drew her dimpled arms through the sleeves; then I
fixed it in front with the turquoise buttons, and buckled the slender
zone. Her blue eyes looked on in amazement, like violets at a
snow-storm. Then I led her to the mirror, and proud as we both had
always been of her beauty, the same thought struck us now. I saw it in
the mirror, by the toss of her pointed chin and the coy bend of her
neck: she saw it there as clearly, by the flash of my tear-bright eyes.
Neither of us had ever seen that loveliest of all girls look half so
lovely before. The glow of pride and beauty's glory mantled in her
cheeks; and her eyes were softly beaming down the avenue of lashes, from
clearest depths of azure. I never saw such eyes as she had, among all
our English beauties. Some perhaps are as fine of colour, and as
liquid, though not so lustrous: but the exquisite arch of the upper lid,
and the rich short fringe of the lower, cast a tremulous light and
shade, which dull Anglo-Saxons feel not. Like moonbeams playing through
a mantled bridge.
The dress fitted her exactly. It had been made for a slender, buoyant
figure, as graceful and pure as a snow-wreath, yet full of warm motion
and richness. Indeed, I must confess, that, although correct enough for
the time and clime of the owner, it showed too much of the lifting snow
for our conceptions of maidenhood: so I drew a gauzy scarf--perhaps a
true _fazoletto_--over the velvet slope of the shoulders, and imprisoned
it in the valley. This being nicely arranged, I hung her chalcedony
charm from her neck, and fastened it to her waist-band. Then I caught
up her clustering hair, nearly as thick and long as my own, after the
Corsican fashion, snooded it close in ripples with a pink and
white-striped mandile, and told her to love herself in the glass, while
I ran off to the hot-house for a truss of Stephanotis. This, with a
glossy sprig of Gardenia leaves to back it, I fastened cleverly into the
clear mandile, on the curve of her elegant head, and my darling was
complete. Then I kissed her sweet lips, and admired her, more than she
admired herself.
"Clara, it does not matter how much trouble you take; you can't make me
look a quarter so well as you do."
"Not quite so tall, my darling, nor anything like so naughty; but a
thousand times more lovely."
"Well, I wish I could think so. I am always longing to change with
you."
"Don't talk nonsense, my pretty; if I were a man I should die for you.
Now I glory in you as a Vaughan. Come along."
I led her through the gallery and to the door of her father's room,
before she had time to think. She did not know but what I was taking
her back to my own rooms, along another passage. At the sick man's door
I left her, while I went in to see how much might be safely ventured.
My Uncle was leaning back in his deep reclining chair, with his weak
eyes fixed most eagerly on the door. In vain he strove to hide his
disappointment, and to look at me with gratitude. The wandering mind
too plainly hoped for something dearer than a brother's child.
Dismissing Jane through the other room, that she might not encounter
Isola, I sat down to examine him. The brandy and water had rallied his
vital power, but made him hot and feverish. He kissed my hand to atone
for some sharp and impatient expressions, and I saw that the moment was
favourable.
"Uncle dear, what will you say to me? I have brought you another new
visitor, the loveliest girl in London. You know her well by name. You
have often longed to see my sweet darling Isola. And she wants to see
you so much. Only you must promise me one thing honourably. Be gay and
sprightly with her; she is timid in this old house."
"My dear, I can't see her to-night. You don't mean that of course.
Give her my best apologies. You say she is very sweet-tempered; I am
sure she will excuse me."
"If she would, I will not. Nor would you excuse her, if you knew whom
she resembles."
"What do you mean? Have you locked my box again?"
"Yes, and here is the key. I found a portrait of a lady"--I had not
shown this to my cousin--"very like beautiful Isola."
He began to tremble again, so I thought the quicker the better. Placing
the lamp-shade so that a dim light fell on the door, I ran out to fetch
his daughter.
"Now, don't be a baby, Isola. Remember how ill he is. Keep as much in
the shadow as possible; and if he should guess who you are, pretend not
to care a bit for him."
"I will try my very best, Clara. But I don't think I can do that."
She shook so much that I was obliged to support her, as she had
supported me that evening when first we met. Stiffly I brought her in,
and began to introduce her, holding her back all the time.
"Uncle Edgar, this is my dearest friend, of whom you have heard so
often, Miss Isola"--Ross I could not say. "Why, Uncle--why, Idols,
darling--"
It was all in vain; I might as well have spared my devices. From the
moment she crossed the threshold, his eyes had been leaping towards her.
The paralysed man bounded forward, as if with galvanic life. His
daughter met him as wildly. "My Lily, my Lily," was all he could sob,
"my own Lily come from the grave!" With a father's strength he clasped
her, and her dark locks were showered with silver. As for tears--but I
left them together when I had seen both safe on the sofa.