THE CONFESSION.
“What a strange position this of mine!” thought I, a few mornings after
the events detailed in the last chapter. “How very fascinating in some
respects, how full of all the charm of romance, and how confoundly
difficult to see one’s way through!”
To understand my cogitation right, _figurez-vous_, my dear reader, a large
and splendidly furnished drawing-room, from one end of which an orangery
in full blossom opens; from the other is seen a delicious little boudoir,
where books, bronzes, pictures and statues, in all the artistique disorder
of a lady’s sanctum, are bathed in a deep purple light from a stained glass
window of the seventeenth century.
On a small table beside the wood fire, whose mellow light is flirting with
the sunbeams upon the carpet, stands an antique silver breakfast-service,
which none but the hand of Benvenuto could have chiselled; beside it sits
a girl, young and beautiful; her dark eyes, beaming beneath their long
lashes, are fixed with an expression of watchful interest upon a pale and
sickly youth, who, lounging upon a sofa opposite, is carelessly turning
over the leaves of a new journal, or gazing steadfastly on the fretted
gothic of the ceiling, while his thoughts are travelling many a mile away.
The lady being the Senhora Inez; the nonchalant invalid, your unworthy
acquaintance, Charles O’Malley.
What a very strange position to be sure.
“Then you are not equal to this ball to-night?” said she, after a pause of
some minutes.
I turned as she spoke; her words had struck audibly upon my ear, but, lost
in my revery, I could but repeat my own fixed thought,--how strange to be
so situated!
“You are really very tiresome, Signor; I assure you, you are. I have
been giving you a most elegant description of the Casino _fête_, and the
beautiful costume of our Lisbon belles, but I can get nothing from you but
this muttered something, which may be very shocking for aught I know. I’m
sure your friend, Major Power, would be much more attentive to me; that
is,” added she, archly, “if Miss Dashwood were not present.”
“What! why! You don’t mean that there is anything there--that Tower is
paying attention to--”
“_Madre divina_, how that seems to interest you, and how red you are! If it
were not that you never met her before, and that your acquaintance did not
seem to make rapid progress, then I should say you are in love with her
yourself.”
I had to laugh at this, but felt my face flushing more. “And so,” said I,
affecting a careless and indifferent tone, “the gay Fred Power is smitten
at last!”
“Was it so very difficult a thing to accomplish?” said she, slyly.
“He seems to say so, at least. And the lady, how does she appear to receive
his attentions?”
“Oh, I should say with evident pleasure and satisfaction, as all girls do
the advances of men they don’t care for, nor intend to care for.”
“Indeed,” said I, slowly, “indeed, Senhora?” looking into her eyes as I
spoke, as if to read if the lesson were destined for my benefit.
“There, don’t stare so!--every one knows that.”
“So you don’t think, then, that Lucy,--I mean Miss Dashwood--Why are you
laughing so?”
“How can I help it; your calling her Lucy is so good, I wish she heard it;
she’s the very proudest girl I ever knew.”
“But to come back; you really think she does not care for him?”
“Not more than for you; and I may be pardoned for the simile, having seen
your meeting. But let me give you the news of our own _fête_. Saturday is
the day fixed; and you must be quite well,--I insist upon it. Miss Dashwood
has promised to come,--no small concession; for after all she has never
once been here since the day you frightened her. I can’t help laughing at
my blunder,--the two people I had promised myself should fall desperately
in love with each other, and who will scarcely meet.”
“But I trusted,” said I, pettishly, “that you were not disposed to resign
your own interest in me?”
“Neither was I,” said she, with an easy smile, “except that I have so many
admirers. I might even spare to my friends; though after all I should be
sorry to lose you, I like you.”
“Yes,” said I half bitterly, “as girls do those they never intend to care
for; is it not so?”
“Perhaps, yes, and perhaps--But is it going to rain? How provoking! and I
have ordered my horse. Well, Signor Carlos, I leave you to your delightful
newspaper, and all the magnificent descriptions of battles and sieges and
skirmishes of which you seem doomed to pine without ceasing. There, don’t
kiss my hand twice; that’s not right.”
“Well, let me begin again--”
“I shall not breakfast with you any more. But tell me, am I to order a
costume for you in Lisbon; or will you arrange all that yourself? You must
come to the _fête_, you know.”
“If you would be so very kind.”
“I will, then, be so very kind; and once more, _adios_.” So saying, and
with a slight motion of her hand, she smiled a good-by, and left me.
“What a lovely girl!” thought I, as I rose and walked to the window,
muttering to myself Othello’s line, and--
“When I love thee not, chaos is come again.”
In fact, it was the perfect expression of my feeling; the only solution
to all the difficulties surrounding me, being to fall desperately,
irretrievably in love with the fair senhora, which, all things considered,
was not a very desperate resource for a gentleman in trouble. As I thought
over the hopelessness of one attachment, I turned calmly to consider all
the favorable points of the other. She was truly beautiful, attractive in
every sense; her manner most fascinating, and her disposition, so far as
I could pronounce, perfectly amiable. I felt already something more than
interest about her; how very easy would be the transition to a stronger
feeling! There was an _éclat_, too, about being her accepted lover that had
its charm. She was the belle _par excellence_ of Lisbon; and then a sense
of pique crossed my mind as I reflected what would Lucy say of him whom
she had slighted and insulted, when he became the husband of the beautiful
millionnaire Senhora Inez?
As my meditations had reached thus far, the door opened stealthily, and
Catherine appeared, her finger upon her lips, and her gesture indicating
caution. She carried on her arm a mass of drapery covered by a large
mantle, which throwing off as she entered, she displayed before me a rich
blue domino with silver embroidery. It was large and loose in its folds, so
as thoroughly to conceal the figure of any wearer. This she held up before
me for an instant without speaking; when at length, seeing my curiosity
fully excited, she said,--
“This is the senhora’s domino. I should be ruined if she knew I showed it;
but I promised--that is, I told--”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” relieving her embarrassment about the source of
her civilities; “go on.”
“Well, there are several others like it, but with this small difference,
instead of a carnation, which all the others have embroidered upon the
cuff, I have made it a rose,--you perceive? La Senhora knows nothing of
this,--none save yourself knows it. I’m sure I may trust you with the
secret.”
“Fear not in the least, Catherine; you have rendered me a great service.
Let me look at it once more; ah, there’s no difficulty in detecting it. And
you are certain she is unaware of it?”
“Perfectly so; she has several other costumes, but in this one I know she
intends some surprise, so be upon your guard.”
With these words, carefully once more concealing the rich dress beneath the
mantle, she withdrew; while I strolled forth to wonder what mystery might
lie beneath this scheme, and speculate how far I myself was included in the
plot she spoke of.
For the few days which succeeded, I passed my time much alone. The senhora
was but seldom at home; and I remarked that Power rarely came to see me. A
strange feeling of half-coolness had latterly grown between us, and instead
of the open confidence we formerly indulged in when together, we appeared
now rather to chat over things of mere every-day interest than of our own
immediate plans and prospects. There was a kind of pre-occupation, too, in
his manner that struck me; his mind seemed ever straying from the topics he
talked of to something remote, and altogether, he was no longer the frank
and reckless dragoon I had ever known him. What could be the meaning of
this change? Had he found out by any accident that I was to blame in my
conduct towards Lucy; had any erroneous impression of my interview with her
reached his ears? This was most improbable; besides, there was nothing in
that to draw down his censure or condemnation, however represented; and was
it that he was himself in love with her, that, devoted heart and soul to
Lucy, he regarded me as a successful rival, preferred before him! Oh, how
could I have so long blinded myself to the fact! This was the true solution
of the whole difficulty. I had more than once suspected this to be so; now
all the circumstances of proof poured in upon me. I called to mind his
agitated manner the night of my arrival in Lisbon, his thousand questions
concerning the reasons of my furlough; and then, lately, the look of
unfeigned pleasure with which he heard me resolve to join my regiment the
moment I was sufficiently recovered. I remembered also how assiduously he
pressed his intimacy with the senhora, Lucy’s dearest friend here; his
continual visits at the villa; those long walks in the garden, where his
very look betokened some confidential mission of the heart. Yes, there was
no doubt of it, he loved Lucy Dashwood! Alas, there seemed to be no end to
the complication of my misfortunes; one by one I appeared fated to lose
whatever had a hold upon my affections, and to stand alone, unloved and
uncared for in the world. My thoughts turned towards the senhora, but
I could not deceive myself into any hope there. My own feelings were
untouched, and hers I felt to be equally so. Young as I was, there was no
mistaking the easy smile of coquetry, the merry laugh of flattered vanity,
for a deeper and holier feeling. And then I did not wish it otherwise. One
only had taught me to feel how ennobling, how elevating in all its impulses
can be a deep-rooted passion for a young and beautiful girl! From her
eyes alone had I caught the inspiration that made me pant for glory and
distinction. I could not transfer the allegiance of my heart, since it had
taught that very heart to beat high and proudly. Lucy, lost to me forever
as she must be, was still more than any other woman ever could be; all the
past clung to her memory, all the prestige of the future must point to it
also.
And Power, why had he not trusted, why had he not confided in me? Was this
like my old and tried friend? Alas! I was forgetting that in his eye I was
the favored rival, and not the despised, rejected suitor.
“It is past now,” thought I, as I rose and walked into the garden; “the
dream that made life a fairy tale is dispelled; the cold reality of the
world is before me, and my path lies a lonely and solitary one.” My first
resolution was to see Power, and relieve his mind of any uneasiness as
regarded my pretentions; they existed no longer. As for me, I was no
obstacle to his happiness; it was, then, but fair and honorable that I
should tell him so; this done, I should leave Lisbon at once. The cavalry
had for the most part been ordered to the rear; still there was always
something going forward at the outposts.
The idea of active service, the excitement of a campaigning life, cheered
me, and I advanced along the dark alley of the garden with a lighter and a
freer heart. My resolves were not destined to meet delay; as I turned the
angle of a walk, Power was before me. He was leaning against a tree, his
hands crossed upon his bosom, his head bowed forward, and his whole air and
attitude betokening deep reflection.
He started as I came up, and seemed almost to change color.
“Well, Charley,” said he, after a moment’s pause, “you look better this
morning. How goes the arm?”
“The arm is ready for service again, and its owner most anxious for it. Do
you know, Fred, I’m thoroughly weary of this life.”
“They’re little better, however, at the lines. The French are in position,
but never adventure a movement; and except some few affairs at the pickets,
there is really nothing to do.”
“No matter, remaining here can never serve one’s interests, and besides, I
have accomplished what I came for--”
I was about to add, “the restoration of my health,” when he suddenly
interrupted me, eying me fixedly as he spoke.
“Indeed! indeed! Is that so?”
“Yes,” said I, half puzzled at the tone and manner of the speech; “I can
join now when I please; meanwhile, Fred, I have been thinking of you. Yes,
don’t be surprised, at the very moment we met you were in my thoughts.”
I took his arm as I said this, and led him down the alley.
“We are too old and, I trust, too true friends, Fred, to have secrets from
each other, and yet we have been playing this silly game for some weeks
past. Now, my dear fellow, I have yours, and it is only fair justice you
should have mine, and, faith, I feel you’d have discovered it long since,
had your thoughts been as free as I have known them to be. Fred, you are in
love; there, don’t wince, man, I know it; but hear me out. You believe me
to be so also; nay, more, you think that my chances of success are better,
stronger than your own; learn, then, that I have none,--absolutely none.
Don’t interrupt me now, for this avowal cuts me deeply; my own heart alone
knows what I suffer as I record my wrecked fortunes; but I repeat it, my
hopes are at end forever; but, Fred, my boy, I cannot lose my friend too.
If I have been the obstacle to your path, I am so no more. Ask me not why;
it is enough that I speak in all truth and sincerity. Ere three days I
shall leave this, and with it all the hopes that once beamed upon my
fortunes, and all the happiness,--nay, not all, my boy, for I feel some
thrill at my heart yet, as I think that I have been true to you.”
I know not what more I spoke nor how he replied to me. I felt the warm
grasp of his hand, I saw his delighted smile; the words of grateful
acknowledgment his lips uttered conveyed but an imperfect meaning to my
ear, and I remembered no more.
The courage which sustained me for the moment sank gradually as I meditated
over my avowal, and I could scarce help accusing Power of a breach of
friendship for exacting a confession which, in reality, I had volunteered
to give him. How Lucy herself would think of my conduct was ever occurring
to my thoughts, and I felt, as I ruminated upon the conjectures it might
give rise to, how much more likely a favorable opinion might now be formed
of me, than when such an estimation could have crowned me with delight.
“Yes,” thought I, “she will at last learn to know him who loved her with
truth and with devoted affection; and when the blight of all his hopes is
accomplished, the fair fame of his fidelity will be proved. The march,
the bivouac, the battle-field, are now all to me; and the campaign alone
presents a prospect which may fill up the aching void that disappointed and
ruined hopes have left behind them.”
How I longed for the loud call of the trumpet, the clash of the steel, the
tramp of the war-horse; though the proud distinction of a soldier’s life
were less to me in the distance than the mad and whirlwind passion of a
charge, and the loud din of the rolling artillery.
It was only some hours after, as I sat alone in my chamber, that all the
circumstances of our meeting came back clearly to my memory, and I could
not help muttering to myself,--
“It is indeed a hard lot, that to cheer the heart of my friend, I must bear
witness to the despair that shed darkness on my own.”