A COVENANT.
Brian had no fixed notion of what he should do, but he thought it better
to go to London, where he could more easily decide on his future
movements. He was in no present difficulty, for the liberal salary which
he had received from the Herons during the past few months was almost
untouched, and although he had just now a morbid dislike to touching the
money that had come to him through Elizabeth's generosity, he had the
sense to see that he must make use of it, and turn it to the best
possible account.
In the course of his journey he bought a newspaper. His eyes fell almost
immediately upon a paragraph which caused him some amazement.
"Mysterious Case of Attempted Murder.--A young man of respectable
appearance was discovered early this morning in a state of complete
insensibility at the end of a passage leading out of Mill-street,
Blackfriars. He was found to have received a severe wound, presumably
with a knife, in the left side, and had lost a considerable amount of
blood, but, although weak, was still living. His watch and purse had not
been abstracted, a fact which points to the conclusion either that the
wound was inflicted by a companion in a drunken brawl, or that the thief
was disturbed in his operations before the completion of the work. The
young man speaks a little English as well as Italian, but he has not yet
been able to give a precise account of the assault committed upon him.
It is thought that the police have a clue to the criminal. The name
given in the gentleman's pocket-book is Vasari; and he has been removed
to Guy's Hospital, where he is reported to be doing well."
"Vasari! Dino Vasari! can it be he?" said Brian, throwing down his
newspaper. "What brings him to London?"
Then it occurred to him that Father Cristoforo's long letter might have
contained information concerning Dino's visit to London: possibly he had
been asked to do the young Italian some service, which, of course, he
had been unable to render as he had not read the letter. He felt doubly
vexed at his own carelessness as he thought of this possibility, and
resolved to go to the hospital and see whether the man who had been
wounded was Dino Vasari or not. And then he forgot all about the
newspaper paragraph, and lost himself in sad reflections concerning the
unexpected end of his connection with the Herons.
Arrived in London, he found out a modest lodging, and began to arrange
his plans for the future. A fit of restlessness seemed to have come upon
him. He could not bear to think of staying any longer in England. He
paid a visit next morning to an Emigration Agency Office, asking whether
the agents could direct him to the best way of obtaining suitable work
in the Colonies. He did not care where he went or what he did; his
preference was for work in the open air, because he still at times felt
the effect of that brain-fever which had so nearly ended his existence
at San Stefano; but his physique was not exactly of the kind which was
most suited to bush-clearing and sheep-farming. This he was told, and
informed, moreover, that so large a number of clerks arrived yearly in
Australia and America, that the market in that sort of labour was
over-stocked, and that, if he was a clerk, he had a better chance in the
Old World than in the New.
"I am not a clerk; I have lately been a tutor," said Brian.
References?
He could refer them to his late employer.
A degree? Oxford or Cambridge?
And there the questions ceased to be answered satisfactorily. He could
not tell them that he had been to Oxford, because he dared not refer
them to the name under which he studied at Balliol. He hesitated,
blundered a little--he certainly had never mastered the art of lying
with ease and fluency--and created so unfavourable an impression in the
mind of the emigration agent that that gentleman regarded him with
suspicion from that moment, and apparently ceased to wish to afford him
any aid.
"I am very sorry," he said, politely, "but I don't think that we have
anything that would suit you. There is a college at Dunedin where they
want a junior master, but there, a man with a good degree
and--hum--unimpeachable antecedents would be required. People out there
are in want of men with a trade: not of clerks, nor of poor professional
men."
"Then I must go as a hodman or a breaker of stones," said Brian, "for I
mean to go."
"I don't think that that employment is one for which you are especially
fitted, Mr. Smith," said the agent, with a slight smile. Brian had
impatiently given the name of Smith in making his application, and the
agent, who was a man of wide experience, did not believe that it was his
own; "but, of course, if you like to try it, you can look at these
papers about 'assisted passages.'"
"Thank you, that is not necessary," answered Brian, rather curtly. "A
steerage passage to Australia does not cost a fortune. If I go out as a
labouring man I think I can manage it. But I am obliged to you for your
kindness in answering my questions."
He had resumed his usual manner, which had been somewhat ruffled by the
tone taken by the agent, and now asked one or two practical questions
respecting the fares, the lines of steamers, and matters of that kind;
after which he bade the agent a courteous good-morning and went upon his
way.
He foresaw that the inevitable cloud hanging over his past story would
prove a great obstacle to his obtaining employment in the way he
desired. Any work requiring certificates or testimonials was utterly out
of the question for him in England. In Australia or New Zealand things
might be different. He had no great wish to go to America--he had once
spent a summer holiday in the Eastern States, and did not fancy that
they would be agreeable places of residence for him in his present
circumstances, and he had no great desire to "go West;" besides, he had
a wish to put as great a distance as possible between himself and
England. As he walked away from the emigration office he made up his
mind to take the first vessel that sailed for Sydney.
He had nothing to do. He wanted to divert his mind from thoughts of
Elizabeth. It flashed across his mind that he would go to the hospital
and inquire after the man who had been stabbed, and who called himself
Vasari.
He made his request to see the patient, and was admitted with such
readiness that he suspected the case to be a dangerous one. And, indeed,
the house-surgeon acknowledged this to be so. The stab, he said, had
gone wonderfully near the vital parts; a hair's-breadth deviation to the
right or left, and Vasari would have been a dead man. It was still
uncertain whether he would recover, and all agitation must be avoided,
as he was not allowed either to move or speak.
"I am not sure whether he is the young man I used to know or not," said
Brian, doubtfully. "Vasari--was there a Christian name given as well?"
"Yes: Bernardino, and in another place simply Dino. Was that the name of
your friend?"
"Yes, it was. If I saw him I should be sure. I don't suppose that my
appearance would agitate him," said Brian, little suspecting the deep
interest and importance which would attach to his visit in Dino's mind.
"Come, then." And the surgeon led the way to the bed, hidden by a screen
from the rest of the ward, where Dino lay.
Brian passed with the nurse inside the screen, and looked pityingly at
the patient.
"Yes," he said, in a low tone, "it is the man I know."
He thought that Dino was unconscious, but at the sound of his voice--low
though it was--the patient opened his eyes, and fixed them upon Brian's
face. Brian had said that his appearance would produce no agitation, but
he was mistaken. A sudden change passed over that pale countenance.
Dino's great dark eyes seemed to grow larger than ever; his face assumed
a still more deathly tinge; the look of mingled anguish and horror was
unmistakable. He tried to speak, he tried to rise in his bed, but the
effort was too great, and he sank back insensible. The indignant nurse
hustled Brian away, and would not allow him to return; he ought to have
known, she said, that the sight of him would excite the patient. Brian
had not known, and was grieved to think that his visit had been
unacceptable. But that did not prevent him from writing an account of
the state in which he had found Dino Vasari to his friend, Padre
Cristoforo; nor from calling at the hospital every day to inquire after
the state of his Italian friend. He was glad to hear at last that Dino
was out of danger; then, that he was growing a little stronger; and then
that he had expressed a desire to see the English gentleman when he
called again.
By this time he had, to some extent, changed his plans. Neither
Australia nor New Zealand would be his destination. He had taken his
passage in a vessel bound for Pernambuco, and a very short time remained
to him in England. He was glad to think that he should see Dino before
he went.
He found the young man greatly altered: his eyes gleamed in orbits of
purple shadow: his face was white and wasted. But the greatest change of
all lay in this--that there was no smile upon his lips, no pleasure in
his eyes, when he saw Brian draw near his bed.
"Dino!" said Brian, holding out his hand. "How did you come here, amico
mio?" And then he noticed the absence of any welcoming word or gesture
on Dino's part. The large dark eyes were bent upon him questioningly,
and yet with a proud reserve in their shadowy depths. And the
blue-veined hands locked themselves together upon the coverlet instead
of returning Brian's friendly grasp.
"Why have you come?" said Dino, in a loud whisper. "What do you want?"
"I want nothing save to ask how you are and to see you again," replied
Brian, after a pause of astonishment.
"If you want to alter your decision it is not yet too late. I have taken
no steps towards the claiming of my rights."
"His mind must be wandering," thought Brian to himself. He added aloud
in a soothing tone, "I have made no decision about anything, Dino. Can I
do anything for you?"
Dino looked at him long and meditatively. Brian's face expressed some
surprise, but perfect tranquility of mind. He had seated himself at
Dino's bed-side, and was leaning his chin upon his hand and his elbow
upon his crossed knees.
"Why did you make Hugo Luttrell your messenger? Why not come to meet me
yourself as Padre Cristoforo begged you to do?"
Brian shook his head. "I don't think you had better talk, Dino," he
said. "You are feverish, surely. I will come and see you again
to-morrow."
"No, no: answer my question first," said Dino, a slight flush rising to
his thin cheeks. "Why could you not come yourself?"
"When?"
"When! You know."
"Upon my honour, Dino, I don't know what you mean."
"You--you--had a letter from Padre Cristoforo--about me?" said Dino,
stammering with eagerness.
Brian looked guilty. "I was a great fool, Dino," he said, penitently. "I
had a letter from him, and I managed to lose it before I had read more
than the first sheet, in which there was nothing about you. I suppose he
told me in that letter why you came to London, and asked me to meet you
or something; and I wish I had met you, if it would have prevented this
unfortunate accident of yours, or whatever it was. My own carelessness
is always to blame," said Brian, with a heavy sigh, "and I don't wonder
that you look coldly upon me, Dino, when I seem to have done you such an
unfriendly turn. But I don't think I need say that I never meant to do
it."
"How did you know that I was here?" asked Dino, with breathless
interest.
"I saw in the papers an account of your being found insensible from a
wound in your side. The name Vasari was mentioned, and I came to see if
it could possibly be you."
Dino was silent for a few minutes. Then his face lighted up, his pale
lips parted with a smile. "So you never read Father Cristoforo's
letter?" he said. "And you sent me no message of reply?"
"Certainly not. How could I, when I did not know that you were in
England?"
Dino held out his hands. "I misjudged you," he said, simply, "Will you
forgive me and take my hand again?"
Brian clasped his hand. "You know there's nothing to forgive," he said,
with a smile. "But I am glad you don't think I neglected you on purpose,
Dino. I had not forgotten those pleasant days at San Stefano."
Dino smiled, too, but did not seem inclined to speak again. The nurse
came to say that the interview had lasted long enough, and Brian took
his leave, promising to come on the morrow, and struck with the look of
perfect peace and quiet upon the placid face as it lay amongst the white
pillows, almost as white as they.
He had only a couple of days left before he was to start for Pernambuco,
where he had heard of work that was likely to suit him. He had made his
arrangements, taken his passage in the steerage: he had nothing to do
now but to write a farewell letter to Mr. Heron, telling him whither he
was bound, and another--should he write that other or should he not?--to
Elizabeth. He felt it hard to go without saying one last farewell to
her. The discovery that she was the heiress of his property had finally
decided him to leave England. He dared not risk the chance of being
recognised and identified, if such recognition and identification would
lead to her poverty. For even if, by a deed of gift in his supposed name
of Brian Luttrell, he devised his wealth to her, he knew that she would
never consent to take it if he were still alive. The doubt thrown on his
birth and parentage would not be conclusive enough in her mind to
justify her in despoiling him of what all the judges in the land would
have said was his birthright. But then Brian did not know that Vincenza
Vasari had been found. The existence of another claimant to the Luttrell
estate never troubled him in the least. He wronged nobody, he thought,
by allowing Elizabeth Murray to suppose that Brian Luttrell was dead.
He wrote a few lines to Mr. Heron, thanking him for his kindness, and
informing him that he was leaving England for South America; and then he
proceeded to the more difficult task of writing to Elizabeth. He
destroyed many sheets of paper, and spent a great deal of time in the
attempt, although the letter, as it stood at last, was a very simple
affair, scarcely worthy of the pains that had been bestowed upon it.
"Dear Miss Murray," he wrote, "when you receive this note I shall have
left England, but I cannot go without one word of farewell. You will
never know how much you did for me in those early days of our
acquaintance in Italy; how much hope you gave me back, how much interest
in life you inspired in me; but for all that you did I thank you. Is it
too much to ask you to remember me sometimes? I shall remember you until
the hour of my death. Forgive me if I have said too much. God bless you,
Elizabeth! Let me write that name once, for I shall never write to you
nor see your face again."
He put no signature. He could not bear to use a false name when he wrote
to her; and he was sure that she would know from whom the letter came.
He went out and dropped it with his own hands into a letter-box; then he
came back to his dreary lodgings, never expecting to find there anything
of interest. But he found something that interested him very much
indeed. He found a long and closely written letter from the Prior of San
Stefano.
Father Cristoforo could not resist the opportunity of lecturing his
young friend a little. He gave him a good many moral maxims before he
came to the story that he had to tell, and he pointed them by observing
rather severely that if it were not for Brian's carelessness, his pupil
might possibly have escaped the "accident" that had befallen him. For if
Brian had met Dino in London on the appointed day, he would not have
been wandering alone in the streets (as Father Cristoforo imagined him
to have been) or fallen into the hands of thieves and murderers.
With which prologue the Padre once more began his story. And this time
Brian read it all.
He put down the letter at last with a curious smile: the smile of a man
who does not want to acknowledge that he suffers pain. "Dino," he said
to himself, lingeringly. "Dino! It is he who is Brian Luttrell, then,
after all. And what am I? And, oh, my poor Elizabeth! But she will only
regret the loss of the money because she will no longer be able to help
other people. The Herons will suffer more than she. And Percival Heron!
How will it affect him? I think he will be pleased. Yes, I think he is
disinterested enough to be thoroughly pleased that she is poor. I should
be pleased, in his case.
"There is no doubt about it now, I suppose," he said, beginning to pace
up and down the little room, with slow, uneven steps and bent head. "I
am not a Luttrell. I am a Vasari. My mother's name was Vincenza
Vasari--a woman who lied and cheated for the sake of her child. And I
was the child! Good God! how can it be that I have that lying blood in
my veins? Yet I have no right to say so; it was all done for me--for
me--who never knew a mother's love. Oh, mother, mother, how much happier
your son would have been if you had reared him in the place where he was
born, amongst the vines and olive-yards of his native land.
"And I must see Dino to-morrow. So he knows the whole story. I
understand now why he thought ill of me for not coming to meet him, poor
fellow! I must go early to-morrow."
He went, but as soon as he reached Dino's bed-side he found that he knew
not what to say, Dino looked up at him with eyes full of grave, wistful
affection, and suddenly smiled, as if something unwontedly pleasant had
dawned upon his mind.
"Ah," he said, "at last--you know."
"Yes, I know," said Brian.
"And you are sorry? I am sorry, too."
"No," said Brian, finding it rather difficult to express himself at that
moment; "I am not sorry that you are the man who will bear the name of
Luttrell, that I have wrongly borne so long. I suppose--from what the
Prior says--that your claim can be proved; if I were in my old position
I should be the first to beg you to prove it, and to give up my name and
place to you if justice required it. As it is, I do not stand in your
way, because the old Brian Luttrell--the one who killed his brother, you
know--is dead."
"But if you were in your old position, could you still pardon me and be
friendly with me, even if I claimed my rights?"
"I hope so," said Brian. "I hope that I should not be so ungenerous as
to look upon you as an enemy because you wished to take your own place
amongst your own kindred. You ought rather to look upon me as your
enemy, because I have occupied your place so long."
"You are good--you are generous--you are noble!" said Dino, his eyes
suddenly filling with tears. "If all the world were like you! And do you
know what I shall do if the estate ever becomes mine? You shall take the
half--you may take it all, if it please you better. But we will divide
it, at any rate, and be to each other as brothers, shall we not? I have
thought of you so often!"
He spoke ardently, eagerly; pressing Brian's hands between his own from
time to time. It was from an impulse as strong and simple as any of
Dino's own that Brian suddenly stooped down and kissed him on the
forehead. The caress seemed natural enough to Dino; it was as the
ratification of some sacred bond to the English-bred Brian Luttrell.
Henceforth, the two became to each other as brothers, indeed; the
interests of one became the interests of the other. Before long, Dino
learnt from Brian himself the whole of his sad story. He lay with
shining eyes and parted lips, his hand clasped in Brian's, listening to
his account of the events of the last two years. The only thing that
Brian did not touch upon was his love for Elizabeth. That wound was too
recent to be shown, even to Dino, who had leaped all at once, as it
seemed, into the position of his bosom friend. But Dino guessed it all.
As Brian walked back to his lodgings from the hospital, he was haunted
by a verse of Scripture which had sprung up in his mind, and which he
repeated with a certain sense of pleasure as soon as he recollected the
exact words. "And it came to pass"--so ran the verse that he
remembered--"when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul that the soul
of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as
his own soul." He liked the words. He looked them out in a Bible
belonging to his landlady when he reached home, and he found another
verse that touched him, too. "Then Jonathan and David made a covenant,
because he loved him as his own soul."
Had not Brian Luttrell and Dino Vasari made a covenant?
The practical result of their friendship was an important one to Brian.
He sacrificed his passage money, and did not sail on the following day
for Pernambuco.